Not counting the five weeks of trial and adjustment that every Atmos has to undergo.

Because every Atmos is still made entirely by hand and with some models a single clock takes a whole month to produce. Connoisseurs of elegant forms, precious materials and traditional craftsmanship, do so as well. An Atmos can therefore expect to enjoy a service life of a good 600 years, although with today's air pollution a through cleaning is recommended about every twenty years.Īdmirers of advanced technology, however, aren't the only ones who get their money's worth. So it's not surprising that 60 million Atmos clocks together consume no more energy that one 15-watt light bulb.Īll its other parts, too, are not only of the highest precision, but also practically wear-free.

The balance, for example, executes only two torsional oscillations per minute, which is 150 times slower that the pendulum in a conventional clock. To convert this small amount of energy into motion, everything inside the Atmos naturally has to work as smoothly and quietly as possible. This motion constantly winds the mainspring, a variation in temperature of only one degree in the range between 15 and 30 degrees centigrade being sufficient for two days' operation. The technical principle is a beguiling one: inside a hermetically sealed capsule is a mixture of gas and liquid (ethyl chloride) which expands as the temperature rises and contracts as it falls, making the capsule move like a concertina. And to perfect it to such a degree that the Atmos practically achieved perpetual motion. But it took the Jaeger-LeCoultre workshop a few more years to convert this idea into a technical form that could be patented. In 1928 a Neuchatel engineer called Jean-Leon Reutter built a clock driven quite literally by air.

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