Breguet: Bigger and Bolder

We all love Breguet. Its founder, Abraham-Louis Breguet, is one of the most significant watchmakers of all time, with countless innovations to his name. I’m pleased to report it has been a strong anniversary year for the brand, including global launches with more substance than we have seen in years. It was capped off this week in Paris with the announcement of a very impressive technical innovation that will likely have significant ramifications for the industry at large: the first watch in the new Breguet creative lab (if you will), the Expérimentale 1. This isn’t just another new watch; it's a legitimate reimagining of how mechanical watches work.

Every mechanical watch faces two fundamental issues. First, friction: all those tiny collisions between metal and jewels gradually degrade performance, requiring regular servicing. Second: inconsistent power delivery. When your watch is freshly wound, it runs differently to when it's nearly empty, affecting accuracy throughout the day.

Watchmakers have tried countless workarounds over the centuries: better lubricants, silicon parts, tourbillons, but these just minimise the problems without eradicating them, as the basic physics haven’t changed. Until now.

Breguet's solution? Eliminate physical contact entirely. The Expérimentale 1 uses magnetic fields instead of mechanical parts colliding into each other. No teeth hitting pallets, no rubies sliding against steel – just magnets against magnets.

The genius is in the execution. The escape wheel has three layers: two magnetic tracks (top and bottom) sandwiching a non-magnetic safety wheel. These tracks aren't uniform; they vary in width, creating regions where magnetic repulsion gradually increases (like pulling back a slingshot) until hitting a "barrier", where the force jumps dramatically. The mainspring can't push past this magnetic barrier, so the wheel simply stops (not from physical contact, but the magnetic field itself). When the balance wheel swings back and nudges the anchor, it releases all that stored magnetic energy, providing the balance wheel with its kick to keep swinging.

This design solves both original problems beautifully. No friction means virtually no wear. Additionally, when your mainspring is fully wound or nearly empty, the escape wheel always stops at the same magnetic barrier point. Since it always stops at the same spot, it always releases the same amount of energy, delivering a perfectly consistent impulse. The result? Daily accuracy within one second, regardless of power reserve.

Mechanical watches are objectively obsolete, as a cheap quartz beats any mechanical counterpart for accuracy. But that's not the point. Abraham-Louis Breguet spent his life asking, "What if there's a better way?". This watch carries that spirit forward.

With only 75 pieces produced for CHF 320,000 each, this won't become an industry standard anytime soon, but asking ostensibly naive questions, such as, "What if we eliminated friction entirely?" is how we test the possibilities of innovation. It's about keeping alive a tradition of curiosity that has everything to do with human ingenuity and nothing to do with actually needing to tell time. This very much feels like the “new” Breguet under the helm of the dynamic Gregory Kissling as CEO, and what a first year it has been.