3 watch brands setting the pace, and 3 that could easily join them
Borna BošnjakIf 2024 was the year of shaped, architecturally informed watches, then 2025 was the year of the technological breakthrough. We saw new escapements, more complications, and the most accurate movements yet, with the overarching watchmaking trend seeming to head in that direction. That’s promising for two reasons. The first is that it means we’re going to get objectively better watches – looks are always subjective, but raw performance and on-paper specs are hard to argue against.
The second is something that I’ve often asked myself, especially over the stagnant few years when the interest in the secondary market skyrocketed, and people began to look at watches as investments over their intrinsic artisanal value – is there anything left to invent? We already have the most extreme, multi-axis tourbillons and clever calendars, basically perfectly accurate quartz movements and anti-magnetic materials, after all. I hoped to be wrong, and naturally I was, with a few brands stepping up to prove it. But as these three outliers commanded headlines, it left me wondering about the household names that are going along just fine, but could very well be stealing the limelight, too.
Rolex
Rolex being technologically innovative is a rare sight, and they don’t get an inclusion on the list just because they’ve actually done something since the introduction of the clever Sky-Dweller. No, the Land-Dweller, and more so its cal. 7135 movement, very much deserves a spot on this list.
To get the not-so-novel-but-novel-for-Rolex specs out of the way, the 7135 is the first serially produced movement by the brand that beats at 5Hz while still getting a weekend-proof power reserve, and that’s all thanks to the new Dynapulse escapement. It’s an indirect impulse escapement with two escape wheels that interact with the balance wheel via a lever (hence “indirect”), each directly powered by wheels in the going train. I could write an entire article about this, and might at some stage – but for now, SJX’s relatively brief breakdown is a fantastic one to read if you want to know more.
In a horological world that sees lots of new inventions by budding independents and big box brands alike, a new escapement may not seem like that big of a deal. But it is. Dynapulse is exciting because it’s not just some avant-garde dream from an independent making one and a half pieces per year. As cool as those are, Rolex’s true strength is in mass production, and the prospect of having an escapement of this standard produced (potentially) in the hundreds of thousands? Sign me up.
Breguet
If you ever need any pointers on how to celebrate 250 in style, just ask Breguet. More than a dozen releases in (including the lovely Tourbillon Sidéral 7255 and Classique 7225), they topped off what would’ve been a good year with a watch that made it their best in a very long time. The Expérimentale 1 is a watch that is truly respecting of the innovative spirit of Abraham-Louis Breguet, and I’m delighted that the brand has spurred on in this direction.
The 10Hz magnetic escapement isn’t a fully novel idea – Hamilton experimented with the Clifford escapement in the 1940s, but unsuccessfully so. In many ways, it had to be Breguet to bring this innovation to the table, both because of the man’s early escapement discoveries, as well as the brand’s current work with magnets, such as the aforementioned 7225 and the magnetically regulated governor in the ref. 1905 Grande et Petite Sonnerie. The Swatch Group had filed patents for magnetic escapements as early as 2016, but the eventual solution would end up looking quite different, consisting of two titanium wheels with magnetic ramps sandwiching a safety wheel, acted upon by a pallet fork with samarium cobalt magnets replacing the usual pallet jewels.
There’s not much left to say that hasn’t been said about this watch already – it’s genius, and I can’t wait to see what Breguet does with this technology next – Breguet has already been pretty clear that the goal is mass production, whatever that means considering the scale and complexity.
Vacheron Constantin
It seems that in the last couple of years, and potentially spurred on by such references as the 57260, the brilliant boffins at Vacheron Constantin decided to become the undisputed champions of cramming in as many complications as possible into their movements. Now, deciding to do something is one thing, but actually doing it in such a commanding manner leaving nobody to be outdone but yourself is a very different proposition. This year, Vacheron dropped the Solaria Ultra Grand Complication, which is in some ways more impressive than their Berkley magnum opus because it actually fits into a wristwatch case.
But it really is the Berkley that will remain Vacheron’s crowning achievement for years to come, and not just because of the number of complications, but the kind of complications that VC actually developed. There’s all the pedestrian (editor’s note: lol) ultra-high-comp stuff like split-second chronographs, tourbillons, minute repeaters and the like, but how about a Chinese perpetual calendar? Deemed impossible by many, it took over a decade to come to life, and was actually commissioned at the same time as the ref. 57260.
It took Christian Selmoni nearly an hour to break down the calculation without even going into how they achieved it mechanically – his explanation beginning with the always-doomed “so, basically…” While the previous two entries made strides that will fulfil their potential once and for all with serial production, I doubt that VC will be making an unlimited Chinese perpetual Traditionnelle any time soon. With the way they’ve been going, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if they proved me wrong.
Jaeger-LeCoultre
JLC has gotten a lot of love over the past couple of years from both media and customers for their two fabulous Reversos – the skeletonised chronograph and mesh-bracelet Art Deco dream, so why pick them? I love a good Reverso as much as anyone, but it isn’t the Reverso that cemented JLC’s status as the watchmaker of watchmakers. It was their innovative approach to movement-making, one good enough for the most revered brands out there that would build their own legacies powered by JLC calibres.
