
Japanese company Seiko pioneered the technique and released the first such watch in Germany in January 1988 and April of the same year in Japan (under the name Auto-Quartz). The watches had an average monthly rate of ±15 sec and provided 75 hours of continuous operation when fully powered. Early automatic quartz movements were called AGS (Automatic Generating System); in 1991 the company introduced the Kinetic brand name. Today Seiko offers a wide range of watches with various different Kinetic movements. The top of the line is the caliber 9T82, included in Sportura (international brand) and PROSPEX (only marketed in Japan) Collection. It's sold in limited volume at a price range of about US$3000 which makes it one of the most expensive automatic quartz watches. Kinetic technology has also been used in some of Seiko's Pulsar and Lorus watches.