The first adjustable silicone spring is a fact. It’s called Spirate™ and is the brainchild of Omega. For several weeks now, the Swiss brand has been hinting on social media about a “small” and at the same time “big” discovery that will change the facts for both the iconic Speedmaster and the entire mechanical watch industry. For example, a few days ago he introduced the Speedmaster Super Racing, a chronograph that houses a revolutionary system that delivers a certified accuracy of 0/+2 seconds per day.

What is the Spirate system?

We’ll go a little deeper into the technical “fields”, but it’s worth giving you some useful information. First, silicon springs appeared in the watch world about twenty years ago. The Spirate system is equipped with a revolutionary patented silicon coil spring. This is a much more advanced version of the Si14 silicon spring that Omega has been using for a long time and is an integral part of its famous Co-Axial escapement system.

Although it is three times thinner than a human hair, the Omega Si14 silicon spring is extremely strong, impact resistant and completely unaffected by magnetic fields. The new Spirate system has all these advantages and more: it gives the watchmaker the ability to change the tension along it, which in theory allows it to be adjusted to the tenth of a second. The result is a watch that meets Omega’s most stringent criteria and boasts an extremely high accuracy of 0/+2 seconds per day. Each spring is made from a silicon pellet using a special manufacturing process called DRIE (Deep Reactive Ion Etching), which in Greek translates to Deep Reactive Ion Etching.

To achieve such a challenging goal, Omega had to literally reinvent the wheel. The Swiss company certainly has a lot of experience in producing top-level movements in terms of accuracy, stability and timekeeping reliability, and the rich technological base of the Swatch Group, to which the brand belongs, has certainly helped. The main idea is a brand new Si14 silicon barrel spring that allows the watchmaker to adjust the spring rate at the point of contact via an eccentric adjustment mechanism attached to the balancer bridge. This original approach is based on the design of a high-precision modular design with flexible bearings and clearly demonstrates the spirit of innovation and creative thinking that guides Omega and its employees.

Look

The first Omega to feature the innovative Spirate system is the new Speedmaster Super Racing. At first glance, it has all the characteristics of a Speedmaster. Immediately striking is the perforated honeycomb-patterned dial, reminiscent of a prototype watch capable of withstanding extreme magnetic fields of 160,000 gauss, on display at the Omega Museum in Biel. Around the dial we see the familiar racing-style bezel with a black ceramic ring that houses the tachymeter scale. All of its designations are applied for the first time in yellow Grand Feu enamel. The same yellow highlights the luminous stripes of the hour markers, hands and Speedmaster and Super Racing lettering against the dark background. It is worth noting that the same yellow tint was also used for the historic Seamaster Aqua Terra>15’000 GAUSS, released exactly ten years ago, in 2013.

The more observant will notice that the central second hand of the chronograph is gradient, that is, it starts from black and ends with yellow, and the small second hand on the corresponding dial at position 9 is striped, black and yellow. The 60-minute/12-hour hour counter at position 3 also serves as a second time zone.

At 6 o’clock, there is an elegant repeating reminder of the >15,000 GAUSS tenth anniversary: ​​once a month, the number 10 appears in the watch’s date window, written in the same font as the Speedmaster logo.

The steel case of the Speedmaster Super Racing has a diameter of 44.25 mm and is water resistant to 50 meters. From the transparent sapphire crystal on the case back, you can admire the modern Omega Co-Axial Chronometer 9920 automatic movement, which, in addition to the Spirate system, is certified at the highest level in the industry by the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology. (METAS).

As always, this certification is confirmed by the distinctive red METAS card, which confirms that the watch is accurate to 0/+2 seconds per day.

The new Speedmaster Super Racing watch is paired with a steel bracelet and a second NATO-style recycled nylon strap with black and yellow stripes, another reminder of the 10-year-old Seamaster Aqua Terra >15,000 GAUSS color code. back.

Even the case of this collectible Omega Speedmaster chronograph is special as it features a black honeycomb pattern with yellow stitching.

The case includes a NATO strap, as well as a strap replacement tool. Watch the clock in the next video…

The price of the OMEGA Speedmaster Super Racing is 12,900 euros.

Exclusive representative: Swatch Group Greece (tel.: 210-9565656)

More information about Omega Here.