Hautlence Goes All White With the Rotating Hour Ball of Its Sphere Series 5

If you haven’t come across the Hautlence Sphere, the concept is easy to explain. The hour is shown on a small titanium ball that turns to a new numeral every 60 minutes, while the minutes run along a retrograde arc next to it. Sounds simple, but up close, it's mesmerizing. The ball doesn't turn in an expected direction; instead, it jumps wildly and quickly. Very, very cool. The Series 5 is the fifth colour treatment since the watch launched in 2023, and this time the ball is white. In fact, everything is white.

The case keeps the smaller format Hautlence adopted with Series 3: 37mm wide and 45mm long, in Grade 5 titanium with brushed and polished surfaces alternating across the bezel, horns and crown. It’s 17.4mm thick, but that's with the massive crystals on top and bottom, while the case itself is a more reasonable 11.5mm. The crystals are so large because they have a lot of three-dimensional, as the front crystal has bevelled edges. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The white sphere is engraved with numerals filled with grey Super-LumiNova. It turns on three axes, steered by four conical gears set around two crossed, inclined axes, and jumps once an hour. The minute hand is micro-blasted brass with grey lume and sweeps across 180 degrees before flying back. Underneath sits an openworked base plate in rhodium-plated brass with a frosted finish, and above it a sapphire layer with applied Globolight minute numerals.

Inside is the hand-wound calibre A82. The base comes from sister company H. Moser & Cie., and Hautlence designs and assembles the module that drives the sphere. It has 160 components and 31 jewels, runs at 3Hz and stores at least 72 hours of reserve. The strap is white suede with a titanium folding clasp in. For the first 30 days the watch is sold only in Mexico, and those examples also come with green and red suede straps, the colours of the Mexican flag. Later deliveries get the white strap only.

The Hautlence Sphere Series 5 will be made only in 28 pieces, priced at CHF 72,200 before taxes. It debuts at SIAR, Latin America's leading haute horlogerie exhibition, in Mexico City, then goes on general sale after the 30-day exclusivity. See more on the Hautlence website.