Interview: Jonas Nydegger of Horage, Part II 

In part two of our interview with Jonas Nydegger, Head of Engineering at Horage, we talk more about the new K2 movement, the future of development at Horage, and

If you haven’t read Part I, we recommend you do, and you can find it right here.

TF: You said the K2 started 4 years ago. You’d already demonstrated success and the feasibility of doing a movement by yourself. What was the process?

JN: We have a very important person that’s been with us from the beginning, Florian Serex. He worked for 25 years for ETA, he built up Vaucher, he was CEO for La Joux-Perret. He was always a consultant for us, we say he was a friend of the project. He always supported me and the whole team with a huge amount of knowledge. Florian and I developed a silicon escapement together. The big advantage of the silicon escapement is the efficiency; it’s 20% or more efficient than a typical escapement. Florian always wanted to do a microrotor, but the issue with that is winding efficiency. So, with the silicon escapement there, we can reduce the torque which you need on the barrel by 40%; we had everything we needed to do a microrotor. At this time, Florian became CEO of La Joux-Perret. Tzuyu and Florian made an agreement, that the K2 would be developed with La Joux-Perret in the beginning and share expenses. Florian ended up leaving the company and we continued to develop it by ourselves. That was at the beginning of COVID lockdown.

With the first K2 prototype we had amazing results—flat movement, good efficiency. Then we did a second prototype, and a prototype 2.2. All the modules are developed. We have the date and power reserve and GMT.

TF: The K2 is done, it sounds like, but are there still things being tweaked?

JN: Me and my team are working in a scrum management style. We had a first shot with the prototype where we tested the winding efficiency, some new things in the gear train, and hand friction. It all worked. Then we had issues with the modules from K1, so we saw we needed to adapt. We had the second prototype, which was November 2021. The power reserve was working, the date was almost perfect, but the GMT was not running at all. We made adjustments and then we had a prototype where everything is running—that’s why I called it prototype 2.2—and then we dug deeper until it was ready. The production model has less parts than the prototype; we combined parts to save money and time, make everything easier in production.

The big point is the interchangeability for the future. Even big groups, even ETA is investing millions every year into developing its existing movements further. So, they’re still developing 40-year-old movements further. It’s all interchangeable, so new developments can be used in old movements. That’s the important stuff. The majority of the movement is developed in prototype, and then any changes are small—maybe differences in torque, in how it’s oiled.

Of course, you start assembling a few hundred movements, and you learn new stuff. The prototypes work, but the assembly takes too much time, so you need to adjust. Our advantage with K2 is we have the know-how from K1. There are no surprises.

TF: The K2 was four years in the making…is there a K3 in mind?

JN: Of course, plenty of plans! The biggest thing is the next movement, which will replace K1. We’ve invested 60% of our engineering time in that. We will have a Tourbillon 2. And then somewhere in the future we will do something with a microrotor and a tourbillon. In the long run, a base movement for a chronograph, but that’s far away, at least a few years.

TF: And the new K1 is an update or an entirely new movement?

JN: No, it’s entirely new. Horage will be done with K1. We will take all the knowledge from the K1, all the modularity and integration, and put it in the next generation. The idea is to have a bigger movement with enough power for a chronograph module or really big modules. That’s the next 4 or 5 years.

We grew fast, so we’re focusing on establishing even more stability so we can go forward with new development. We learned a lot, we grew a lot, we’ve managed rough situations in the past few years, so we need to settle and stabilize the processes we use. That’s more important than the next movement: stabilizing and securing know-how and our processes. And we are investing into the future: milling machines, balance manufacturing, measurement, quality control, people. We hired 3 people already this year. Everyone needs to be trained and know as much as possible; I try to spread my knowledge so everyone knows what I do.

If you develop such a big project like Tzuyu, Andi, and me, over ten years, there is so much knowledge unwritten. It’s in our heads, but you need to spread it out to everyone at Horage so we can continue to grow. And we learn from them, too. Horage belongs to us. If something happens, we need to have people who can take over from us.

It’s amazing how much time we have invested in the past 10 years—there were times when I had 300 hours overtime in three months! I’ve had no social life for the last 5 or 6 years. We need to come to a stage where we can get new hires trained and let them do the day-to-day and invest our knowledge and time in developing the new things. That’s the truth with Horage, and if you have a management-driven company, you don’t have this knowledge or security or way of thinking.

TF: When will the Supersede deliver?

JN: The Supersede has COSC certification. We can go to COSC at the end of November, we can start doing the testing, which takes 15 days. Then we will case the movements, test them, and we can start delivering, probably somewhere around the middle of December.

TF: One last question. If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing?

JN: I don’t know. Everything. I started working when I was in school, when I was 13. I’ve always had a talent in craftsmanship and mechanical things. With my father, I built everything—RC cars, Lego. When I came close to the end of school, I went to a watchmaking school for a two-day test. So, you go there and have a look to see if you like watchmaking. I went for two days and they asked if I wanted to start an apprenticeship. So, I never tried to do anything but being a watchmaker, it was just kind of luck. I always say if I’m weren’t a watchmaker, I would be an electrician…or something with wood. I’d be happy with anything involving craftsmanship. I’m a maker.

You can learn more about Horage, its watches, and its movement development at Horage.com.