Frédérique Constant, Alpina and Mondaine Are First Brands with New MMT Horological Smartwatch Tech


Frederique Constant smartwatchAs reported last night on WatchTime’s social media channels, the smartwatch revolution continues to have an impact on traditional Swiss watch brands. The latest evidence came last night at a launch event in San Francisco, where Frédérique Constant CEO Peter Stas announced  the debut of the MMT (Manufacture Modules Technologies) smartwatch technology platform, a joint venture that represents, according to Stas, “the bridge between Silicon Valley and Switzerland.”

Stas partnered with Philippe Kahn, founder and CEO of Silicon Valley-based Fullpower Inc., an industry leader in wearable technology, to develop MMT, which is powered by the patented MotionX activity tracking technology. Stas says the idea behind the platform was to approach it from a “Swiss luxury watch perspective,” i.e., retaining the classical design principles that are the major reason consumers purchase traditional watches while also making the timepieces “smarter” and “connected.” The result is a modular technology, incorporated into a Swiss quartz movement (Stas emphasizes that these should all be considered new, in-house movements), that allows the watch to synch with apps on  iOs and Android devices — which track information such as physical activity and sleep cycles — and display the readings not on a digital readout but on a traditional analog subdial located at 6 o’clock. (A slide with the list of functions is reproduced below.)

Horological Smartwatch function list

For example: to track your sleep cycle, you can press in the watch’s crown, which will synch it up to the app on your smartphone, and set your goal for number of hours to sleep (say, eight hours). Wear the watch to bed, and the next day the subdial will indicate (on a 1-to-100 percent scale) how close you came to your goal. Among the Horological Smartwatches’ other notable features are a two-plus year battery life, “get active” alerts (in which you set an activity goal for the day and the watch nudges you into action if you’re too sedentary and falling too short of it), an always-on date and time function, and a MotionX cloud backup and restore function; the idea is that a Horological Smartwatch will not be, as Kahn put it at the launch event, a disposable “Kleenex” product that will need to be replaced every few years as the technology evolves, but a watch that will stand the test of time will still able to be upgraded technologically.

As announced at the event, there will be three watch brands at the moment that will release the new Horological Smartwatches: Frédérique Constant; its sister brand, the sporty Alpina, co-owned by Stas and headed by CEO Guido Benidini; and Mondaine, the “Swiss railroad clock” design-oriented brand headed by CEO Ronny Bernheim. (Photo slides from the presentation of the first MMT-powered Horological Smartwatches, from each brand, are reproduced below, along with a live shot of one of the Frédérique Constant Horological Smartwatches in its display case). Stas and Kahn expect to reach out to other watch brands in the future to spread the gospel of the MotionX-powered MMT platform.

Frederique Constant smartwatch - slide
Alpina smartwatch - slide
Mondaine smartwatch - slide
Frederique Constant smartwatch - live

For more details on the MMT platform, the watches that will use it, and an exclusive interview with Peter Stas, click here for our colleague Alexander Linz’s report on his blog, Watch-Insider.com.

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  1. So, I can set an objective of 8 hours sleep and monitor my actual sleep as a %age of that objective…..WOW! And I can be prompted if my activity levels are too low……WOW! Do they think I don’t know these things without a Constant reminder?
    No doubt smart wearables are the “in thing”, but unless they offer more useful applications than this they are destined to join Google Glass in the waste bin. They need to stream stock prices and exchange rates, receive and stream music by Bluetooth etc. And with new nano SIM technology and voice command they can be a viable for phone or messaging. And they can still look like the watches we know and love.

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