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An Unexpected Brand Just Revolutionized Mechanical Watch Accuracy

Swiss brand Horage has come up with a way to regulate your watch yourself—without accessing the movement.

horage watch and movement regulation deviceHorage

By Johnny Brayson

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True revolutionary innovation in the mechanical watch space doesn’t come around all that often.

It seems that every few years, some brand will come up with a new form of escapement promising greater precision. The most radical ones, like Girard-Perregaux’s Constant Escapement and Frederique Constant’s Monolithic Escapement, remain niche curiosities. Others, namely the George Daniels-developed co-axial escapement used by Omega, have shown staying power but haven’t exactly proven to be revolutionary.

Probably the most truly revolutionary mechanical movement innovation of this century is the use of silicon for escapement parts, which was pioneered by Ulysse Nardin but is now widely deployed across the industry due to its amagnetic properties.

ulysse nardin watch being assembled
Horage hopes its new innovation will prove as revolutionary and widespread as Ulysse Nardin’s use of silicon escapement parts.
Ulysse Nardin

This feat partly inspired a radical new innovation in mechanical movements from Horage, the Swiss microbrand best known for producing Swiss-made, in-house tourbillon movements at unfathomably low prices.

The brand has just unveiled a pretty incredible piece of tech that promises to revolutionize the way mechanical watch movements are regulated by allowing watches owners to regulate the movement themselves — without even opening up the caseback.

A Regulating Revolution

The new innovation is called MicroReg, and it was co-developed by Horage and its technology partner, Miniswys. The goal of MicroReg is to help a mechanical watch movement reach zero deviation, meaning perfect precision.

Mechanical watch movements deviate several seconds per day. These deviations are caused by a number of factors, including temperature, magnetism, gravity, lubrication and more. When your watch is out of whack, you need to bring it to a watchmaker, who will open up the watch and manually adjust the regulator lever on the movement’s escapement to speed up or slow down the beat rate.

The MicroReg system consists of a tiny actuator that attaches to the regulator of a traditional mechanical escapement. This tiny piece of equipment contains no electronic parts and consists only of a ceramic element and a metal carrier. It’s functionally a part of the movement itself. When still, the motor requires zero energy and only springs to life when called upon.

horage watch escapement
The MicroReg system consists of a tiny motor that sits on a mechanical watch escapement’s regulator.
Horage

The motor will move under electrical voltage, which is applied via a device that fits against the exterior of the watch (Horage’s website is a little dodgy about how this part of the system actually works). Press the “+” button on the device to speed up the escapement by 0.1 seconds, and press the “-” button to slow it down by the same amount.

The motor moves across the movement itself and physically adjusts the regulator lever, just like a watchmaker would. But in this case, the adjustments can be made at the press of a button with no need to even open up the watch. It’s a pretty remarkable system, and if Horage were to export the MicroReg actuator to other brands as an add-on part to their own movements, it could truly revolutionize the way we interact with our watches, potentially resulting in greater mechanical watch accuracy in the long run.

A Backwards Watch with Forward-Thinking Technology

Horage’s MicroReg system will debut in the Revolution 3 – MicroReg Founders Edition watch. The watch features an inverted movement that showcases the escapement and MicoReg system on the dial side while putting the traditional time-keeping dial on the caseback.

The movement, which again is on full display on the front of the watch, is Horage’s in-house K2 micro-rotor movement. Sporting hand-finished Côtes de Genève decoration and a Peacock Blue finish, the handsome movement is already impressive with its silicon balance spring and escapement, gold-plated tungsten micro-rotor and 72-hour power reserve, but it’s been made more of an achievement with the addition of the MicroReg actuator.

horage watch caseback
The traditional timekeeping dial is found on the backside of Horage’s debut MicroReg watch.
Horage

You tell time on the watch via a rotating disc surrounding the dial that displays the current time in five-minute increments. Given that such an imprecise way of reading the time is quite antithetical to the MicroReg movement, the caseback features a traditional hour, minute and seconds hand display so your dialed-in precision doesn’t go to waste.

Horage expects the watch to take two years to develop — right now, MicroReg only exists in prototype form — and if you buy one now, you’ll get it for the discounted price of 3,900 CHF (~$4,405). Once the watch is released, the full retail price will be considerably higher at 6,900 CHF (~$7,995).

If you’re not quite sold on the watch but want to support development of the MicroReg system, you can also become a “founder supporter” by donating 150 CHF. In return, Horage will send you a voucher worth 300 CHF that can be used on any product on Horage’s website and is good for three years.

horage mechanical watchHorage

Horage Revolution 3 MicroReg Founders Edition

Specs

Case Size 41mm
Movement Horage Cal. K2 automatic
Water Resistance 100m
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