BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
Now that Watches and Wonders Geneva has finished, we thought we would bring you up to date with some news you might have missed. Back in March, independent watchmaker Dominique Renaud introduced the Pulse60 watch, which has a slow beat rate of 1Hz (7,200 beats per hour) and, well, it’s really cool.
It’s unusual to see a wristwatch like this. We often see independent watch makers doing crazy things with complications, but we don’t see them take on the humble balance wheel very much, it’s a challenge that often left but is ripe for innovations. You may recognise the surname Renaud, and that’s because Dominique Renaud is part of what’s now known as Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi (APRP), which develops complications for brands including Audemars Piguet and Richard Mille. It is also renowned for its star-studded list of industry names who’ve worked there before moving on to other things, including but not limited to Andreas Strehler, Peter Speake-Marin, Robert Greubel & Stephen Fordsey, and Anthony de Haas (product development director for A. Lange & Söhne). Now, the name is back as HHDR, or Haute Horlogerie Dominique Renaud.
Presented in the grade 5 titanium case measuring 40mm x 12mm, the new Pulse60 watch features a slow-beating balance wheel measuring 20mm across. This larger size means the balance wheel has more inertia and is therefore less affected by knocks and shocks, and is inspired by the thinking behind marine chronometer design. Dominique Renaud went further still by designing a special roller system that allows the balance wheel to have an amplitude greater than 360°. For reference, amplitude is the amount of degrees the balance wheel can normally swing on each tick and tock, and is usually around 300°. Go too far, and the impulse pin risks hitting the wrong side of the pallet fork; this is known as knocking. The special roller system in the new Pulse60 watch prevents this so that the balance wheel can exceed 360° in amplitude. There is more to it than this, but it is beyond my ability to understand. You are best viewing Dominique Renaud’s website.
The large balance wheel is very prominent on the dial, taking centre stage on the dial’s lower half. The time is displayed on a subdial at 12 o’clock; a torque indicator is visible at 3 o’clock, showing the remaining torque in the main spring and therefore the power reserve, and at 9 o’clock is the small seconds indicator. The small seconds indicator features a half-second printing as the second hand makes two ticks per second, which is something else you don’t get on other watches. The finishing of the CalibreBUA2024 appears high-quality, though it lacks the angle polishing you might see on other high-end watches, likely because the focus is more on the mechanics than the decoration. It still looks good. The power reserve is around 96 hours, or four days.
I really like the look of this new watch. It goes against the norm by focusing on a lower frequency with more visual interest rather than a smaller balance wheel with a higher beat rate. It shows a different approach to the age-old problem of making a wristwatch accurate and is very inventive. The price for one of these is CHF49,000 (before tax) in titanium, and CHF59,000 (before tax) in pink gold and titanium.
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