As we report in the August/September issue of Europa Star, Urwerk heralds the dawn of a new era in mechanical timekeeping with the launch of the world’s first watch with an on-board monitoring device and the possibility for the wearer to directly adjust the active length of the balance spring and thus the going rate of the watch.

EMC, or Electro Mechanical Control, is the name that Urwerk has chosen for this new watch. The “control” part is ensured by an optical sensor, which takes its power from a super capacitor (the “electro” part) that is charged by a generator that is manually wound by the wearer and takes a three-second measurement of the oscillations of the balance (the more familiar “mechanical” part of the watch). The “brains” of the EMC, an integrated circuit board, compare the result against a reference signal from a 16 Megahertz oscillator and the variation from this reference signal, expressed in seconds per day gained or lost, is displayed on a sub-dial at 10 o’clock.

EMC by Urwerk

Based on the information provided in this display, the wearer can then fine tune the oscillations of the balance wheel by directly adjusting the active length of the balance spring using a screw accessible on the back of the watch.

Urwerk is keen to stress that the EMC remains a genuine mechanical watch at its heart. The electronic elements are used merely for monitoring, just as the many electronic elements in a modern automobile are mere aids to the mechanical heart that is its engine. Nevertheless, the EMC not only gives the wearer access to data that has hitherto been reserved for watchmakers in their workshops but also allows them to interact directly with the movement based on this data.

Complicated: An exploded view of the EMC by Urwerk

The EMC is one of two examples featured in the August/September issue of technology that has been miniaturised for use in a wristwatch (the other being Hoptroff’s atomic pocket watch) and will offer the clearest indication of how positional changes and factors such as temperature, pressure and shocks can affect the timing of a watch movement.

See the technical specification of the Urwerk EMC in our Watch Gallery.