A watch can make a statement; the final touch on any outfit. And Urwerk, a unique watch design and manufacturing company, just released their newest addition to their Ur-Chronometry model collection, the EMC Time Hunter, an electronic, mechanical watch hybrid. And this addition makes a bold statement.
Stunning Innovation
The EMC Time Hunter doesn’t look like your ordinary watch. The forward-thinking, yet timeless design, build, and mechanics make this timepiece truly unique. You’ll notice the face, an irregular hexagon shape around a dark watch face. Four interwoven dials each offer different information. The largest dial, hours and minutes, has a black grenade background and bright green numbers, 3, 6, 9, and 12, around the dial with white minute markers around the circumference. White outlines the minute and hour hands for visibility.
Above the one o’clock marker on the center dial is a seconds’ aperture, with a red arrow and fluorescent green numbers, counting one to sixty by five. A white border features ticks marks to indicate seconds. An 80-hour power reserve indicator occupies the bottom left corner of the watch face. And above in the top left corner, is a precision and amplitude indicator. An accuracy measurement — usually left to a watchmaker to assess and balance — allows the wearer to measure and tweak according to their lifestyle preferences. The markings are a fluorescent green with white accents and red markings to indicate ‘danger zone.’
The bezel is unmoving, simple, and black, except for ‘EM-Control,’ ‘power,’ and ‘seconds’ marked in white outside of the corresponding dial. The exterior is army green and the watchband black.
The Watch’s Interior
This luxury watch has two large mainspring barrels connected in a vertical series for an 80-hour power reserve. The Bespoke Balance Wheel is ARCAP alloy materials; the wheel is non-magnetic and corrosion-resistant. The balance wheel’s material, dimension, and shape were taken into consideration to maximize the watch’s accuracy and efficiency.
The oscillation rate determines a watch’s precision, and connected to the balance wheel is a small optical sensor. If activated by the button on the left side and the manual winding lever engaged, the optical sensor will measure the oscillation rate over three seconds at 4 Hz. The watch will then read the precision and amplitude on the front dial, and users can adjust the clock accordingly with a small fine-tuning screw on the back of the watch. The fine-tuning screw adjusts the length of the balance spring. The EMC Time Hunter allows you the watchmaker’s control of precision and amplitude. The manual-winding generator on the right side powers the monitoring unit. A small LED light on the precision dial glows green for within acceptable parameters or shines red, if not.
Electro-mechanical control (EMC) is the difference between Urwerk’s creations and other watches on the market. And users can see this integration through the crystal on the reverse side of the Time Hunter. The mechanical components visible on the left side, and the small electronic circuit board half-visible on the right.
MSRP is 115,000 Swiss Francs or roughly, $126,000. Not a product for everyone, but technology and watch geeks will appreciate this transparent creativity and engineering feat. The uncommon features matched with cunning electro-mechanical components, it makes for an incredible timepiece.
Urwerk by Baumgartner and Frei
Designer Martin Frei and lifelong watchmaker Felix Baumgartner met in 1995 and founded Urwerk in 1997. A group of creatives brought together by a fascination for telling time in a traditional yet innovative fashion.