![]() ![]() ![]() When you first look at the Powermatic movement, you might be tricked into thinking it is just a reworked ETA 2824-2, with some improvements. The Powermatic wasn’t only an evolution of the 2824-2, it was created to make its predecessor, with its patent expiring, obsolete. Now, that tells us quite a lot about the importance of this movement. Exactly the time that the company was starting to see the first legal problems from Nicholas Hayek’s 2002 declaration to cease supplying ébauches to companies outside the group. Knowing that the movement was first introduced in 2011, and the target was to ensure an industrial process – which means that an adapted infrastructure had to be built up before starting even with small series – it must have been around 2005-2006. So we can only make an educated guess here. When exactly Swatch Group took the decision to take the big step to thoroughly improve its powerhouse is not exactly known, as Swatch Group does not communicate about development work. The initial request came from different brands in the mid-price segment of Swatch Group (Tissot, Certina, Mido and Hamilton) and ETA was set to lead the development. And that made it a very high priority for Swatch Group to come up with a better and even more efficient movement. But the most problematic of all: the patent of the movement was expiring. The movement is also so common that it is hard to differentiate Swatch Group brands from other competitors in the market. Its power reserve, for example, is not impressive (38 hours). Despite its success, the 2824-2 does have some shortcomings. Still, ETA and Swatch Group, in general, felt the need to improve their product in order to keep ahead of the competition. It has set the bar of what a basic mechanical movement should be. It is reliable, robust, accurate and quite cheap to produce in mass. The ETA 2824-2 movement is the stronghold of the company, the best-known and most widely used mechanical movement of all. ![]() The position of ETA is so strong it had to ( and still has to) fight legal battles against misusing its monopoly position. Eterna is currently in a very unfortunate position and struggling to stay alive, while ETA is the thriving movement production powerhouse of Swatch Group. But the fate of both companies couldn’t be more different. Still, ties remained strong and in a way, the biggest workhorse in watchmaking history, the ETA 2824-2, was their love child.īoth ETA and Eterna were never the artisans they’ve always been the industrial engineers. ETA was set up in 1856 as a separate movement-production branch from Eterna and the two companies were forced to split in 1932 by the Swiss government. Eterna, back then, was a world leader of automatic movements – its first use of ball bearings in the Eterna-Matic in 1948 really changed Swiss watchmaking forever. Its base was the ETA 2824-2, which itself was an evolution from the classic Eterna 1427 movement, that at the time of its introduction in 1955 was the world’s thinnest automatic movement. The Powermatic movement, or ETA calibre C07.111 as it is officially known, was introduced in 2011, but its roots go way deeper. ETA’s headquarter in Biel (Bienne), where Swatch Group produces most of its standard movements (mechanical and quartz) The predecessor – ETA 2824-2 But this time, we dive deeper into one of the workhorses that drive Swatch Group growth, the Powermatic movement. MONOCHROME is more about the high-end segment of the watchmaking industry the complicated movements, the perpetual calendars, the chiming watches, the exotic regulators, the independent watchmakers who create the most complex indications or tell the time in unusual ways. Entry-level, yes, but without being cheap. Have you ever wondered how Swatch Group brands like Tissot, Certina, Hamilton and Mido can make reliable, robust and accurate mechanical watches of good quality at very reasonable prices? Take a look inside the cases and you’ll see the answer ticking there: the movement that seriously raises the bar for the entire industry. ![]()
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