I have two Seiko Kinetic watches that I seldom wear (Seiko Kinetic SKA475P1 and Seiko Prospex Kinetic GMT SUN019P1). Letting the energy deplete completely in the capacitor could weaken it in the long run. Hence, it is best practice to always keep it charged.
Unfortunately, this is the bane of Seiko Kinetics. Without the owner wearing the watch, it will not get charged.
Seiko does have a dedicated charger. However, this charger is only sold to its dealers (in Malaysia that is). Nevertheless, it can be found on eBay although at a very exorbitant price. This got me thinking of another way to get the same result.
Actually there are a lot of threads in watch forums about this issue. One of the suggestion was to substitute the Seiko induction charger with another less expensive alternative. The Braun toothbrush induction charger was a prime candidate.
I got one at a shop and immediately started experimenting on my Seiko Kinetic.
One famous YouTube video to put a Kinetic watch on top of the small guide post and it worked. However, when I tried it, it didn't do anything to the watch. After studying the design of the charger I learned a few things.
The small guide post is just a guide post to allow the toothbrush to stand on the charger. The magic happens on the flat surface. Here is where a magnetic field is generated. You need to put your watch like so...
If your watch is dead, within a couple of minutes it should start moving (my watch did). Within 24 hour, my watch has a charge rating from 0 to the 20 minute mark. Success!Now I don't have to be worried about wearing my Kinetics to maintain the charge.
I don't have to worry about overcharging as Seiko does have an overcharging limiter in all its Kinetic watches.
As I have highlighted earlier, this is the bane of Kinetic watches. Citizen and even ETA tried building automatic quartz powered watch/movement, but decided to discontinue due a number of issues.