A wristwatch is powered by a movement, also called a caliber.

Below are the general types of watch movements. There are also hybrids, not listed below, such as Spring Drive.

automatic – (self-winding) watch whose movement is mechanical. An oscillating weight (the rotor) turns by the motion of your arm and winds the mainspring. The energy is transferred into mechanical energy that creates the watch movement. These watches can be shaken or manually wound if the power reserve runs out.

manual – (manually wound) a mechanical watch movement that is wound by hand.

quartz – a natural or synthetic silicon dioxide crystal used in quartz analog or solid state digital watches when activated by a battery or solar power, the thin sliver of the crystal very predictably vibrates at an extremely high frequency (32,768 times per second) step motor, electric circuit block.

digital – watch that uses an LCD or LED to display a continuous reading.

analog/digital – has both a digital display and hands of a conventional analog watch.