Today Omega announced a new movement that is resistant to magnetic fields greater than 1.5 tesla (15,000 gauss).
This anti-magnetic movement is inside of a Seamster Aqua Terra, and the co-axial caliber 8508 was introduced by Omega, ASULAB and ETA all of them had a collaboration in developing the new movement, which has several patents pending.
The new caliber 8508 is 15 times more resistant than a Rolex Milgauss and 2 times more than these IWC Ingenieur Reference 3508/3518/9238/9265.
The anti-magnetic watches protects their movement with soft iron, like Rolex’s Faraday cage, which distributes electromagnetic radiation in a way that cancels the field’s effect on the movement.
Omega has a different way of making things, they manage to construct the movement itself of non-ferrous materials.
But it did take the combined efforts of various Swatch group assets, including scientists and metallurgists, to engineer the movement.
Anti-magnetic watches isn´t something new, they have been around for over 60 years.
The most known is the Rolex Milgauss, which was developed for scientists working at CERN who has to manage powerful magnetic fields in their work.
The Milgauss is resistant to 1000 gauss (unit of magnetic induction), which was enough to protect the timekeeping functions intact.
For reference, a small iron magnet measures around 100 gauss.
Omega’s presentation in Geneva highlighted the company’s history of technological innovation, as well as the challenges that building an a-magnetic watch presents.
Jean-Claude Monachon explained that magnets are now present in our daily lives more than ever.
We can expect more information at Basel in April and for those who want this watch, the new caliber 8508 will be introduced to market sometime in summer-fall.
