What do you get when you mix non-conforming horologists with fine watchmaking? As HYT tells it, you get avant-garde watchmaking developments, engineering pushed to its limits and a watch design that “generates genuine emotions,” according to the company.
But this didn’t happen overnight, and the founding principals weren’t just any kind of non-conformists. They were hydro-mechanical horologists with the goal of telling time with liquid.
After building a team of likeminded individuals (the self-proclaimed “Fab 6”) and after a year of research and development, HYT rolled out its first collection in 2012, the H1.
“What seemed totally unthinkable, definitely crazy, has now become reality,” said HYT CEO Vincent Perriard at the time.
Leon Adams, president and owner of Cellini Jewelers in New York City concurs, calling it “the most innovative and unique watch I have seen in thirty years. It’s definitely for a younger affluent consumer.”
How it works
Briefly, this is how the watch operates: two flexible reservoirs with a capillary attached at each end are the core of the design. In one, an aqueous liquid containing fluorescein; in the other, a viscous transparent liquid. At 6 o’clock, a piston moves two bellows made from an electro-deposited alloy. When the first is compressed, the other is extended, and vice versa, driving the movement of the fluids in the capillary. The meniscus, which marks the separation between the fluids in the tube, displays the time. When it reaches the 6 o’clock position, the fluorescent liquid returns to the original position using a retrograde movement.
The ambitious array of the H1 comprises eight case versions, including titanium, pink gold and one in titanium and bronze. The H1 Red 2 uses a red fluorescent liquid to tell the time, rather than the highlighter-colored yellow used on the other styles.
Number 2
With the H2, the entire architecture of the movement was redesigned. Mirroring the pair of bellows, the balance spring is at midday on a black bridge. At 3 o’clock is a crown position indicator reminiscent of a gearstick of a racing car. It is counterbalanced by a temperature indicator hand, which is also original and exclusive to HYT.
Once the watch is on the wrist, this function enables the user to accurately find out when the fluid has reached optimum temperature range. In the center, a minute hand jumps after thirty minutes to avoid the bellows.
The 48.8 mm black DLC titanium case has polished, microblasted and satin-finished surfaces with a protected screw-down crown sheathed in rubber. Inside is HYT’s exclusive manually wound movement with titanium bridges decorated with microblasted black PVD and titanium-colored satin-finished accents. It has a power reserve of about eight days. The movement is fully visible, both from the dial side and the back, accentuating the three-dimensional quality of the timepiece.