Lederer Central Impulse Chronometer Review

After forty years as a watchmaker, Bernard Lederer set out on his own and started a brand with a specific focus on escapements. For him, the escapement is the heart of a watch and an endless source of fascination. At the 2024 edition of Watches and Wonders, he debuted the first entry in his "Masters of Escapement" series: the Central Impulse Chronometer, which features an ingenious double wheel dual-impulse escapement. Here, each escape wheel requires its own complete geartrain and mainspring, a system envisioned by one of the 21^st century’s most prominent watchmakers, George Daniels. 

Daniels finally answered a question originally posed 200 years ago by one of the most famous watchmakers in horological history, Abraham-Louis Breguet, who in 1789 developed the echappement naturel, or natural escapement. Its two escape wheels (both within the same geartrain) could theoretically run without oil or any form of lubrication. But he immediately faced limitations such as backlash, inertia, and requiring more energy to run four wheels instead of just one. To compensate for this, Lederer employs two remontoires, which are secondary springs set at exact angles to provide a direct impulse to the balance wheel. Lederer also studied John Harrison's H4 Marine Chronometer from 1759 to help him figure out how to approach the challenge of a need for constant, steady mechanical power. 

Developing the Central Impulse Chronometer, reference CIC 39, took six years of research. Lederer’s design shrinks the complex system into a svelte 39mm in diameter, which appears here within an 18K white gold case. Every component in the movement is produced in-house at Saint-Blaise, Neuchâtel, and is visible through an entirely transparent caseback that stretches from lug to lug. The deep blue dial keeps things deceptively simple, with a small-seconds subdial overlapping a window that peeks at one of the four wheels in the geartrain. 

Truly independent watchmaking is more common these days, but rarely as innovative as this. With the Central Impulse Chronometer, Lederer won the Innovation Prize at the 2021 Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève, and he won the GPHG Chronometry Prize in 2024 for his Triple Certified Observatory Chronometer. Both are part of his "Masters of Escapement" series, with more watches to demonstrate not only the ultimate example of a specific type of escapement, but also his own personal mastery of each. This is an example of exceptional mechanical innovation that you can comfortably wear on your wrist.