Breguet, the grandson of the famous Abraham-Louis Breguet who invented the Tourbillon (filed for patent on October 26, 1856). In 2010, the brand introduced Precisionist, a quartz movement with a precision of +/- 10 seconds per year and which stands out thanks to a seconds hand that works continuously, as mechanical watches do.īulova created the first tuning fork wristwatch in the 1960s, yet the very first mechanical clock with a tuning fork was created in 1856 by Louis F. These include “Bulova”, “Caravelle”, “Wittnauer” and the heir “Accutron”. Today, Bulova owns several brands to satisfy the needs of a wider range of clients. In 2008, Citizen, a Japanese group, took over Bulova after the group Loews Corporation group had managed it since 1979. These ads made the brand very popular among American consumers. It was thus the first brand to have a radio ad in 1923, with the slogan: “It’s 8am, Bulova Time”, and to later have a television ad, in 1941. In 1923, it was renamed Bulova Watch Company, and became a precursor in communications. In 1928, it introduced the first clock radio. In 1920, it built an observatory on the roof of a skyscraper to make calculations that allowed it to determine universal time precisely. From then on, the brand continued to bring about watchmaking innovations. In 1912, it opened a production unit in Bienne, Switzerland, for mass watch production, an original approach at the time. The brand was soon famous for its high quality products, both in terms of aesthetics and technicality. "Bulova Accutron, first tuning fork electronic watch" Bulova: innovation it is!īulova was founded in 1875 by Joseph Bulova (1851-1936), a Czech expat who arrived in New York at the age of nine. This model brought fame and success to Bulova and the piece was even worn by American astronauts when they travelled to the Moon. Engineer Max Hetzel developed its transistor movement, which was able to achieve an unprecedented precision of a minute per month. The world’s first electronic watch functions with a tuning fork a small fork-shaped piece that until then had only been used in music. The press release also says in part, "Accutron is committed to upholding an extraordinary legacy of excellence in design, style and technology as it reenters the watch industry," so it looks like Accutron is on the comeback trail.In 1950, long before the arrival of quartz watches, whose precision led to their supplanting mechanical pieces, Bulova, an American watch brand, worked on a technology that increased watches’ autonomy and precision the two weak spots of mechanical watches at the time.ĪCCUTRON stands for “ACCUracy through ElecTRONic”. If you want news on the Accutron concept movement direct from Citizen, there's a teaser site up, right here. The resemblance, visually and kinetically, to the original Spaceview tuning fork Accutron watch is a powerful nostalgia play (though this is a concept movement, I'd honestly be just fine if these were the aesthetics of a finished watch) but with a drive system unique to the new electrostatic Accutron concept movement, and it'll be interesting to see what next steps are planned. Citizen released its caliber 0100 as a concept movement a year before the commercially available limited editions came out, so there's a company precedent for the strategy. The technology certainly produces unique aesthetics and while the movement was presented as a concept movement, rather than a new line of watches, the technology looks mature and ready for market, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if at some point in the near future we saw it in commercially available watches.
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