Hey, Did We All Miss Something In The Omega Olympic Chrono Chime?

Is this the finest resolution chiming complication ever?

The recently launched Omega Chrono Chime is probably a little bit unsettling if you are a regular client, and fan of, the company’s rightly highly regarded sports watches – the worst thing I can think of to say about that whole category is that some of them are a bit big but that’s a matter of personal ergonomics and personal tastes and surely in watches as in anything else, one size does not fit all. The Chrono Chime comes in two versions – one is a Speedmaster version, at 45mm x 17.37mm and the other is styled like a pocket watch, with a quick conversion system that lets you either wear it as a wristwatch, or carry it as a pocket watch. The latter version, the Olympic 1932 model, is 45mm x 16.9mm and has a grand feu enamel dial. Given the size of the watch the 1932 makes more sense to me but if you prefer the Speedmaster style, firmly believe that there’s no such thing as too much (Sedna) gold, and don’t mind the biceps asymmetry you are going to get from wearing a 326 gram wristwatch, I’m not going to stop you (and if you have the strength to wear a watch of such, shall we say, ursine heft I would probably be ill-advised to try).

The Chrono Chime, as you’ll probably already know, is a repeater but it is not a répétition minute, but rather a – well, a répétition temps écoulé (elapsed time repeater) maybe? Push the strike activating button, and you will hear the elapsed time chime in a manner similar to a minute repeater – but with some major differences.

A minute repeater chimes the time on two gongs, one tuned lower than the other. When you start the repeater, the hours sound first, on the low gong; then the number of quarter hours past the hour, on two gongs; and finally, the minutes, on the higher pitched gong.

The Omega Chrono Chime is a rattrapante chronograph, with a high frequency 5Hz movement. It has a central seconds hand, and a minute recorder that can record elapsed time intervals of up to 15 minutes. When you stop the chronograph, and then activate the chimes, the two gongs will ring, first the elapsed minutes, then the number of ten second intervals past the last minute, and finally, the number of seconds past the last ten second interval. If the elapsed time is 4:38, then you’ll hear four low chimes, three double chimes, and eight higher chimes. If the hands are split the watch will chime the longer elapsed time period shown. Omega’s YouTube video shows that once again a (moving) picture is worth several hundred words.

In addition to the high frequency escapement (the first time anyone’s run a co-axial escapement at 5Hz, which is quite an accomplishment as the co-axial escapement was not intended to run at that high a frequency) which of course gives the chronograph a 1/10 second resolution, you also have a magnetic regulator for controlling the speed of the chimes, rather than the conventional centrifugal regulator.

Still from the Omega video. The regulator is far right, hammers (adjacent to the gongs) on the left, and in the center is (I presume) the barrel for the striking works.

Now, I feel like we all (me included) might have missed a couple of things the first time around, what with all the sturm und drang about the size (ok, they’re big) the cost (ok, they’re expensive – four hundred and fifty thousand of your favorite dollars; I like to spell that sort of thing out just to give it time to sink in) and the sense some folks had that this sort of gizmo might be a little off-brand for Omega (the movement was apparently co-developed, or whatever you want to call it, with Blancpain, and if anyone can tell me what that actually means within the context of the Byzantine internal intricacies of Swatch Group, I’ll die a happy man, or rather, less unhappy).

But think about it. A minute repeater is already an ungodly hellaciously complicated watch. To chime the hours, quarters, and minutes, you need three rotating stepped cams with the depth of the steps corresponding to the number of hours, quarters, and minutes that the watch should strike. Push the slide in the case and a lot starts to happen at once. The mechanism unlocks; the levers for the hour, quarter hour, and minute chimes drop onto their racks and then, powered by a smaller mainspring barrel you wound up when you pushed the slide, the racks begin to withdraw to their resting positions, at a speed controlled by a centrifugal governor. As the racks return to their resting positions, they trip the hammers, which strike the gongs in the correct number and order.

It is a neat trick and today mostly a matter of connoisseurship than necessity but in the days before ubiquitous electric lights and with the fire hazards posed by candles and lanterns, being able to hear the time in a dark room after sundown had some practical appeal.

Now the Chrono Chime has to do all and more. There are still three sequences of chimes, but they take place across a much smaller measured interval. That means that somewhere in the guts of the caliber 1932, there is a cam for the minutes (which is already the most complicated cam in a minute repeater) which has to instantly update its position at each elapsed minute. There also has to be a cam for ten second periods, which has to do the same, but at ten second intervals. And finally, there has to be a cam which updates its position once every second, and which presumably has nine steps (one through nine seconds) and rotates once every ten seconds. To paraphrase what they say about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the Chrono Chime has to do everything a minute repeater does, but backwards and in heels.

So yeah, I’m kind of into it. I don’t think brands always do such a great job explaining their own achievements and in a way they shouldn’t have to beyond a certain point, it’s up to us to know enough to know a good piece of work from an excellent piece of work from a stinker. But there you have it: A 5Hz co-axial escapement rattrapante chronograph that chimes the elapsed minutes, ten seconds, and seconds, and which is the first mechanical timepiece ever to chime to a one second resolution (that I can think of, anyway).

I don’t know about you but I’d charge six figures too.