Skull Light

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Skull Light by HYT

The heart and soul of the HYT Skull Light is the essential truth that time, just like life, is transient. As the patented fluid module concentrates on measuring the passage of the hours, the skull reminds of the individual’s responsibility to take care of any single minute constituting their existence. In its entirety, this watch visualizes time’s flow through a unique and meticulously curated encounter between art, science and mechanics.
This exceptional timepiece embodies a selection of horology firsts and superlatives. Illumination comes from the first electro-mechanical source ever designed for haute horlogerie application. Manual activation of two LEDs at six o’clock sheds light on the watch’s solid and liquid components. This brings the skeleton architecture to life, ensuring that the reminder to savor each moment never sleeps. As the elapsed time glows green, a blue light creeps across the rest of the case. The Skull Light also incorporates the smallest dynamo ever created to power the watch from a purely mechanical source of energy. In the absence of electronics and battery, developing this micro-generator involved overcoming major challenges posed by miniaturization and component curvature.

For this collection, HYT also designed a completely new, skull-shaped capillary for the brand’s characteristic liquid display of time’s passage. This serves as a poignant reminder of time’s passage thanks to the use the ultimate symbol of transience.  Its outline surrounds a power reserve indicator sitting in the right eye socket. This gets darker as the power reserve level decreases. The left eye socket is home to the seconds indicator. As the two “eyes” or discs rotate, the skull becomes very much alive. Fluid technology meets mechanical horology in a timepiece that never lets the flow of time go unnoticed – day or night.

Fluid Time

HYT was born of a question. Time flows and only gains meaning through content. So why limit its measurement to indicating the now in splendid isolation, with needle-sharp hands or fleeting digital displays? Determined that its rebellion should make statements and waves, a multi-disciplinary think-tank set out to create timepieces that visibly connect the past, present and future. The HYT answer is a watch that overcomes the force of gravity to indicate the passage of time with liquids. Highly advanced technology took its cue from philosophy to mirror time’s intrinsic fluidity.

The rest is history. To be precise, it’s history that began 3,400 years ago with the Clepsydras, or water clocks, of the Pharaohs. These so-called “water thieves” transported H2O from one container to another to measure elapsed or “stolen” time. This meaningful visualization of the transition of time seemingly disappeared until 2012, when HYT broke new scientific ground, inventing a wristwatch integrating a patented fluidic module. A colored liquid documents the recent past; a transparent fluid indicates the foreseeable future. Their meeting point is a meniscus, aka the now.

Today HYT is an ecosystem that unites science, hi-technology, philosophy, art and design. Based in Neuchâtel, at the heart of the traditional Swiss watchmaking region, a dedicated team of 43 individuals makes liquid time real time. Their radical wristwatches harmoniously incorporate a mechanical watch movement as the trigger to the fluid propulsion. They make total sense of time – time and time again.