Pedometer-wind pocket watch in open-face gold case, with calendar hand and a glass display back. Self-winding, or ‘perpetuelle’ watches were devised in the late-eighteenth century. Several designs were used, but in this instance a weight at the end of a roughly-horizontal lever is pivoted so that as the wearer moves up and down (especially on horseback) the movement causes the lever to move up and down and thus winds the mainspring. Self-winding using a rotating weight is now commonplace in mechanical wristwatches.

The term 'pedometer-wind' was first applied to this type of automatic winding mechanism by Louis Recordon of London in his 1780 patent, number 1249.