Urwerk Caliber UR-10.01

The Urwerk caliber UR-10.01 is an automatic movement designed in-house by Urwerk Geneve. This movement is found in the limited edition Urwerk model AlTiN UR-1001 Zeit Device.

Zeit Device Front View:

Caliber UR-10.01 Complications:

The special complications featured in the caliber UR-10.01 are listed below as described in Urwerk’s press-release.

Hour Satellite Complication. The Hour Satellite Complication of the Zeit Device is a ‘flying’ design in that there is no top bridge supporting the carrousel. The mechanism requires a bottom support only, which allows maximum appreciation of the satellite hour and retrograde minute complications.

Retrograde Minute Hand. The Retrograde Minute Hand is fixed to a sprung ring around the circumference of the satellite complication. This ring is pushed along a guide rail by the hour satellite. A swan’s neck spring on each arm of the carrousel engages two coaxial star-cams that slide along the guide rail carrying the minute hand. When the minute hand gets to the end of the rail at 60 minutes, the star-cams trip over to release the minute hand, which springs back to zero at the start of the scale where it rendezvous with the next satellite hour.

Day Night Indicator. The Day/Night indicator is a rotating disc marked with Black Super-LumiNova for the night, white brushed-ruthenium for day and a striped mix for dusk/dawn. While useful in its own right, the Day/Night indicator comes into its own when setting the calendar mechanism.

The Power Reserve Indicator. monitors the amount of power in the mainspring up to 39 hours and features a red warning zone to remind the owner when the Zeit Device needs refuelling.

Revolving Satellite Calendar. The Revolving Satellite Calendar is an original – both technically and graphically – calendar complication completely developed in-house by URWERK. Visually it is in the same family as the hour satellite complication, with months and date replacing hours and retrograde minutes. However, whereas the hours rotate across the minutes with unchanging 60-minute regularity, the month automatically adjusts the last date on the calendar complication according to whether it has 30 or 31 days.

Felix Baumgartner URWERK co-founder and chief watchmaker – reveals how the mechanism works: “At the end of 30 day months — April, June, September and November — the date advances automatically to the 1st of the following month. At the end of the short months, a finger on a Maltese cross intervenes to make the date wheel advance two days to the next month.”

“Oil Change” indicator. The shortest time interval measured on the back is the 5-year “Oil Change” indicator at centre right, which alerts the user when a service is due after three years when the dial changes from white (years one to three) to red (years three to five). This is counter is reset to zero when the timepiece is serviced.

100-year indicator. The 100-year indicator advances in 5-year increments and acts like the odometer of a car. Where a car’s odometer keeps track of the total distance number at vehicle has driven, the 100-year and 1000-year indicators of the UR-1001 register the total running time of the movement.

1000-year indicator. When the hand reaches the 100-year mark, the small pointer at the bottom of the 1000-year indicator on the left takes a small – small for the Zeit Device, but a giant leap for mankind – 100-year step upwards on its imperceptibly slow, but deliberate journey to a new millennium.

Zeit Device Back View:

Additional Resources:

• Urwerk official page