winders dont protect your watches. They protect you from having to wind them and adjust them every time the watches stop.
Watches
A community for watch & horology discussion.
If you are wearing your watches semi-regularly anyway, I would have no worries about just letting them run down and storing them appropriately.
It used to be a worry that if you left a watch sat for too long the oils would slowly shift and congeal/evaporate, and having the watch running would help prevent this, but with modern lubricants it isn't really a huge issue - certainly I wouldn't have any worries letting a watch sit for a few months at a time.
The main benefit of a winder nowadays is to keep a watch running out of convenience - it means you can grab a watch knowing it will still be running and you won't have to set it first. If anything using a winder continually will actually put more wear on a watches movement given it is kept working, rather than being allowed to stop.