Earlier this morning, Greubel Forsey flexed its horological muscles with an official SIHH 2018 teaser that offers a whole new take on the traditional foudroyante jumping seconds complication.
The Greubel Forsey Nano Foudroyante EWT
If you’re not sure what a foudroyante jumping second hand is, you’re not alone. It’s a rare complication that doesn’t show up too often, but when it does, it’s a showstopper. (Check out the A. Lange & Söhne Grand Complication and the Jaeger-LeCoultre Duomètre Quantième Lunaire 42.) It is typically found on a separate subdial where you can witness the seconds hand rapidly progressing in fraction-of-a-second jumps. In person, it creates a dizzying display of movement that is reflective of the chaotic mechanism inside the timepiece. With its complexity comes a surprising amount of girth that keeps most watchmakers from including it in their high-complication timepieces. But Greubel Forsey seems to have found in a solution in the Nano Foudroyante EWT. In fact, the patent filed by the brand states that the timepiece features a reduction in the amount of energy consumed by a factor of 1,800, and uses 96 percent less space compared to a conventional foudroyante mechanism. If you look closely, you can see the foudroyante jumping seconds mechanism.
How was this possible" Well, studying nano-energy over the past decade allowed founders Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey to completely rethink the tried-and-true ...