Unlike $20 digital Casios, mechanical watches are incredibly delicate devices, and their ability to keep accurate time can be affected by a number of factors, from the weather to how they’re worn. Swiss watchmaker De Bethune has come up with an incredibly over-the-top way to calibrate their watches to avoid problems, using a robotic arm and a practice watch that captures usage data.
First announced in mid-2019, the De Bethune DB28GS Grand Bleu was the watchmaker’s first sports watch to feature a titanium case. It also has 100 meters of water resistance, so it is also suitable for activities such as diving. In addition, it has a smart lighting system powered by a small dynamo generator instead of a battery, because like most luxury watches, the DB28GS Grand Bleu is a purely mechanical watch that is powered by springs and gears and a complicated collection of mechanical components.
As much of an engineering marvel as it is, the DB28GS Grand Bleu still faces the same challenges that all mechanical watches do: everyday factors, including the temperature of the room it’s in, the wearer’s activities, knocks and occasional bumps and even something. as invisible as atmospheric pressure, all can affect the behavior of its mechanical components, which in turn affects its ability to keep time accurately.
To help account for these variables, mechanical watches can be adjusted and calibrated, but most of the time a technician is simply making educated guesses about what a watch may experience when it leaves the factory. So De Bethune came up with what he calls the “Sensory Chronometry Project,” to give his technicians more useful data when calibrating a watch for a specific wearer.
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*light saber humor*
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For Star Wars fans with everything. These lightsabers are powered by Neopixels, LED strips that extend within the shape of the blade that allow for adjustable colors, interactive sounds, and changing animation effects in the duel.
Those lucky enough to plunk down $93,500 on the De Bethune DB28GS Grand Bleu will now have the chance to take a sensor-filled test watch for a two-week period first. This watch will record what your daily activities look like, as well as the environmental conditions the watch will be exposed to – almost two million pieces of data every hour. In relative terms, two weeks is just a small snapshot of an owner’s life, but it means De Bethune’s technicians will have a much better idea of how the watch will be used and what it will have to endure on the wearer’s wrist. specific customer
De Bethune presents the “Sensory Chronometry Project”
After the two-week testing period, the sensor clock is returned to De Bethune and the data is sent to the De Bethune Chronometry Workshop in Switzerland, where the company has built a robotic arm inside an atmospheric chamber. The arm can accurately recreate the recorded movement patterns of the client as well as the environment in which they live. This allows the company’s technicians to adjust and calibrate the watch’s components and perform additional tests, to ensure that its timekeeping capabilities are as accurate as possible for its new owner.
As far-fetched as the approach may seem, when you’re spending $93,500 on a device whose only real purpose is to tell time, you probably want to make sure it can do that as reliably as possible.