High Frequency, Low Fidelity

Anyone who wants to know what time it is these days has quite a few options. Your smartphone knows. Your car knows. Your computer knows. Your oven probably does too.

A mechanical watch is therefore a surprisingly elaborate solution to this task. Gears, springs, an escapement, a balance wheel – often hundreds of individual parts – just so that two or three hands can go round.

Marvellous.

Because this is precisely where the fascination begins. We no longer wear mechanical watches because we’d be late for the train without them. We wear them because they can do something that goes far beyond simply telling the time. They make technology visible. They give time a form. And at their best, they tell a story that we’re happy to carry around with us on our wrists.

This is not just a romantic claim by a watch enthusiast. The figures back it up remarkably well. In the first half of 2025, mechanical watches accounted for a full 86 per cent of Swiss wristwatch export turnover. And this in a world where a quartz watch is more accurate and every smartphone constantly synchronises its time. Mind you: the figure describes the export value, not the number of units or sales to end customers.

The major 2025 Deloitte watch study, which surveyed 6,500 consumers, also shows that pure functionality no longer explains everything. Only 26 per cent cited telling the time as a reason for buying a watch. Among millennials, ‘rewarding oneself’ (23 per cent) even ranked ahead of ‘telling the time’ and ‘looking good’ (20 per cent each).

A watch measures time. What we buy is obviously something else entirely.

When history doesn’t end up in a museum

At Zenith, you can currently see quite clearly how this ‘something a little different’ is taking shape.

The manufacture in Le Locle has the ideal conditions for this. Founded in 1865, with its own workshops, its own history and, since 1969, the El Primero – a name familiar even to those who haven’t yet lost themselves entirely in the world of watches.

The crucial thing, however, is what you do with such a legacy. You can preserve it: reissue old models as faithfully as possible, celebrate anniversaries and delve into the archives. That can work wonderfully well. It becomes more interesting, however, when history serves as material for new ideas.

That is precisely why I like the collaboration between Zenith and USM so much.

On paper, this initially sounds like one of those collaborations of which the consumer world now has no shortage. A watch brand meets a furniture brand. Two logos, a launch, a few nice pictures, and off we go.

Here, however, the situation is different.

USM patented its modular Haller system in 1965. Four years later, Zenith unveiled both the original DEFY and the El Primero. Two Swiss companies, two completely different products, and yet a remarkably similar vision of how technology and design can come together. The construction is not hidden. It determines the form.

The piece is accompanied by a mirrored USM Haller unit – specially commissioned for the project – which can hold up to 24 watches. This one-of-a-kind piece will be auctioned on 5 December 2026 at the TimeForArt charity auction organised by the Swiss Institute at Phillips in New York. The proceeds will go to the Swiss Institute.

Of course, we could talk about the El Primero 400, five hertz, 36,000 vibrations per hour and a 55-hour power reserve. All true. But what interests me almost even more about this watch is why the collaboration works.

USM and Zenith do not share an artificially contrived lifestyle. They share an approach to the product: design, modularity, colour, Swiss industrial history. That is why the whole thing doesn’t feel contrived. Two identities give rise to a third story. And stories turn products into things we remember.

An El Primero without a chronograph

Things get even more exciting with a second new Zenith.

The CHRONOMASTER Solo Sport looks less spectacular at first glance. And that is precisely why it’s worth a second look. For the first time, the CHRONOMASTER is available as a three-hand watch. No chronograph. No three sub-dials. This is quite remarkable; after all, the El Primero has been one of the most famous chronograph movements in the watchmaking world since 1969. Zenith itself describes the original El Primero as the first automatic, integrated high-frequency chronograph calibre.

Now, of all things, Zenith is removing the very function with which its own history is so closely linked.

What remains?

The frequency.

Inside, the El Primero 3620 operates at five hertz or 36,000 half-vibrations per hour. The movement is based on the El Primero 3600 and offers a 60-hour power reserve. The 40-millimetre case, the unidirectional rotating ceramic bezel and 20 ATM water resistance make this a sports watch that’s well suited to everyday wear.

I find the dial even more interesting. Zenith has developed a visible design language based on the technical concept of high frequency. A repeating ‘Z’ rotated by 45 degrees forms a distinctive pattern, complemented by a ‘Shark Tooth’ minute track inspired by historic Zenith designs.

At first glance, that sounds like a minor detail. For a brand, however, it is anything but. After all, what is a strong product design if not a shape that you recognise before you’ve even read the name?

Perhaps this is even one of the Solo Sport’s particular strengths. It shows that El Primero can be more than just a complication. Five hertz become part of the identity. A good story doesn’t get any better simply by telling it over and over again. You have to do something with it.

And this is precisely where the subtle difference lies. ‘Since 1865’ is something you can write on a dial, a website or a shop wall. Meaning only arises when 1865 still has something to do with the product in the year 2026. This is the case with both watches: USM turns history into a dialogue. The Solo Sport turns technology into a design code.

Low Fidelity for five hertz

The more digital our world becomes, the more interesting objects become whose origins and functions we can still understand. A spring stores energy. Gears transmit it. A balance wheel oscillates. A hand moves. You can watch a mechanical movement at work.

And that brings us to LOW FIDELITY.

For me, the mechanical watch is one of the most beautiful low-fidelity products of all. Not because its technology is simple. At Zenith, the opposite is true. Five hertz is high frequency.

Here, ‘low fidelity’ means something else: a direct relationship between person, object and function. A technology that does not disappear entirely into a black box. An object that is allowed to age, can be repaired and may one day belong to someone else.

A scientific study on luxury watches published this year sums it up in three fine words: value beyond function. The researchers examined 64 mechanical watches from 33 brands based in Switzerland, Germany and Japan. Their question was what proportion of list prices and secondary market prices is attributable to brand value. Among the findings are that brand characteristics, rarity, the inclusion of sophisticated complications and iconic product features can create a halo effect that extends far beyond a watch’s practical value.

An aside in the study is almost even more interesting. Mechanical watches are particularly durable products that can be repaired over decades and passed down through generations. Ironically, a technology that might seem old-fashioned compared to electronics thus possesses a remarkably contemporary quality.

Not everything has to become faster, more invisible or more efficient. Some things are allowed to click, swing and tick. Some things are meant to be understood. Some things are meant to stay. And if they’re beautiful – so much the better.

More than just the time

You could see this as the real punchline: these days, we no longer need mechanical watches to tell the time. They can be technology, design, a memento, a status symbol, a toy or a passion.

And sometimes even all of these things at once.

These days, simply telling the time is almost the least important thing.

What makes a brand credible

In any case, origin alone is not enough. Brand research has long been concerned with so-called heritage brands. A study in the *Journal of Brand Management* reaches an interesting conclusion: The perceived authenticity of historic brands is determined above all by uniqueness, credibility and continuity over time. A brand does not need to preserve its past. However, its present should still have a clear connection to it.

Even the supposedly ‘soft’ topic of craftsmanship can now be examined with surprising precision. A study published in 2026 surveyed 457 and 377 consumers of luxury brands respectively in two separate investigations. For them, perceived craftsmanship involved more than just high quality: skills passed down through the generations, dedication to the manufacturing process and a certain down-to-earth quality also played a part. And the more strongly this craftsmanship was perceived, the stronger the brand loyalty proved to be.

Design, provenance, construction, history: these are not merely attractive elements surrounding a product. At best, they are the very reason why a product acquires any significance at all.

→ zenith-watches.com