The anchor mechanism reduced the pendulum's swing to around 4° to 6°, allowing clockmakers to use longer pendulums, which had slower "beats". These consumed less power allowing clocks to run longer between windings, caused less friction and wear in the movement, and were more accurate. Almost all longcase clocks use a "seconds pendulum" (also called a "Royal" pendulum) meaning that each swing (or half-period) takes one second. These are about a metre (39 inches) long (to the centre of the bob), requiring a long narrow case. The long narrow case actually predated the anchor clock by a few decades, appearing in clocks in 1660 to allow a long drop for the powering weights. However, once the seconds pendulum began to be used, this long weight case proved perfect to house it as well.