HYT is a decidedly new brand, especially given the standards of watchmaking, where it is the norm to find brands with decades and, in several cases, even centuries of history.
Regardless of their age, from the very beginning all manufacturers have declared war on water and moisture, which have always been dangerous enemies to the proper and prolonged functioning of their precious timepieces.
Until 2012, when HYT introduced a revolutionary watch that uses just such a liquid to tell time.
Inside a capillary with a diameter of less than a millimeter are two immiscible liquids of different colors that indicate the time via the separating meniscus. One luminescent, the other transparent, the two liquids move around the circumference of the dial, resulting in a classic, yet at the same time extremely futuristic, retrograde time complication.
How it works
While conceptually it is not so complicated, the practical implementation, and on such a small scale to boot, make it technically challenging.
The curved capillary that goes around the dial is 0.8 mm in diameter, and the two ends terminate in watertight bellows with walls four times finer than a human hair. The former filled with a transparent fluid and the latter with a fluorescent one that takes on different colors depending on the pattern. The fluids inside the capillary are governed by a mechanical movement that instead of moving hands drives two pistons that go to compress and expand the two bellows positioned at 6 o’clock.
There is also a third one inside the first bellows, which is intended to cancel the influences of temperature and pressure on bellows and liquids so as to ensure better reading accuracy.
A brief history of the brand
No one expected such an innovation, and this earned the brand numerous awards, including the prestigious award for innovative watch of the year at the Grand Prix D’Horologerie de Geneve in 2012.
Numerous variations of this system were introduced over the next few years, with capillaries taking on different shapes, but due to its uncommon appearance and some recurring flaws it struggled to find its place in the market. It was then one of the companies that fell victim to the pandemic, but it was too fascinating an innovation to be lost. Kairos Technology Switzerland SA took over the brand with all its assets, and with the appointment of industry veteran Davide Cerrato as CEO of the resurrected brand, a new era began for the Neuchâtel-based Maison.
Last year marked the 10th anniversary of the first founding, and to celebrate this event, the most complicated watch ever made by the brand was unveiled.
The Conical Tourbillon Limited Edition
With this model HYT turns totally to the future, it is a timepiece that seems to come from deep space, from an evolved alien civilization that finally expresses the brand’s potential.
In fact, in collaboration with Eric Coudray, a hand-wound movement with a central tourbillon inspired by Walter Prendel’s 1928 inclined balance tourbillon is created. With a balance spring inclined 30 degrees from the horizontal, escape wheel at 15 degrees and pallet at 23 degrees, this conical tourbillon makes one clockwise rotation every 30 seconds.
As if he were the center of a planetary system, orbiting around him are three 2.5 mm diameter glass spheres filled with luminescent liquid that rotate on themselves at different speeds: four revolutions per minute for the first, five for the second, and six for the third, once again remarking on the Maison’s extraordinary ability to work with hollow glass of reduced thicknesses.
The dial is developed on a multitude of levels and, made of brass with a black coating, is composed of 39 different pieces that give it an uncommon depth. Prominent in green are the minute and hour indications, the latter made of three-dimensional luminescent paste that relate well to the hue of the liquid indicating the retrograde hours.
The whole is then encased in a 48mm case made of carbon and black-coated titanium. Composed of 66 elements with side grids that echo the grids on the hour band on the dial, it is topped by a veritable sapphire dome with anti-reflective treatment, the only way to contain the imposing tourbillon and who knows, perhaps even symbolizing the celestial vault of a dystopian sci-fi universe.
Our opinion
With this timepiece HYT finds its place in the world of complications that seem to come from another planet, and it does so in a disruptive way, enhancing its roots and projecting them into the future. This is very high watchmaking and innovation that this time seems to want to stick around for a long time. Let’s hope it stays on this path and continues to impress with ever new elements, but without losing the characteristics that have made the brand world famous.
Price and availability
As the name suggests, the Conical Tourbillon Limited Edition , reference H02759-A, is a limited edition of 8 pieces and has a list price of CHF 335,000 excluding tax.
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