I would love to see the modern Jaeger-LeCoultre brand relive those glory days, when the Calibre 920 beat in the back every Holy Trinity brand, but with an important, differentiating twist. It’s unreasonable to expect this level of third-party movement supply in a time when in-house is the name of the game, which is where JLC has a second trick up its sleeve – the 1,000-hour Master Control test.
Introduced in 1992 with the Cal. 899 that still ticks in the brand’s watches today, this rigorous testing procedure is unlike any other in the industry, putting both uncased and cased movements through their paces, including chronometric performance, power reserve, and shock, temperature, and water resistance.
Two aspects of the Master Control test really confuse me, though. First of all, this information is not easily accessible to prospective buyers, and JLC has seemingly slowly moved away from using it in their advertising material. Secondly, despite what you’d think would be class-leading testing procedures, JLC never guaranteed a particular accuracy standard. For a Maison with their capabilities, they should have no issues matching the leaders in this segment, and outpacing Rolex’s Superlative Chronometer and METAS testing. I don’t know about you, but I could easily see JLC fighting to be up there for the most robust movements around, despite the level of complication they also offer.
All this, and we haven’t mentioned JLC’s biggest strength, which is that they have the historical rationale to go toe-to-toe both with the everyday champions, and the best complication makers – something very few brands can attest to. The Duomètre is the standout line here, in my opinion, as it’s able to include all the traditional watchmaking complications, but with the unique JLC twist of the dual going trains regulated by a single escapement. The current Duomètre line was revived in 2024 with some nice new features like the addition of a perpetual calendar and third tourbillon axis for the headlining model, and the all-new chronograph – but JLC could easily take this technology and run away with it. In my head, I’m thinking about a merging of the Duomètre and Hybris lines for something truly special and one-of-a-kind.
TAG Heuer
Belt-powered transmission, magnetic tourbillons, chronographs beating at 7 million beats an hour? That was TAG Heuer’s not-too-distant past, before the brand chose to renew focus on Carrera and Monaco icons from the 1960s and 1970s, and delve back into their quartz-powered watches that brought the brand to the masses. However, with LVMH’s generous commitment to Formula 1, I think there’s never been a better time for the brand to once again pay homage to the Techniques d’Avant Garde part of its name. We’ve seen some of that with the Monaco and Carrera Split-Seconds, and the same models with the TH-Carbonspring treatment, but nowhere near the extremes that the Mikro watches went to.
To try and paint a picture, let’s look at three models that defined this time for TAG Heuer – the Monaco V4, Mikrogirder, and Carrera Mikropendulum. First came the Monaco, shown off to the world at Baselworld 2004, taking another five years to make it to market thanks to an incredibly complex array of thin polymer belts transferring the power around the movement instead of a wheel train, and a linear tungsten mass winding system. Its most extreme expression was in the Monaco V4 Tourbillon, adding even more complexity to the watch’s regulating system.
During the V4’s reign as the most extreme offering from TAG Heuer, the brand also began experimenting with ultra-high-beat movements. How fast are we talking here: 10Hz, 50Hz, maybe 100Hz? How about 1,000Hz? Yes, it sounds like an argument you’d have in kindergarten over whose dad is taller, but TAG Heuer did exactly that with the Mikrogirder 2000, capable of measuring 5/10,000th of a second thanks to a unique, linear oscillator (here’s Jean-Christophe Babin showing it off).
If that’s a little too fast, the Mikrotimer 1000 (11 of which were actually made, unlike the prototype/piece unique Mikrogirder) beat at half the speed, and used a more traditional balance wheel. Sure, both suffered from measly chrono power reserves – the Mikrotimer’s ran for 150 seconds, while the Mikrogirder managed 4 minutes, but that’s besides the point.
Finally, the piece that defined this period in TAG Heuer’s history best has to be the Carrera Mikropendulum Tourbillon. Alongside a regular, 4Hz balance and traditional tourbillon, it also had a 1/100th second chronograph with a 50Hz hairspringless tourbillon, instead driven by magnets on the carriage and balance staff. But much like the rest of TAG Heuer’s avant-garde offering and the MikropendulumS concept watch that had both the tourbillons be of the magnetic variety, it wasn’t meant to be, with another JCB (this time the Biver kind) responsible for its axing, as neither made it to production.
Zenith
Having made their name known in the realm of high-beat mechanical chronographs, Zenith’s legacy is undeniable. But the moment that could’ve defined their future came in 2017, and is something I still pray they pursue in the future. The Define Lab and its ZO342 calibre eschewed a traditional balance wheel for a thin, reactive ion-etched piece of silicon that completely replaced the escapement.
Developed by Guy Sémon (the same physicist working on the aforementioned TAG Heuer models, and someone about to launch their own brand), the Zenith Oscillator showed remarkable accuracy to within half a second over two days, maintaining an extremely high beat rate of 15Hz. Zenith produced 10 pieces of the original Defy Lab, and followed it up with the Defy Inventor, iterating on the design with a new, flexibly-toothed escape wheel and a bump up to 18Hz, with a commitment to producing a few hundred.
And then… Nothing. Unless you consider the 2021 Frederique Constant Monolithic, which also featured a silicon oscillator developed by Flexous, the same company that Zenith worked with. Neither brand chose to pursue this technology, which was understandable in a space that largely focused on steel sports models and integrated bracelets, but I’d hope we’ve graduated from those times and see all of these brands once again try to push the technological envelope.