QUALITY, PASSION AND PERFORMANCE
Opened in 2001, the Breitling Chronometrie is the heart of our watchmaking expertise and innovation. The choice of location was obvious: La Chaux-de-Fonds, the center of Swiss watchmaking, and the city where our founder Léon Breitling opened his first full-fledged factory more than 100 years earlier. Combining a research laboratory and a cutting-edge workshop, the Breitling Chronometrie is dedicated to the design, development and meticulous assembly of our watches. Intricate, ultra-precise adjustments to the hundredth, or even thousandth, of a second are performed by a team of expert horologists and technicians with decades of experience.
In-house innovation
Our manufacture calibers are subject to painstaking quality control. It takes ten months of production and 1,000 tests to achieve COSC certification. Just as gruelling is our in-house 16-year accelerated aging equivalency for manufacture movements that includes shock testing (approx. 60,000 shocks at 500G), crown testing (more than 100,000 crown winds), winding of the oscillating weight (3,456,000 weight turns) and chronograph pusher testing (approx. 5,840 start-stop-reset engagements). Only once it has passed every test, can a Breitling watch leave the Chronometrie.
BREITLING CALIBERS
With such labor-intensive production required at the volume of watches we produce, outsourcing some of our entry-level and highly specialized movements allows us to continually meet the demand for our watches at the standards we require. And whether a movement originates at Breitling or is supplied by a partner, every one must achieve COSC certification.
Get to know the entire Breitling caliber family.
Although often used interchangeably with “in-house,” manufacture is the more accurate term to describe the top-of-the-line movements engineered by Breitling or co-engineered for Breitling by a highly regarded collaborator. Breitling watches feature both. These include our Breitling Caliber 01-based chronograph complications, the B21 tourbillon chronograph from La Joux-Perret, the B25 full calendar from Concepto and the B20 time-only from Tudor (Kenissi).
These movements undergo rigorous testing to ensure high quality, including a 16-year accelerated aging equivalency. Breitling’s relationship with Tudor is reciprocal, with Tudor supplying components for the B20’s assembly at Breitling, while Breitling supplies the assembled COSC-certified Breitling Caliber 01 for Tudor’s chronograph watches. These collaborations allow Breitling to craft premium timepieces in larger quantities without sacrificing quality.
COMBINING CLASSIC WATCHMAKING WITH THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY, BREITLING IS BOTH A COMPANY WITH HISTORY AND ONE THAT’S AHEAD OF ITS TIME. THIS IS THE BRAND THAT INVENTED THE MODERN CHRONOGRAPH, AND TODAY IT MAINTAINS ITS PIONEERING SPIRIT BY CONSTANTLY INNOVATING FROM WITHIN.
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Patents
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INDUSTRIALIZATION
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Industry NIHS ISO standard:
- Precision: -4/+6 seconds/day COSC standard (NIHS 95-11)
- Power reserve: Min 60 hours (NIHS 93-20)
- Magnetic protection: 4,800 A/m (NIHS 90-10)
- Shock: 4 shocks at 500G (NIHS 91-10, NIHS 93-20)
- Water resistance: ISO 2281 compliance (NIHS 92-10)
- Chronofiable: Chronofiable® A8, six-month accelerated aging (NIHS 93-20)
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Breitling uses an optical camera to precisely quality check the hairspring on the escapement (an object thinner than a human hair).
16-year accelerated aging (32 times the Chronofiable® A8 requirement):
- Crown: 100,000 crown winds
- Oscillating weight: 3,456,000 weight turns
- Chronograph pusher: 5,840 start-stop-reset functions
- Case: Salt spray corrosion testing
- Bezel: 2,000 turns
- Dial and strap: 168 hours of UV testing
- Shock: 60,000 shocks at 500G
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Breitling’s state-of-the-art laboratory uses such high-tech tools as:
- A robot that tests the chronographs’ start, stop and reset functions
- A scanning electron microscope (SEM) that verifies constructions and analyzes materials
- A high-speed camera that captures high-frequency components, like the chronoworks escapement
SWISS MADE QUALITY
MANUFACTURED TO THE HIGHEST STANDARDS, BREITLING WATCHES ARE DESIGNED TO PERFORM IN ANY ENVIRONMENT AND ON ANY MISSION. BREITLING PRODUCED THE FIRST SWISS WRISTWATCH THAT WENT TO SPACE AND WAS A CHOICE OF 007 AGENT JAMES BOND.
BREITLING’S WATCHMAKERS, CREATORS AND BRAND ARCHITECTS ALL SHARE A PASSION FOR EXCEPTIONAL DESIGN.