The year is 2012; the place, Baselworld?s Palace annex, where small, independent and often off-beat watch companies show their wares. Executives from a new Swiss watch company are holding a press conference to unveil their new creation. It?s a watch unlike any other: it shows the hours not via hands or digits but by fluorescent green liquid moving through a slender glass tube.
Front and back of the H1, which was unveiled at Baselworld in 2012
The company?s name is HYT. Its CEO is Vincent Perriard. Most journalists in the audience know him from his past posts at TechnoMarine and Concord, and, before that, Hamilton and Audemars Piguet. Also on hand are HYT?s chairman and co-founder, an entrepreneur named Patrick Berdoz, and board member and co-founder Lucien Vouillamoz, the inventor of the liquid time-telling system. HYT CEO Vincent Perriard°
The journalists watch a video showing the liquid, actually two liquids, one antifreeze green and the other colorless, moving through the tube under the propulsion of a pair of pistons at the 6 o?clock position on the watch face. The fluid moves mysteriously, as if by magic. The hour is indicated by the position of the meniscus, the dividing line at which the two fluids meet.
This ?fluidic module,? as HYT calls it, is wedded to a movement that powers the pistons and supports a minutes display at 12 o?clock, a seconds wheel between 9 and 10 o?clock, and a power-reserve display between 2 and 3 o?clock. The movement was designed by the high...