I happen to work in this industry, and just a word for those that compare this with an Apple Watch or a Casio, this Vacheron-Constantin will likely be around 200 years from now, it will still be a testimony of the refinement and engineering of a fine craft that few can achieve, a highly valued item with specialist technicians marvelling on the talent of its builders, just as is the case today with 200 year old timepieces.
you'll be very lucky if your Casio can last as long. Your mass commoditised Apple watch will likely be worthless.
Personaly, I like the IWC on my wrist as much as I like my Casio G-Shock, both are wonderful in their own way.
The Apple watch on my wife's wrist is a fine computer i guess, but at some point, it will have the same "quaint charm" as the IBM Thinkpad she owned 23 years ago.
If you're interested in the functioning of mechanical watches, they're amazing:
https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/
Previously on HN in 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31261533
I became interested in complicated watches several years ago and knew I could never afford one, so I made a website with simulated watch dials. Just for fun and education. It was also a great way for me to learn svg animations. https://www.complication.watch/
If only my software were valued by number of complications...
Everything about the high end "movement" scene rubs me the wrong way (I had a friend into it), but most of all, the pompous terminology.
I do hope watchmakers start to integrate "computational" (instead of temporal) complications into their watches, like a mechanical turing machine or other tiny mechanical computers or calculators which I believe have never been constructed this small.
Inspiration:
Wooden Turing Machine: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vo8izCKHiF0
Curta Calculator: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZDn_DDsBWws
Zuse Z1 Computer: https://youtu.be/R5XnuT6ZLKg?t=283
Maybe also analog ones!: https://youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4
The recent Acquired episode on Rolex is a great peak into the world of luxury Swiss watches: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/rolex
What I love about it all is that whatever arguments are made for or against these sorts of things, I think people are just into it because it’s fun.
What I like about mechanical watches is that, having survived a near-death experience when quartz watches were introduced, they’ve evolved into a completely different kind of product. It’s fascinating that, unlike most other businesses and products, people don’t buy them for their utility, and the less automated their production process, the better. Brands like A. Lange & Söhne even pride themselves on assembling their movements twice.
When inefficiency and craftsmanship are considered features rather than flaws, you have an industry that won’t easily be replaced by AI or robots.
Time Measurement (6 Total):
1. Day and night indication for reference city
2. Second time zone hours and minutes (on 24-hour display)
3. World time indication for 24 cities
4. Second time zone day and night indication
5. 3Hz tourbillon with silicon balance wheel (with high Q factor)
6. Civil time display module coupled to the base movement
7. Perpetual calendar
8. Days of the week
9. Date
10. Months
11. Year indication
12. Leap-year indication
13. Indication for the number of the week within the year (ISO 8601 calendar)
14. Number of the day of the week (ISO 8601 calendar).
15. Astronomical Moon phase and age of the Moon
16. Tide level indicator
17. Spring and neap tides indication.
18. Indications of seasons, equinoxes, solstices & astronomical zodiac signs
19. Position of the Sun
20. Sunrise time (according to the city of reference)
21. Sunset time (according to the city of reference)
22. Duration of the day (according to the city of reference)
23. Equation of time on tropical gear
24. Culmination time of the Sun (according to the city of reference)
25. Height of the Sun above the horizon (according to the city of reference)
26. Declination of the Sun, 3-dimensional Earth showing the latitude of the Sun in the North/South hemisphere
27. Sidereal hours
28. Sidereal minutes
29. Astronomical zodiac signs
30. Sky chart (according to the city of reference)
31. Temporal tracking of celestial objects.
32. Minute repeater
33. Westminster carillon chime (4 hammers & 4 gongs)
34. Choice of hour-only or full chime
35. Crown locking system during the chiming
36. Double-stop hammer system to limit rebound and optimize transmission of the hammers' kinetic energy
37. Chronograph (1 column wheel)
38. 60-minute counter
39. Split-seconds chronograph (1 column wheel)
40. Isolator system for the split-seconds chronograph
41. Power-reserve indication (outer disc at 190°)For those of you that don't know a lot about Swiss mechanical movements, this watch isn't just nuts, it's fuckin nuts.
I’ve never heard of this company but according to the video below, they’re large enough to have a huge building.
How do these economics work? I’m guessing they’re a maker of very expensive low volume products. But are there that many buyers?
https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/video-vacheron-constantin-...
Same with Richard Mille. Never heard of them but they’re rich enough to sponsor the Ferrari F1 team.
"most complicated" as if that's something's to be proud of! :)
I can nowhere near afford them, but I love most everything about Vacheron Constantin except for that godawful, cheap, brash font they use for their logo. The font on this piece is fine, their overall design and language is great, I'm glad a company like VC pushes the technological limits and industry forward, but that Helvetica-lookin font is visual fingernails-on-a-chalkboard.
do timepiece complications have theoretical limits that might originate from the "7-fold limit" in origami, or huffman's work on folding curves in origami?
I realize watch complications are stacked disc segments and not folds, but intuitively if you are dealing with a material in a fixed space you either run up against limits in the stiffness of parts down to sheets of atoms, or some theoretical folding limit relative to the thickness of the case. a watch that expressed the proof might be worth the indulgence.
