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MB&F’s Green HM7 Aquapod

The HM7 goes green and how. Check out the jellyfish-inspired stunner below. It is limited to 50 pieces.
Gurvisha Ahuja

27 Apr 2018

Author

Gurvisha Ahuja
MB&F’s Green HM7 Aquapod

The idea for an aquatic watch originated from MB&F founder Maximilian Büsser’s memories of family beach holidays, which included an encounter with a jellyfish. While the encounter may have been minor, the seed it planted in Büsser’s brain for a three-dimensional timepiece powered by tentacles was anything but. And even though the concept for Horological Machine N°7 came relatively quickly, the development took many years.

While Horological Machine N°7 is not a dive watch, it is a timepiece comfortably at home in the water – so MB&F added the one element that all serious aquatic watches possess: a unidirectional rotating bezel. However, unlike every other dive watch on the planet, Aquapod’s bezel isn’t attached to the case, but floats apart like a life buoy.

Like many jellyfish, HM7 glows in the dark. It glows where you would expect it to – on the hour and minute numerals – but also around the inside of the movement, to light up that flying tourbillon at night... and in addition, along the tentacle-like winding rotor so that its operation, too, can be appreciated in the dark.

While HM7 Aquapod is as contemporary as could be, the concept of the three-dimensional, spherical movement architecture is centuries old, originating in the “onion” pocket watches popular in the 18th century. Whereas the majority of watch movements are developed horizontally to be as flat as possible, the Engine of HM7 goes up, not out, with all of its components arranged vertically. The movement of HM7 was entirely developed in-house by MB&F.

From bottom to top, the winding rotor, mainspring barrel, hour and minute indications, and flying tourbillon are all concentrically mounted around the central axis. Energy travels from the rotor at the very bottom of the movement to the flying tourbillon regulator at the very top via gearing acting like a series of stairs, allowing power to transition from one level to the next. This concentric architecture allows for the hours and minutes to be displayed around the periphery of the movement; however, this presented a serious challenge in itself: how to support such large-diameter time display rings? The answer was to develop extra-large diameter ceramic ball bearings, to support the spherical segment hour and minute displays and rotate with a very low coefficient of friction. The spherical segment discs are in aluminium and titanium for both minimum mass and maximum rigidity.

The case of HM7 Aquapod is basically a three-dimensional sandwich comprising two hemispheres of high-domed sapphire crystal on either side of a metal case band. The unidirectional bezel floats outside the case proper, while dual crowns are located between the two structures: the one on the left is for winding the movement (if necessary) and the crown on the right is for setting the time. The large crowns are ergonomically designed for ease of use, even when manipulated with wet fingers.

The strap in engraved aircraft-grade rubber highlights the casual nature of HM7 Aquapod, ensuring that it looks just as good with jeans and a t-shirt on land as it does with a bathing suit in the water.

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