Swatch Sistem 51 Features

THIRTY YEARS AGO, when the Swatch brand debuted, it stunned the world with a quartz watch whose electronic move- ment had just 51 parts. The watch’s as- sembly was fully automated, no human hands required.

This year the mass-market brand that gave the Swatch Group its name has done it again. Exhibiting at Baselworld for the first time ever, Swatch arrived with a bang: a new watch called Sistem 51 with a movement consisting of just 51 parts. This time the movement is an automatic mechanical. “Most mechanical movements have at least twice as many parts,” Swatch proclaimed in a press statement. “Some have more than 600!” Moreover, it is the world’s first mechanical movement whose assembly is entirely automated.

At a press conference on Basel-world’s opening day, Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek said Swatch developed Sistem 51 “to show we [the Swatch Group] can be innovative at the lower end of the market.” Swatch says it filed 17 patents for Sistem 51. One of the watch’s innovations is the simplified, more efficient movement design with a structure that uses five modules for easy, automated assembly. The components are welded together, forming a single assembly centered on a single central screw.

Another innovation: the high-tech escapement has no regulator. The rate is set at the factory with a laser, eliminating the need for the manual rate adjustments normally required for a mechanical watch. All the movement components are hermetically sealed within the case, which prevents moisture and dust from interfering with the movement’s operation. Swatch says that the accuracy of 90 percent of the watches will be within +/-5 seconds per day.

The movement is made entirely of ARCAP, an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc, which makes the watch exceptionally anti-magnetic, Swatch says. It has a transparent caseback, affording a view of the rotor, a transparent disk that rotates around the center screw. The movement has a power reserve of 90 hours. Everything in it, including its 19 synthetic rubies, is made in Switzerland.

Sistem 51 will have an affordable price, a Swatch signature feature, some-where around $150. The price will be “between 100 and 200 Swiss francs, closer to 100,” Hayek said. “We want to sell millions of this watch.” The watch will be out this fall.