Model name is “The Veblen”
At some point, making mechanical watches more complicated will require going digital. It is possible to make very small gears with semiconductor processes, however, very small gears wear out fast due to stiction.
In order for gears to work they must have sliding contact and that means wear. Mechanisms based on flexures don't have this problem, but this requires building the clock very differently. It might be possible to implement many of these complications using flexure based logic[0].
No price given. Needless to say, if you have to ask...
To me, people wearing mechanical watches are like people travelling in steam automobiles or using black-cloth-covered daguerreotype cameras.
I love that we've apparently reached the "absurd flex" stage of watchmaking where it's less about telling time and more about seeing just how much ridiculous wizardry you can cram into a tiny mechanical space
41 complications and no GPS? How am I supposed to upload my runs to Strava?
Yeah I would never give a cent to some Swiss watch company. The only luxury watches I see actually worth their price tag are those made by independent watchmakers like Masahiro Kikuno.
I watched a documentary[0] back in the day that goes over his process of designing and making a watch and it's nothing short of amazing. There's something about swiss watches being so commoditized (even the most expensive ones) that makes their clientele seem outright stupid in my opinion.
0. In Tune with Time: Watchmaker Masahiro Kikuno
Impressive. Here I am struggling to design a decent UI for a screen of at least 13 inches. I shudder to think how much harder it would be if the only means of interaction were a scroll wheel.
Still can’t tell time accurately over a long period. The ultimate irony of these collectible expensive watches. I like them anyway out of respect for the engineering but still.
At first you think, great, im going to buy a fancy watch and I'll wear a platinum Patek that only a banker will recognize. That's how assholes recognize each other, its all in the watch.
But in the end everyone ends up wearing an Apple watch. Nobody knows how to use an Apple watch. Amazing hardware with the worst software ever developed. But it says that you dont care and at least the watch will tell you the temperature outside.
Amazing workmanship. And they managed to make the watch look beautiful as well.
Is anyone actually going to use those complications? That's really my question for most high-end watches. I can see a diver using the features on their watch, but how many are actually using a Rolex or an Omega as their regular dive watch?
Chronographs, while cool, isn't exactly a useful why of measuring speed these days, and how often do you really need to do that anyway.
On a mechanical watch having the date might be useful, I know I keep forgetting the exact date, but do I really need a watch to remind me that it's Saturday?
I really love mechanical wristwatches, the mechanics of it is amazing and they are beautiful pieces or engineering and works great as an accessory/jewellery, but I don't understand the need for many of the complications.
I'm impressed, but with my declining eyesight I don't think I could read most of the dials, even with glasses - I can't even read the date on my Timex. I would love to see a copy of the User's Guide for this watch though.
Is there something I don't know about mechanical watch culture/industry that would explain their terrible choice of watch band in those photos?
Incredible. This thing started as metal ore and minerals, and look at what was crafted. Is there even a single phone app that does everything this watch can do?
Isn't this the closest thing to a portable antikitera?
Would an Apple iPhone 16 Pro be considered a very expensive wristwatch and would the number of transistors break a record?
Most complicated wristwatch, has all the things you never knew you didn't want.
I'll keep my Casio thank you.
Patek Philippe held the precious record with the Grandmaster Chime: https://www.patek.com/en/company/about-time/the-grandmaster-...
I’m always impressed by the Swiss. They manage to charge an arm and leg for regular things that a lot of the world makes nearly as well on purely mystique and vibes. Watches, chocolates, diamonds, banking etc.
So cool that Dan Flashes makes wristwatches now
Did anyone else struggle to read this article? It felt very circulatory and… complicated
Is there an open source Android app with all these complications?
No Easter complication?
Where is my wristantikythera ?
I like my watches the same way I like my women. Quiet, and with fewer complications.
Joke! It’s a joke! Aw, downvote away ye bastards.
That strap… way to ruin it
Well that's certainly an achievement but not water resistant though.
Sounds complicated
This looks nice.
Hold my beer. I'm sure i can cram some 2FA, biometric authentication, opt out except for 'legitimate interests' activity tracking, cloud services and AI assistants in there.
Chick Heidi gogo chick guddu wishlist flair
Are watches going to be tariffed?
[flagged]
A smartwatch is going to be much more complicated than this. Millions and millions if lines of code is not simple.
Many moons ago, William Gibson did a piece for Wired about his obsession with mechanical watches[1]. The whole thing is worth a read but this bit is worth quoting:
""" Mechanical watches are so brilliantly unnecessary.
Any Swatch or Casio keeps better time, and high-end contemporary Swiss watches are priced like small cars. But mechanical watches partake of what my friend John Clute calls the Tamagotchi Gesture. They're pointless in a peculiarly needful way; they're comforting precisely because they require tending.
And vintage mechanical watches are among the very finest fossils of the pre-digital age. Each one is a miniature world unto itself, a tiny functioning mechanism, a congeries of minute and mysterious moving parts. Moving parts! And consequently these watches are, in a sense, alive. They have heartbeats. They seem to respond, Tamagotchi-like, to "love," in the form, usually, of the expensive ministrations of specialist technicians. Like ancient steam-tractors or Vincent motorcycles, they can be painstakingly restored from virtually any stage of ruin. """
https://web.archive.org/web/20240930092315/https://www.wired...