Monday, July 22, 2013

Atomic Pocket Watch

The people at Hoptroff have created the Hoptroff No. 10 movement, which is the world's first atomic-powered pocket watch. The London based manufacturer has indeed created a quantum leap in terms of movements. The Hoptroff No. 10 has within it's heart a highly accurate atomic clock. This is not a radio-receiving movement but an actual atomic clock. 

The Hoptroff No. 10 has a caesium gas chamber inside a temperature controlled oven with a laser to excite the atoms and a microwave resonator to measure their atomic transitions in order to measure time.  The atomic physics package is supplied by Symmetricom, a US Department of Defense supplier. 

The watch will feature a number of complications, all marine associated. The watch can be used for marine navigation. Best of all, the watch will be accurate to 1.5 seconds per thousand years. The watch comes in at 82 mm in diameter and is 25 mm thick. 

The final watch is expected to be revealed in this years Salon QP and only 12 will be manufactured initially. 

The watch... or rather the movement.


The dial side.


Photographs: Hoptroff

A breakdown of whats what....


1. Hours
2. Minutes
3. Seconds
4. Annual wheel
5. Magnetic compass
6. Longitude - coarse scale
7. Not shown due to patent applications 
8. Day of week
9. Humidity
10. Date
11. Sidereal seconds
12. Power remaining
13. Tide forecast
14. Tide height
15. Temperature
16. Atmospheric pressure
17. Latitude - minutes
18. Latitude - degrees
19. Sidereal hours
20. Sidereal minutes
21. Longitude - minutes
22. Longitude - degrees
23. Microwave resonator status
24. Charge status
25. Atomic resonance lock indicator
26. Clock status - atomic/ ACXO/ TCXO
27. Caesium oven status
28. Laser status

That's a lot of complications....

The movement side...


1. Symmetricom Chip Scale Atomic Clock
2. USB socket
3. 4 x pusher actuators
4. 9 x Soprod monomotors
6. 6 x PIC microcontrollers
7. 60 x side-emmitting LEDs
8. Flexipanel Bluetooth Low Energy radio
9. Sensirion humidity / temperature sensor
10. Measurement Specialities pressure sensor
11. Freescale magnetometer

The Lithium Polymer battery pack is sandwiched between the circuit boards.

For more information:


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