Watch winders and similar accessories is one of the supplemental areas of horology that is adapting and changing the fastest as technology develops. While in watchmaking itself there is often a focus on tradition and preserving heritage crafts, the world of winders has no such hang-ups. And now Audemars Piguet are pushing the technology further with the launch of their Intelligent Watch Box, produced in partnership with the Dubai Future Foundation (a Dubai based applied research and robotics initiative).
The new box, which measures 20cm x 12cm x 15cm and weighs 2kg, is capable of not only winding the watch inside but also setting its perpetual calendar function to the correct time and date in its entirety. Currently this is only possible on Audemars Piguet’s latest generation of 41mm Royal Oak Perpetual Calendars housing the Calibre 7138, launched earlier this year. That’s because that calibre introduced the all-in-one crown where every perpetual calendar function is adjusted through a single crown, eliminating the various pushers or extra crowns found on other calendar models.
What that means is that the Intelligent Watch Box is able to mechanically hold the crown and perform the precise movements of setting the perpetual calendar. In order to set it correctly, it uses an internal camera to actually look at the face of your watch and then use an AI program to recognise the current position of the hands and functions and then use a computer program to translate that into how to adjust the watch to the correct setting – all of which is completed in 5 minutes.
It might sound like a fantasy to say ‘the AI looks at your watch and recognises the time’ but I can say from first-hand experience that this is a genuine application of machine learning – at university my engineering student roommate was developing an AI program to do exactly this but in the context of recognising when a plant needs watering rather than when a watch needs setting. By comparison I imagine a watch is much easier to analyse than a plant because there are only a set number of configurations a watch face can be in, so a finite number of things the AI has to remember.
Obviously, the application of this Intelligent Watch Box is currently fairly limited. It only works for one calibre in one model from one brand. However, as with all things it’s about incremental improvements to the watch collecting experience. I wonder, for example, if winders will eventually be able to integrate both this setting device and the Micro-Reg technology from Horage to create a truly all-in-one watch box.
More details at Audemars Piguet.
