Those who innovate

Those who innovate

Order a watch... from your car

SWATCH

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By Europa Star

June 2019

Is it the «McDrive» of watchmaking? Swatch, with its usual facetiousness, has just opened a drive-thru store in its Swiss hometown. Presentation.

Order a watch... from your car

SWATCH

Español Français

By Europa Star

June 2019

Order a watch... from your car

Is it the «McDrive» of watchmaking? Swatch, with its usual facetiousness, has just opened a drive-thru store in its Swiss hometown. Presentation.

I

n a tribute to its hometown, Swatch recently opened its first drive-thru store at the intersection of the Nicolas G. Hayek and Jacob Stämpfli streets in Biel. The Swiss watch brand is now offering “food for the wrist”...

Anyone approaching the new Swatch building by car or bicycle can thus order a watch in two easy steps, all the while sitting comfortably. A screen displays the Swatch product range: simply select your favourite watch, pay for it and take it with you.

The watches offered at the drive-thru are served in special packaging only available in this store. Customers with a little more time can also enter the new pavilion.

The new Swatch drive-thru in pictures...

Order a watch... from your car

Order a watch... from your car

Order a watch... from your car

Order a watch... from your car

WATCH FILES
Those who innovate

“Greubel Forsey is about fundamental research”

“Greubel Forsey is about fundamental research”

Over the course of its 20-year existence, Greubel Forsey has presented ten Fundamental Inventions. The tenth, which coincides with the brand’s twentieth (...)

“The tighter margins become, the greater AI's relevance for the luxury industry”

“The tighter margins become, the greater AI’s relevance for the luxury industry”

Digital Luxury Group (DLG), a specialist in digital marketing and analysis for luxury brands, has acquired Re-Hub, an artificial intelligence platform for (...)

Watchmaking's new clothes

Watchmaking’s new clothes

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New Materials

New Materials

GALLERY

COSC: competition for the arbiter of precision horology

COSC: competition for the arbiter of precision horology

The Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute, the COSC, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023. This non-profit foundation has played a crucial role (...)

Société Suisse de Chronométrie: 100 years of innovation

Société Suisse de Chronométrie: 100 years of innovation

PORTRAIT

Dedicated to the knowledge sharing and technology transfer that spurs all watchmaking innovations, the SSC is one of the (few) actors that prove it is (...)

Purtec's watchmaking dream team

Purtec’s watchmaking dream team

Arnaud Faivre founded TEC Ebauches in 2008, rapidly developed its offerings, diversified its business and on that basis launched the TEC Group in 2018. (...)

Bovet Récital 28 Prowess 1: a spectacular world first

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Ludwig Oechslin: “The Freak opened up decades of possibility”

Ludwig Oechslin: “The Freak opened up decades of possibility”

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The watchmaker who registered the very first Swiss patent

The watchmaker who registered the very first Swiss patent

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APRESDEMAIN: Rethinking watch communication

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Horage: a “tech-mech” watch company

Horage: a “tech-mech” watch company

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APRESDEMAIN: Rethinking watch communication for after tomorrow

APRESDEMAIN: Rethinking watch communication for after tomorrow

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Concepto, the integrated watch factory

Concepto, the integrated watch factory

MOVEMENTS

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SilMach revolutionises 50 years of quartz calibres

SilMach revolutionises 50 years of quartz calibres

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Timelab perpetuates Geneva's horological reputation

Timelab perpetuates Geneva’s horological reputation

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Ressence reinvents the crown

Ressence reinvents the crown

A watch that never needs winding? An electronic module that interacts with a mechanical movement to automatically perform the functions of a traditional (...)

Stephen McDonnell, MB&F's movement wizard

Stephen McDonnell, MB&F’s movement wizard

PORTRAIT

Winner of the Aiguille d’Or at the 2022 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, the LM Sequential EVO takes a completely different view of the chronograph. We were (...)

The Tempus Fugit project: time flies with no return

The Tempus Fugit project: time flies with no return

As everyone knows, but tries not to think about, our time will one day run out. That is written into our DNA. It was handed down to us from our ancestors (...)

AIS Collective, a Swiss start-up taking care of watches

AIS Collective, a Swiss start-up taking care of watches

PORTRAIT

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The accelerating race for new materials

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Octo Finissimo Ultra: how Bulgari broke an eighth record

Octo Finissimo Ultra: how Bulgari broke an eighth record

The model is only 1.80 mm thick from the caseback to the top of the sapphire crystal – as thin as a 20 cent coin. On the 10th anniversary of the Octo (...)

Sapphire: the quest for transparency

Sapphire: the quest for transparency

INNOVATION

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Displays: watches in ethereal suspension

Displays: watches in ethereal suspension

INNOVATION

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Innovation: the lifeblood of watchmaking

Innovation: the lifeblood of watchmaking

REPORT

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The CSEM brings life to the dial

The CSEM brings life to the dial

INNOVATION

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Recycling self-luminous watches

Recycling self-luminous watches

INNOVATION

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Swatch's new plastic

Swatch’s new plastic

INNOVATION

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Decoration: a new rainbow PVD

Decoration: a new rainbow PVD

INNOVATION

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Breguet's flexible hands: when innovation becomes poetry

Breguet’s flexible hands: when innovation becomes poetry

REINE DE NAPLES

Watch hands are rigid by nature and describe a perfect circle. And so the first watches were quite naturally round and the vast majority of them are still (...)

