Ball Watch Company, which launched its first Ball for BMW watches last year, introduced two new additions to the collection, developed in collaboration with the German luxury carmaker, at this year’s Couture show in Las Vegas: the Ball for BMW TMT, which incorporates the brand’s mechanical thermometer module, and the Ball for BMW Chronograph.
Both new Ball for BMW watches share the design cues of their predecessors in the collection — a three-hand automatic, a GMT and a power-reserve model — including the BMW grille motif and elements in BMW’s Inka orange signature color. They also share an element common to many other Ball timepieces: micro-gas tubes (14 in all, on the hour indices and hour and minute hands) filled with a luminous substance that requires no external source of light or energy and is 100 times more effective than the luminous paint used on most watch dials.
The Ball for BMW Chronograph is outfitted with a COSC-chronometer-certified ETA 7750 automatic movement, which includes a chronograph function that records elapsed times up to 12 hours. The watch displays the chronograph minutes at 12 o’clock, hours at 6 o’clock, small seconds at 9 o’clock, and a day-date display in a window at 3 o’clock. The movement also includes Ball’s patented Amortiser anti-shock system. The case, available in stainless steel or black DLC (diamond-like carbon), is 44 mm in diameter and 16 mm thick. It has a sapphire crystal caseback and screw-down crown and is water-resistant to 100 meters. The Ball for BMW Chronograph comes on a calfskin leather or rubberized leather strap or on a stainless steel bracelet. U.S. retail prices have yet to be determined.
The Ball for BMW TMT, which is only available in a DLC case, also possesses 100-meter water-resistance, a screw-down crown, a sapphire crystal and the Amortiser shock system. Its movement is the automatic caliber BALL 9018 (also a certified chronometer), which includes the company’s patented mechanical thermometer module (“TMT”). The thermometer function is used to measure outside temperatures between -31 and +113 degrees Fahrenheit (-40 to +50 degrees Celsius) to an accuracy of 97 percent. Creating the module was a challenge for Ball’s technicians, because it required fitting the bi-metallic spring at the heart of the thermometer mechanism within the height of the milling of the mainplate and bridge. Ball has patented the screw regulation system that stabilizes the position of the bi-metallic coil but allows it to adjust with changes in temperature; this is the crucial part of the mechanical thermometer achieving high accuracy in its temperature measurement.
The watch’s case is 44 mm in diameter and 13.25 mm thick and comes on a rubber strap. The thermometer indicator is in a semicircular scale at 6 o’clock, and the date is displayed in a round window at 1 o’clock. Two dials are available, one with the temperature readings in Fahrenheit (pictured) and the other in Celsius. The Ball for BMW TMT is a limited edition of 1,000 pieces, priced at $5,299.
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