On Valentine’s Day 2019, Swatch Watches unveiled its latest timepiece, the Swatch Flymagic featuring the Swatch Group’s latest innovation in watchmaking: the titanium-based Nivachron hairspring.

Announced at the nearly completed new facilities of the brand, the watch was introduced in three different variations: Black Suspense, Blue Hope and Red Surprise. The 45mm stainless steel case of the watch is a very stylized one, taking after the aesthetics of the Irony collection.

Looking inside the case, what you’re seeing is essentially the underside of the Sistem51 movement, which here, forms the face of the watch. Swatch’s intention in doing this was simply to have the movement remain visible even while the watch is strapped to your wrist.

This, however, meant that the hands on the watch would be running in the wrong direction. Swatch, therefore, had to modify the movement with an additional 15 components so that the hands of the watch would run in the clockwise direction. Although, the small seconds was left to run anti-clockwise (and at the 12 o’clock position), simply for a dash of quirkiness.

Now, remember that the Sistem51 is an automatic movement and reversing the movement would mean that the rotor would cover up the guts of the watch. The solution here was to use a transparent rotor.

But at the heart of the matter lies the Nivachron hairspring. Nivachron as explained, is a titanium-based hairspring, boasting reduced effect of magnetic fields by a factor of up to 20, is shock resistant, resistant to aging (wear and tear) and resistant to the effects of temperature.

While the specific makeup of the hairspring still remains under wraps, what has been suggested is that where anti-magnetism is concerned, silicon hairsprings and Nivachron present similar advantages. It was further suggested at the event that silicon hairsprings are, however, still the ones to use if a higher level of precision is demanded by the watch at hand.

As Nivachron was the result of a collaborative effort between the Group and Audemars Piguet, the latter apparently will be using the new hairspring in an upcoming timepiece. For the time being, Swatch Watches is first to market with Nivachron used inside the Swatch Flymagic. Later in September the regular production Sistem51 collection will begin shipping with the Nivachron hairspring.

The Swatch Flymagic will be limited to 500 pieces in each variation and priced at CHF 1,500. The watch will be available to buy as of April 30, on the date of Carl Friedrich Gauss’ 242nd birthday. Gauss, of course, being the unit of measure used to describe magnetic induction.

Swatch Watches will be at several locations across the world on this date to launch the watch with an event that it promises is sure to be a treat.