Skip to content Skip to footer

What’s inside the best watches?

So beyond the gloss exteriors what should you know? The thing the drive any watch is what professional clan ‘the movement”. A movement, also known as a caliber or calibre. The term originated with mechanical timepieces, whose clockwork movements are made of many moving parts.


The internal mechanism of a watch that maintains time and powers its features is referred to as a movement or caliber. Basically it functions as the watch’s “engine” and is made up of a number of gears, wheels, and springs that all work together to keep the watch moving.

Movement Types

Quartz and mechanical movements are the two primary types found in timepieces.

A mechanical movement uses a system of gears and wheels to power the watch’s operations. The mainspring is wound manually or automatically via the movement of your hand using a rotor. These movements, which are seen to be more conventional, are frequently seen in expensive and premium watches watches.  The basic movements can if you want to get a bit more complex be subdivided into:

  • Full plate movement
  • Three quarter plate movement
  • Bridge movement
  • Manual or hand winding
  • Automatic or self-winding

For a bit more detail about the differences amongst movements your can check out:

Mali Watches

Our movement designers have been making award winning movements since 1959 for mechanical and automatic watches.

Leave a comment

Select your currency
KES Kenyan Shilling