Presenting The New H1 Colorblock Collection From HYT

By Adrienne Faurote October 19, 2016

HYT – the Hydro Mechanical Horologists from Neuchâtel, Switzerland – has taken the H1 on a world tour and dressed it up for the occasion. Presented in a new limited edition of ten pieces each, with the primary colors of blue, yellow or red on the dial, flange and strap, the new H1 from the Colorblock Collection becomes super cool, sunny bright or outright hot.

Launched in 2012 with the founding of the company, the H1 introduced a unique and innovative way to make watches and show the time with the use of hydromechanics. The system that included a cam, pistons, two bellows, and two liquids — one clear and one coloured with a retrograde hour display inside a capillary, earned HYT the Innovation Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève that same year. Since then, the HYT family has grown to include skulls, new round and rectangular shapes, and even complete dials that light up in the dark with self-generated energy.

You’ll recognize some borrowed family traits on the new H1: a minute hand that was developed for the H1 Ghost, and the use of black liquid inside the capillary, created for the H1 Full Gold. Easily read throughout the day and night, in low light the capillary on the H1 Colorblock glows green to illuminate it from below thanks to a partial coating of SuperLuminova®, allowing the time to be read “by deduction”: the opaque black liquid blocks light, while the clear liquid allows it through.

Contrasting with the colours, the 48.8 mm in diameter x 17.9 mm thick H1 case in titanium gun metal PVD with brushed, shot-peened and satin-finished surfaces remains the same, with a black rubber-clad screw-lock crown, titanium gun metal PVD crown guard screw-locked added lugs, and a titanium gun metal PVD dome at 6 o’clock.

A cambered sapphire crystal glass with anti-reflective coating on the inside reveals an unstructured dial with fluidic hours and a colored hour dial with white indexes and numerals, a colored minute dial at 12 o’clock with a black hand and white indexes and numerals, luminescent hand and hour-markers, and a small seconds wheel and power reserve indicator at 9:30 and 2:30 respectively, each bearing the color red, whether the model is blue, yellow or red.

The screw-down sapphire back with water resistance to 100 meters provides us with a full view into the mechanical hand-wound exclusive HYT Calibre 101, hand chamfered and adorned with Côtes de Genève, and the rhodiumed bellows. Beating at 28,800 vph, it has a power reserve of 65 hours.

Specially-made color-matching water-resistant anti-allergen straps finished with black topstitching and a titanium gun metal PVD pin buckle wrap nicely around the wrist and complete the H1 Colorblock, resulting in a technically and aesthetically stunning and extremely comfortable timepiece.

Like all HYT timepieces, the new Colorblock Collection comes with a 5 year guarantee, a measure announced on July 1st this year for each new watch, as well as for pieces purchased prior to that date with a 3 year guarantee that now benefit from a retroactive additional two years.
Individually priced at 39,000 CHF / EUR in a limited edition of 10 pieces each in blue, yellow or red.