Meet the new Omega Speedmaster Master Chronometer, the harbinger of the line. The history of the Speedmaster collection stretches backwards as far as 1957. But with the new Master Chronometer collection of the Speedmaster, the future is already here.
The new Speedmaster Master Chronometer is a chronograph that meets and exceeds the requirements for being a COSC-certified chronometer. The new timepiece carries the look of the classic one, but it has a modern sensibility about it, and if anything, has been made even more exactingly precise by meeting the standards of a METAS Master Chronometer.
The first version of the new model is cased in stainless steel with a matte-black dial and a ceramic bezel. There is also an 18K Sedna ™ gold version with a blue dial, and a ceramic bezel with a Ceragold ™ tachymeter scale.
Omega’s Speedmaster is already justly famous, as it accompanied the astronauts to the Moon. 2017 shows us what Omega has planned for the collection, with two watches leading the charge of the Speedmaster Master Chronometer. The Speedmaster has always embodied the most modern vision of what the Omega motor sports watch should be. In 1968 Omega introduced their Racing Dial into the Speedmaster collection, and kept it there throughout its incarnations in the 1990s and the early Oughts.In a way it has come to signify the collection itself. Now, in 2017, the Speedmaster still maintains the Racing Dial and its fast-forward design sense. We see the world – or at least the race track – through Omega’s cutting-edge eyes.
The new Speedmaster Master Chronometer is no stranger to style. But it’s not what it looks like that’s important, it’s what it can do. Form follows function, and with the new Speedmaster Master Chronometer collection, it is the magnificent function that gives it such excellent form.
By bringing the Speedmaster to the Master Chronometer class, Omega has improved a timepiece that already had a reputation that was literally out of this world, by making sure that their standards were even higher. The Omega Master Chronometer designation requires a timepiece to fulfill 8 very demanding standards, of varying types. These guidelines are set by METAS, which is the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology. (METAS is not Omega’s partner in this, it’s more like they’re the quality control. At any point, and for no reason at all, METAS can pull out and test an Omega Master Chronometer watch movement and make sure it’s meeting the standards.)
METAS is responsible for the accuracy of measuring and testing in all of Switzerland. For a watch to qualify as a master Chronometer, the requirements include continuing to function while within a 15,000 Gauss magnetic field, reliable functioning even when the watch is at the limit of its power reserve, and the ability to function while underwater.
The reason for these extremely strict requirements is inherent in the name that Omega has given the designation: Master Chronometer. It might help to think if it as “A chronometer, and then some.” A chronometer, by strict (and legal) definition, has to be declared as such by COSC, the official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute. Hence the term, “COSC-certified chronometer.” That term is actually a bit redundant, since there is no other kind. A watch may be a watch, but it isn’t a chronometer unless COSC says it is.
“Omega has improved a timepiece that already had a reputation that was literally out of this world”
Now, a MASTER Chronometer means that Omega has created watches that not only met the COSC requirements, but go beyond them. A Master Chronometer meets all the COSC specifics, but also those laid out by METAS.
All of this is Omega’s way of quite officially making their watches even more precise, even more accurate, and even more reliable than they already are. It means that in their quest for precision, the Omega Speedmaster Master Chronometer has gone just a little bit farther. Not bad for a watch that’s already been to the Moon.
