Omega | Innovation: the Spirate system
At the end of January, the Biel/Bienne-based company presented a major innovation, the Spirate system, enabling it to improve the chronometry (precision timing) of its movements.
Launched at this occasion, the latest Speedmaster is fine-tuned for precision thanks to the Spirate System, which includes a revolutionary new patent-pending balance-spring enabling ultra-fine rate adjustments. Thanks to this one-of-a-kind mechanism, it is now possible for Omega to achieve certified precision of only 0/+2 seconds a day.
To meet these narrow targets, the brand had to quite literally reinvent the wheel: drawing on both the technical resources of the Swatch Group and the precision, stability and reliabity of Omega’s chronometrically superior in-house movements. The innovative solution was a very new Si14 balance spring which allows the watchmaker to act on the stiffness of the hairspring’s attachment point through an eccentric adjustment mechanism located on the balance bridge.
This new approach, based on the design of a high-precision articulated structure with flexible bearings, is a superb example of Omega’s willingness to run with new ideas: to make progress by taking on challenges.
Equipped with this major innovation, the Speedmaster Super Racing features an alternating minutes track around its dial, a black ceramic bezel and the famous tachymeter scale in an unprecedented Grand Feu yellow enamel that sets it apart. This bold yellow shade, featured on the Seamaster Aqua Terra >15,000 Gauss of 2013, is also used on the gradient chronograph hand and striped small seconds hand at 9 o’clock. The watch’s 60 minute/12 hour recorder, directly opposite at 3 o’clock, also serves as a second time zone. The honeycomb pattern of the dial references a concept timepiece on display at Omega Museum which survived extreme magnetic fields of 160,000 Gauss.
The diamond-polished and bevelled black arrowhead hour-markers are filled with a new and exclusive Super-LumiNova which emits a surprising yellow glow. This colour code extends to the Speedmaster and Super Racing wording on the dial.
At 6 o’clock there’s a stylish and regular reminder of the >15,000 Gauss 10 year-anniversary: a “10” in Speedmaster logo font, which appears once a month in the watch’s date window.
Providing the power is the Co-Axial Master Chronometer 9920, a perfect amalgamation of the many milestones on the road to Spirate and certified at the industry’s highest level by the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology (METAS).