The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Guys just wanna share this complete video clip on the making of the Chronomat that I found nice to watch(below). Rather educational for people like me who doesn't know much about and wanna learn more about watches. For those who want to see the face of the designer who came up with the Buck Rogers bezel, you can find him in the clip...After watching the video I seem to understand and appreciate the reasons why Breitling doesn't engage feedback from the public on the designs. An instrument for professionals requires high legibility and functions that are useful to them. Just like why they did away with the old rider tabs despite being popular and designed the new Buck Rogers font that polarized opinions. Imagine yourself as one of those in the acrobat team. At certain times you need to estimate your elapsed time within a split second. Having rider tabs can divert your attention and delay your time in retrieving the information you want in the shortest possible time, I believe that's the reason why they didn't even input intermediate rider tabs in between the numbers. IMO even the square in the dial comes with reasons for it. I believe it has something to do with legibility. Having a square within the dial is distinctive and brings the user's attention right to the centre of the dial and it connects the different sub dials by passing through their centre points. The inner square is texturized and treated with a lighter matte, I didn't understand the reason for that until a few months ago I was standing under the sun and when I checked the time, I noticed that the outer square had light reflections because of the strong sunlight while the inner square didn't which as a result I could see the time and even the info on the sub dials clearly without any difficulties. That was when I realized that the lighter matte with texturized surface was meant to discourage reflection and enhance legibility. As the hour markers and hands are highly polished, they reflect light especially under strong sunlight that affects vision and the "square" could somehow counter that and optimize legibility. The dial is busy with information but however it isn't difficult to retrieve every information on the dial quickly with the current design which IMO, very orderly positioned. I believe it is also the reason why the sub-dial position was changed from 6-9-12 to 3-6-9. However when it comes to the mass, people are more concerned about aesthetic appeal and whether the heritage of the design is maintained. Tastes are always different among individuals so IMO they prefer to disregard feedback from the mass and have just simply designed their watches according to a professional's needs. I actually like the way they design watches with functionality as top priority. The only exception that I am still in the midst of trying to accept is their Bentley series. It seems that they are adopting a luxurious approach more than functionality and legibility in this series. I can understand because they want to reach out to consumers of different sectors. Not every buyer wants to buy a timeless and classic looking watch everytime to keep long term. If I am a rich man with already plenty of classic watches in my collection I will be willing to look into one from this series to add to my collections, they might not be classics but something different and IMO they are great looking watches to match with my sport cars!

To summarize, I believe Breitling is moving in the right direction, but just that I personally hope to see more classics along the way. Every individual series are recognizable by their own distinct features which I think is a good thing and hope Breitling can continue to maintain that DNA from now since they are already moving towards in-house so the sense of identity must even maintain to be on par or even surpass successful brands like Rolex in future. Enjoy the video

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hIiGRKbEHIE&feature=relmfu

_________________
Breitling Chronomat 01 Limited Edition
Breitling Navitimer 01 46mm

Outstanding! Amazing to finally see what is intuitive the amount of craftmenship of a Breitling. How the quartz ever challenged the mechanical movement is beyond belief. Reminds you also how amazing these instruments are and how they operate 24/7 under all conditions under constantly changing positions. Human engineering will always amaze.

Great video! However I did notice something interesting... At the 10 mi ute mark, they mentioned that breitling has a patented technology for the date dial, so the date can be changed at any time, without ruining the watch.

I would have to assume that this is only for the NEW Chronomats right?

Very cool feature!

_________________
Past: BlackBird, Navi World, SA, Rolex DJII, IWC Yacht Club
Present: CE, DSSD
Future: Changes daily

To my understanding among Breitling series, only those with in-house can change the date anytime without worrying about danger zone. For other brands there should be several models with such features too but I am not sure which.

_________________
Breitling Chronomat 01 Limited Edition
Breitling Navitimer 01 46mm

All of Breitling's in house have a quick set date and date can be changed anytime. Same applies to modern Rolex with the quickset, for example.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

_________________
SHARKMAN

It also applies to some of the non in house models with instant date change - Cockpit is an example.

Which Rolex models have this feature?

_________________
Breitling Chronomat 01 Limited Edition
Breitling Navitimer 01 46mm

Basically every current model.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

_________________
SHARKMAN

Great video

Over dramatic, it's like a sales promotion video.

Great video. Thanks fro sharing.

It's clear that you can never harm the Daytona caliber by correcting the date anytime...
Sorry for joking, no offense here!

_________________
Chronomat 41 BEB, Steelfish Chrono BEB, 2x Grand Premier, Chrono Cockpit 39 mm, Aerospace Avantage 79362
IWC 3706, 3705, 376706, 371928
Sinn 103 plexy
For sale: Sinn 356 II, Porsche Design Titan Chrono Valjoux
Wanted: Breitling Blackbird 13353 on bracelet