Hydro Mechanical Watches
HYT’s Hydro-Mechanical Horologists, the creators of the first timepieces ever to combine mechanical and liquid engineering, have turned utopia into reality. The watch has a 65 hour power reserve and manual winding – driving a unique high-tech fluidic module.
The idea that led to the H1 was simple and consisted of two flexible reservoirs fixed to each end of a capillary. In one was an aqueous liquid filled with fluorescein, and in the other, a transparent viscous liquid. To keep them separate: the repulsive force of the molecules in each liquid, with a meniscus to mark the boundary between the two.
As the hours go by, the fluorescent liquid advances. The secret that gets the reservoirs going? Two bellows made of a highly resistant, flexible electro-deposited alloy, each driven by a piston. And this is where watchmaking comes in to activate the system.
While the basic idea is simple, realising it is highly complex. Led by Bruno Moutarlier, two teams worked together. On the watchmaking front were Jean-François Mojon and his supporting team at Chronode. Working on the fluid operation was Preciflex, the patent registration company created by the founders of HYT – Patrick Berdoz, Lucien Vouillamoz and Emmanuel Savioz.
Hyt Technical data:
Movement mechanical hand-wound, exclusive HYT calibre, 28,800 vph, 4 Hz,
35 jewels, bridges hand-chamfered and adorned with Côtes de Genève,
rhodiumed bellows, 65-hour power reserve
Functions retrograde fluid hours, minutes, seconds
Case diameter: 48.8 mm, thickness: 17.9 mm brushed,
bead-blasted and satin-brushed finish
rubber-clad screw-lock crown
screw-locked added lugs
metal dome at 06:00
cambered sapphire crystal with glareproofed interior
screw-down sapphire back
Dial fluid hours, luminescent hands and hour-markers
regulator at 12:00
small seconds wheel at 09:30
power-reserve indicator at 02:30.
