Monochrome Watches
An online magazine dedicated to fine watches

Baselworld 2010 – Habring² Foudroyante

| By Frank Geelen | 2 min read |

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.

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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.

https://monochrome.website-lab.nl/habring-foudroyante/

2 responses

  1. It’s a splendid watch. I was reading about Habring a couple months ago in one of the US watch magazines and I was very intrigued. The video you have is great.
    Have fun in Basel (if you are going)
    Kyle

  2. Intriguing isn’t it, to see that foudroyante hands spin round. Next week wednesday Robert-Jan and I will drive to Basel for a whole week.

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