1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic timepiece provided with a rotary switch and an operation detection method of the electronic timepiece.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, there is a watch (timepiece) provided with a rotary switch called winder. Such winder is mainly provided in analog wristwatch with watch hands where the watch hands rotate in conjunction with rotation of the winder.
Such winder may be provided in electronic watch which rotates the watch hands by driving a stepping motor with electric signals. As for the winder provided in such electronic watch, there is suggested a winder including a magnet which rotates in conjunction with rotation of the winder and which recognizes rotation of the winder by detecting rotation of the magnet with a magnetic sensor and rotates the watch hands by driving the stepping motor for the number of steps corresponding to the amount of rotation of the winder. For example, see JP 2008-122377 (corresponding to US 2008/0112275) and JP 2010-287325 (corresponding to US 2010/0309756).
As described above, rotation of the winder provided in an electronic watch does not directly and mechanically make the watch hands rotate. Therefore, when rotation of the winder is detected in an electronic watch provided with winder, not only the watch hands can be moved corresponding to the number of steps equal to the number of times of rotation detected but also other functions can be realized. There is an electronic watch having a function to switch into a state of continuous fast-forwarding of watch hands, as such other functions, when rotation operation of the winder is detected for a predetermined number of times or more within a predetermined unit time.
However, in conventional electronic timepiece, there is a problem in detection method of continuous rotation of the rotary switch. That is, conventional electronic timepiece has a configuration where a time counter is activated at the timing when rotation operation of the rotary switch is detected once and the number of rotation steps of the rotary switch is counted for each period sectioned by unit time by setting the timing of activation as reference. Therefore, when the rotary switch continuously rotates over two periods in the conventional electronic timepiece, such rotation operation of the rotary switch will not be determined as continuous rotation operation due to the number of steps within each unit time not reaching the predetermined number of steps, and the function intended by a user will not occur.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds