Now here?s something you don?t see too often unless you?re a vintage Omega fan or know a bit about late eighteenth century watchmaking; a watch with a ?bumper? movement.  
Way before that nice Mr. Wilsdorf at Rolex started selling watches with oscillating winding weights, a French maker called Perrelet used a weight in his pocket watches that moved as the wearer walked. A stroll of just a quarter of an hour was enough to power the movement for eight days – not exactly the on-it exercise regime advocated by an Apple Watch. The great Abraham Louis Breguet tried his hand at bumpers, too with his ?Perpetuelles?, but the idea didn?t really catch on until a British Watchmaker, John Harwood, patented his design in the early 1920s.  Harwood?s idea came from necessity. He wanted to find a way to eliminate the main route for dust, water and dirt to get into watch cases; the winding crown and its stem. His new ?bumper? self-winding mechanism meant he could use a sealed case and still power his watch.
Original bumper movement

How were these ?bumper? winding mechanisms different from the Rolex spinny weight" Instead of the winding weight running in a complete circle around a central pivot, the weight moved through a smaller arc with a spring at each end.  As it reached the end of its travel, the weight bumped against one of the springs and was sent back to its starting point where it was bumped again, so winding the watch.

Alpina has taken the idea of the bump...