Baselworld 2010 – Habring² Foudroyante

Habring² will release something really special at Baselworld this year… The Habring² Foudroyante.

Habring² is an independent watchmaker from Austria, who’s well known because of his own developed Jumping Seconds  mechanism. This mechanism makes the seconds hand tick like a quartz watch, which it is not of course.

I think by now most of my readers know i don’t just post press releases. I just had to share this part of the press release about the new Habring² Foudroyante. It’s almost poetry….

28,800 vibrations per hour is nowadays more or less standard in watch technology for balance wheels in modern watch movements. The balance wheel oscillates 4 times per second – the attached hairspring “breathes” 4 times in and out. With each passage of the zero position, 8 times a second, the balance wheel receives an impulse from the gear train and the escape wheel advances ½ a tooth.

This explains what happens in a mechanical movement, in order to make the seconds hand move smoothly. And this is what happens with a jumping seconds hand and a foudroyante hand or flashing seconds hand…

The foudroyante hand rotates with the amazing speed of one full revolution per second. So this hand actually shows fractions of seconds, 8 fractions to be exact. A seconds hand of a normal watch makes 1440 revolutions per day, the foudroyante hand of the Habring² Foudroyante makes 86.400 full revolutions a day!!

Usually a foudroyante complication is part of a chronograph. Habring² is however the very first to combine a jumping second complication with a foudroyante complication. I’m pretty sure this watch will get a very warm welcome among watch aficionados worldwide.

The Habring²-Foudroyante will be first available with an automatically wound movement. A manually wound version will be release later. And now the biggest surprise… the price starts at €4.750,- for the stainless steel version. Production is limited to only 12 pieces per year.