Back in 2009, I got myself a Reactor Trident watch. This watch had been my daily-wear watch, and while I do switch it out to wear other watches in my collection, I still return to this watch often.

One of the features of this watch is that it has a 10-year battery lifespan. Well, I just replaced the battery in April 2019. So yeah, you can say it does indeed have a 10-year battery lifespan. I did that myself actually, didn’t bring it in to any watch store to get the battery replaced. Couldn’t find a CR2012 (man, they’re rare!), and after doing a little bit of research, it seemed that other people have used a CR2016 instead of a CR2012 battery.

So, yeah, the CR2016 is easily found. I opened up the caseback and replaced the battery. Fits just fine. While I had the watch caseback off, I just blew some compressed air into the nooks and crannies of the innards.

The amazing thing (to me at least) is that after the battery replacement, the watch is even more accurate now than it was. Previously it was losing about 2 seconds a month. Now it’s spot-on keeping the same time as the atomic time which I adjusted it to after the battery replacement. It’s May 2019 now, and the watch is still lock-step in sync with atomic time. Didn’t lose nor gain any time!

In the past 10 years, the black nitride at the buckle of the bracelet has worn off so some silvery metallic colour is showing through. 2 of the links on the bracelets also has wear-and-tear and the nitride coating is lost there too.

The lume dot on the bezel no longer glows, and the bezel has developed arthritis, and it no longer turns easily. It does still turn though, if I put effort into it, but it isn’t easy to turn.

The tritium tubes have also dimmed somewhat. I only noticed it because I bought a new Reactor Gamma Titanium watch recently, and I can see the very obvious difference in brightness at night on the 2 watches.

Now that the battery has been replaced, I look forward to at least 16 years more of use out of this watch. Why 16 years? Because if a CR2012 is supposed to last 10 years, based on calculation, the CR2016 should last 16 years (battery capacity). So, I guess the next battery change will be in 2035 🙂