Silicon: the gateway to the future of mechanical watches?

Silicon: the gateway to the future of mechanical watches?

INNOVATION

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Behind the scenes: Omega's R&D in the 21st century

Behind the scenes: Omega’s R&D in the 21st century

INNOVATION

Co-Axial escapement, silicon balance spring, 18K Sedna gold: while continuing to draw inspiration from the 1950s, Omega has fully revamped both the (...)

Why white platinum will topple rhodium in watches

Why white platinum will topple rhodium in watches

INNOVATION

Historically, ébauches have been rhodium-plated for a very long time. But now that rhodium has become the most expensive metal in the world, a genuine (...)

The (near-)perfect tourbillon is within reach

The (near-)perfect tourbillon is within reach

INNOVATION

It has been an acknowledged fact for several decades that the tourbillon, invented by Abraham-Louis Breguet to offset the effects of gravity in pocket (...)

“In Switzerland, there is fintech and medtech but no luxtech”

“In Switzerland, there is fintech and medtech but no luxtech”

INTERVIEW

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Initium: the time is right for home watch assembly

Initium: the time is right for home watch assembly

HOROLOGICAL WORKSHOPS

The events sector has been badly affected by the pandemic. A Swiss company that specialises in running introductory watchmaking workshops, Initium, is (...)

MicroLean Lab: an industrial breakthrough

MicroLean Lab: an industrial breakthrough

INNOVATION

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Success story: a reorientation towards protective masks

Success story: a reorientation towards protective masks

PORTRAIT

With the pandemic now a part of everyday life, mask production is becoming a huge industrial market. Thousands of factories have opened in China to produce (...)

Bulgari's Octo Finissimo, behind the scenes

Bulgari’s Octo Finissimo, behind the scenes

INTERVIEW

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Jacob & Co. The Astronomia Art Phoenix

Jacob & Co. The Astronomia Art Phoenix

WHEN INNOVATION MEANS EXTRAVAGANCE

You have to actually handle this incredible timepiece at least once to fully appreciate its absolute extravagance.

Bovet 1822: The Brainstorm Chapter Two

Bovet 1822: The Brainstorm Chapter Two

WHEN INNOVATION IS A STAGE

Back in 2016, Bovet introduced into their collections a highly innovative, asymmetric case in the shape of an antique writing slope. Here comes a new (...)

A Swiss R&D team introduces “hosted watch manufacturing”

A Swiss R&D team introduces “hosted watch manufacturing”

NEW CONCEPT

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Mauron Musy: a new sealing technology

Mauron Musy: a new sealing technology

WHEN INNOVATION IS WATER-RESISTANCE

Born as a spin-off of a Swiss sub-contractor specialising in exteriors and precision machining for watchmakers, Mauron Musy has built its reputation as (...)

Romain Gauthier: The Insight Micro-Rotor Squelette

Romain Gauthier: The Insight Micro-Rotor Squelette

WHEN INNOVATION IS DECORATION

Exactly 350 hours of anglage and polishing per watch. Or, as one of the anglage specialists at Romain Gauthier puts it, “a genuine test of mental strength. (...)

Girard-Perregaux: The Cosmos Infinity

Girard-Perregaux: The Cosmos Infinity

WHEN INNOVATION MEANS TWO GLOBES

A solar day contains 24 hours. A sidereal day, the exact measurement of celestial time, lasts 23 hours and 56 minutes. To do full justice to this minute (...)

Urwerk: the UR-100

Urwerk: the UR-100

WHEN INNOVATION MEANS SPACE-TIME

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Louis Moinet: The Space Revolution

Louis Moinet: The Space Revolution

WHEN INNOVATION IS SCIENCE FICTION

We already knew that Jean-Marie Schaller, the CEO of Louis Moinet – named after the astronomercum- watchmaker who had more or less fallen into oblivion – (...)

De Bethune: the DB28 Steel Wheels Sapphire Tourbillon

De Bethune: the DB28 Steel Wheels Sapphire Tourbillon

WHEN INNOVATION IS TRANSPARENCY AND LIGHTNESS

Denis Flageollet, the founder and master watchmaker at De Bethune, has always said he takes his inspiration from classic, high-end horology while (...)

Bernhard Lederer's Central Impulse Chronometer

Bernhard Lederer’s Central Impulse Chronometer

WHEN INNOVATION MEANS TWO ESCAPE WHEELS

We might as well say it straight out: it is absolutely impossible to sum up here every feature that constitutes the huge originality of the calibre 9012, (...)

Ferdinand Berthoud: the Chronomètre FB 2RE

Ferdinand Berthoud: the Chronomètre FB 2RE

WHEN INNOVATION MEANS COMBINATION

The Chronomètre FB 2RE, the architecture and modular case of which are directly inspired by the Marine No. 6 clock built by the great horologist Ferdinand (...)

Artificial Intelligence: the next big thing for the watch industry?

Artificial Intelligence: the next big thing for the (...)

THE WATCH FILES Since the dramatic fall from grace of crypto and NFTs, attention has turned to artificial intelligence. But is AI just the latest in a long line of (...)

SevenFriday: solid expertise in community building

SevenFriday: solid expertise in community building

THE WATCH FILES Using blockchain to power an inclusive community, SevenFriday’s spin-off UPO7F will offer its platform and in-house technology as a service to other watch (...)

Jacob & Co. blazes a trail for NFT-crossover watchmaking

Jacob & Co. blazes a trail for NFT-crossover (...)

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