#atomic #hoptroff #ukmfg #engineering London-based Hoptroff has announced what it describes as “a quantum leap in luxury time-pieces for connoisseurs”.
The company says that the watch will be more accurate than any luxury mechanical or quartz watch ever produced. The No10 watch contains a caesium gas chamber inside a temperature-controlled oven, a laser to excite the atoms and a microwave resonator to measure their atomic transitions in order to measure time. It has a self-contained accuracy of 1.5sec per 1,000 years.
Managing director Richard Hoptroff said: “As far as we know it is the first time an atomic time source has been used in a pocket watch movement, and it delights med that it was achieved right here in London, not Le Locle or Tokyo.”
The atomic physics package is supplied by Symmetricom, which originally developed it in collaboration with the US Department of Defence for use in cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, where it is needed to continue navigating in the presence of GPS radio jamming.
Measuring 82mm in diameter and 25mm thick, the watch is expected to be completed later this year. Only 12 are due to be manufactured initially, and they will cost “well into five figures”. Customers will also be subject to security clearances due to the nature of the device.