We dive deep into the most complicated wristwatch ever made

Watches and Wonders 2025 might have closed, but the fever of new watches is still raging among watch lovers and enthusiasts. While we have covered all the brands on our microsite, we take a look back at one of the most talked-about wristwatches of the year, the Vacheron Constantin’s Les Cabinotiers Solaria Ultra Grand Complication.

Vacheron Constantin’s Les Cabinotiers Solaria Ultra Grand Complication

This year, Vacheron Constantin celebrates its 270th anniversary, and I anticipate that the brand will celebrate with launches and special unveilings through the year. The brand flagged this off with the release of its Historiques 222 in steel and then a slew of releases at the mega watch event. Part of the latter was the Les Cabinotiers Solaria Ultra Grand Complication, which has the distinction of being the most complicated wristwatch ever made.

A look at the watch in person at the brand’s booth in Geneva impressed me no end. Having 13 patent applications and 1521 components housed in a surprisingly wearable 14.99mm thick watch, the complex miniaturisation the brand has done is indeed representative of its technical prowess. It’s no surprise that the watch was eight years in the making.

Also Read: The latest Historiques 222, the reissue of the iconic Vacheron Constantin 222 model launched in 1977

Last year, the brand introduced the Les Cabinotiers - The Berkley Grand Complication pocketwatch with 63 complications distinguished by the presence of a Chinese calendar programmed until 2200. It was the most complicated pocket watch, and took 11 years to develop. It was 98mm in diameter, compared to that, the latest wristwatch with 41 complications is fitted inside a 45mm case, which is just another milestone for the brand. Beating inside it is the new manufacture Calibre 3655, whose base movement combines time, chronograph, and chiming functions, while an additional mechanism, just 2.8mm thick, integrates all the astronomical indications. The watch has a 72-hour power reserve.

Another complication which sets the watch apart is the Westminster minute-repeater, an innovative chiming mechanism designed to employ four gongs and four hammers with a novel architecture that optimises sound quality despite the movement's complexity. A specific selector allows the wearer to choose between a repeater that strikes only the hours or the traditional sequence of hours, quarters, and minutes.

It is also the first time for a watch to feature the apparent path of the Sun that includes its position, height, culmination, and declination. As well as a world premiere, the temporal tracking of celestial objects, which combines a split-second chronograph with a representation of the celestial vault to calculate the time required for a constellation or specific star to appear in the observer's field of vision.

Also Read: ID Geneve is raising the bar of what it means to be sustainable in the watch industry

The watch displays three different concepts of time simultaneously—civil, solar, and sidereal—each with its dedicated gear train. The civil time (standard 24-hour day) is shown on the front dial with central hour and minute hands, complemented by world time and a second time zone display. Sidereal time (23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds), which measures Earth's rotation relative to fixed stars, is displayed on the caseback. Solar time, which accounts for the variations in the Sun's position throughout the year, is indicated through the equation of time on the front dial.

The complexity extends to a Gregorian perpetual calendar with an innovative ISO 8601 standard date display, showing the four-digit year, week number, and day of the week. This is complemented by an astronomical moonphase with an accuracy maintained for 122 years without correction and a mareoscope displaying spring and neap tides.

Besides having so many complications, each one is functionality is legible and aesthetically designed. The watch has complications on its front as well as on the back. On the front dial, there are four counters located at 12, 3, 6, and 9 with several complications housed inside. The back combines a sky map and chronograph functions.