Not long ago, RICHARD MILLE launched the RM UP-01 ultra-thin watch, which broke the record with a thickness of 1.75 mm, becoming the world's thinnest mechanical watch. The price was also "record-breaking", with a public price of 1,700,000 Swiss francs, or about 11.67 million yuan.
RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01 Slim Meter
Richard Mille RM UP-01 ultra-thin watch, can become the world's first, but also defeated two major "former world firsts", namely the Earl Altiplano Ultimate Concept ultra-thin watch and bulgari Oto Finissimo Ultra ultra-thin watch.
RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01 Slim Meter
Today, I will talk to you about the top three ultra-thin watches in the world, and the core design of these three watches. The following will be in the order of the third, second, and first. Some of the movement structure pictures in the text come from foreign websites and forums, and the Chinese in the pictures are added by myself. Let's get started.
Third place, Count Altiplano Ultimate Concept
Count Altiplano Ultimate Concept
Watch thickness: 2 mm
Core design: The case bottom cover serves as the main splint of the movement, the single-layer layout of the movement, and the unique crown clutch gears.
Count Altiplano Ultimate Concept, internal construction.
Currently the third thinnest watch in the world, is the Earl Altiplano Ultimate Concept ultra-thin watch. The Earl Altiplano Ultimate Concept began its release in 2018 and became the "World Number One" at the time. Although the Count has now been surpassed by Bulgari and RICHARD MILLE and become the third in the world, in my heart, the Count Altiplano Ultimate Concept is the real king, because the Earl Altiplano Ultimate Concept has completely retained the movement structure of the traditional watch in the design, without any simplification and compromise, and achieved super thinness.
Count Altiplano Ultimate Concept ultra-thin watch
Piaget first directly used the watch bottom cover as the main splint of the movement, and installed the wheel train on the bottom cover of the watch, eliminating the traditional separate movement. Piaget spreads the gear train, barrel, balance wheel, escapement, all in a layer layout, eliminating the upper and lower layers in the traditional movement. Including the barrel and the balance wheel, they are also fixed to the ball bearing, replacing the traditional gear shaft, through these methods, the thickness is reduced.
The Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept uses the case case back as a movement splint.
At the same time, you can also see that the Count Altiplano Ultimate Concept retains the traditional hour hand and minute dial, and retains the traditional crown. The most exquisite design of the Earl Altiplano Ultimate Concept is the crown plucked needle wheel system. Because in the crown pin wheel system of mechanical watches, the clutch gears are all upright gears, which becomes the biggest obstacle to thinning. The count designed a "delicate" spiral clutch gear to make the "standing" gear "lie down". While retaining the traditional crown, the thickness is reduced.
Count Altiplano Ultimate Concept, crown pulled out of state.
Second place, Bulgari Oto Finissimo Ultra
Bulgari Oto Finissimo Ultra
Watch thickness: 1.8 mm
Core design: the case case back as the main splint of the movement, the single-layer layout of the movement, the separation of the hour and minute hands, and the abolition of the traditional crown.
Bulgari Oto Finissimo Ultra, internals.
Currently the second thinnest watch in the world, bulgari Occidental Finissimo Ultra ultra-thin watch. Starting in March 2022, bulgari Oto Finissimo Ultra broke the 2 mm record of the Count Altiplano Ultimate Concept, becoming the "world number one" with a thickness of 1.8 mm. Bulgari Oto Finissimo Ultra has eliminated some of the construction on traditional watches in order to further thin the thickness.
Bulgari Oto Finissimo Ultra ultra-thin watch
Bulgari also uses the watch's bottom cover as the main splint of the movement, and the wheel train is mounted on the back cover of the watch, eliminating the traditional independent movement. Bulgari Oto Finissimo Ultra is also a movement wheel train, all spread out, laid out on one floor. But one step closer than the count, Bulgari separated the hour and minute hands of the watch. The hour hand disc is at 2 o'clock and the minute hand disc is at 4 o'clock. The hour and minute hands are not on one axis, and the two hands do not overlap, reducing the thickness again. Bulgari Oto Finissimo Ultra retains a small seconds hand at 6 o'clock on the disk surface, which is the only watch with a small second hand in the 3 ultra-thin watches of Count, Bulgari and RICHARD MILLE.
Bulgari Oto Finissimo Ultra, using the case case back, acts as a movement bridge.
In the crown dialing wheel system, the biggest obstacle to ultra-thin watches, Bulgari Oto Finissimo Ultra chose to abandon the crown. In this way, there is no problem of solving the clutch gear of the crown. Bulgari's approach was to replace the crown function with two dials (two small wheels). A dial is placed 3 o'clock on the right side of the case to wind the watch. The other dial is located at 8 o'clock on the left side of the case, which is used to adjust the time. The Count Altiplano Ultimate Concept retains at least one crown clutch gear, and Bulgari does not need to clutch the gear at all, and the thickness is reduced a little.
In the yellow circle, it is the dial wheel used to adjust the time.
First place, RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01
RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01
Watch thickness: 1.75 mm
Core design: independent movement, single-layer layout of the movement, special escapement, abolition of the traditional crown.
RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01, internal construction.
At present, the world's famous watches, the first watch in the ultra-thin ranking, is this RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01 ultra-thin watch. The RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01, which was launched in July 2022, broke bulgari's record of 1.8 mm and became the "world number one" with a thickness of 1.75 mm. To achieve the thinnest in the world, the RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01 uses many unconventional designs.
RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01 with case and movement construction.
Richard Mille RM UP-01 is different from Piaget and Bulgari, RICHARD MILLE uses a separate movement, the thickness of the movement is 1.18 mm, after shelling, the whole watch is 1.75 mm. The reason why RICHARD MILLE wants to make a traditional independent movement, rather than like Piaget and Bulgari, the wheel train is directly mounted on the bottom cover of the watch, because RICHARD MILLE focuses on sports, has strength requirements for the watch (withstands 5000G gravity acceleration), puts the independent movement into the case, the movement is added in the middle, and the case can strengthen the watch. RM UP-01 This watch, the wheel train is also all spread out, the layout on the first floor.
Independent movement construction of the RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01.
RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01 winding, time-tuning keyhole.
On the issue of the crown dial, RICHARD MILLE completely abolished the crown, and even the dial on the Bulgari case did not have any. Only on the dial, the "keyhole" is retained. Insert the "five-corner key" to wind the watch and adjust the time (the 10-point keyhole is winded, adjust the time to choose the switch; The 8-point keyhole is winded and tuned time). On the RM UP-01, RICHARD MILLE's other design for further reducing the thickness was the use of a newly designed escapement, removing the limit nails of the pallet fork and removing the balance wheel double disc, so that the thickness of the escapement was reduced, which reduced the thickness a little bit. The world's first, that's how it came about.
RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01 balance and hairspring.
The special escapement of the RICHARD MILLE RM UP-01, note, like a straight-line escape fork, is very special.
Why, these super thin watches, are "sky-high"?
As you can see from the above, when the mechanical watch is thinned to a certain extent, it is necessary to change the traditional structure of the movement, redesign the structure of the movement, and redesign the key components. It is also necessary to ensure that the watch is basically strong, shockproof, and waterproof. This results in a significant increase in the complexity of the ultra-thin movement. It can be said that below 2 mm, reducing by 0.1 mm, will pay a huge "price", which is why this super thin watch is "sky-high price". (Photo/Text Watch House Yan Bomb Flat)