by Brent Robillard

A better mousetrap

Bernhard Lederer and his wife Ewa welcomed us into their suite at the Beau Rivage in Geneva. It overlooked the lake, the Jet d’Eau, and the Alps beyond. Bernhard is a romantic and a storyteller at heart. He wooed us. But it wasn’t difficult. His watches were unlike anything else we had seen.

He recounted the moment he read All in Good Time: Reflections of a Watchmaker by George Daniels. Daniels wrote about how, as a child, his father would reward him for good behaviour by allowing him to open a drawer filled with watches. Young Daniels would listen to their ticking and guess which escapement lay within. That idea—that you could identify an escapement just by the melody of its ticks—captivated Bernhard. He was hooked. And so were we.

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The Central Impulse Chronometer

What Bernhard Lederer has achieved with the Central Impulse Chronometer (CIC) is a triumphant reimagining of the escapement, the very heartbeat of the mechanical watch. It is the first chapter in his Masters of Escapements series, a tribute to the genius of horology’s greatest pioneers and a showcase for the height of contemporary mechanical innovation.

The Central Impulse Chronometer pays reverent homage to two past Masters—Abraham-Louis Breguet and George Daniels—by advancing the ideas behind Breguet’s Natural Escapement and Daniels’ Independent Double-Wheel Escapement. Like Daniels, Lederer installs the two escape wheels at the end of two separate gear trains, each with its own barrel. However, the escapement’s design has been thoroughly reworked to maximize energy efficiency, reliability, self-starting capability, and chronometric precision—all within a modern wristwatch (a reality that “escaped” even Daniels).

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At the heart of the CIC is a specially shaped titanium anchor and two escape wheels delivering impulses to the balance wheel with remarkable smoothness. Every angle, contact point, and timing has been tuned to reduce friction, increase efficiency, and enhance longevity.

To ensure optimal power delivery, each gear train is equipped with its own remontoir d’égalité—a sophisticated constant-force mechanism that accumulates energy in a small spring and releases it in precise ten-second intervals. These remontoirs alternate every five seconds, creating not only mechanical balance but also a mesmerizing double beat—an acoustic signature unique to the CIC.

Peering beneath the sapphire crystal dome that protects the movement is like stepping into a mechanical city where time is born. The architecture is striking: openworked bridges, three-dimensional layering, and custom wheel spokes reflect both engineering precision and artistic refinement. Everything—every surface and edge—has been painstakingly hand-finished. Graining, frosting, engraving, and polishing are performed in-house, with long polished bevels on the remontoir and anchor bridges catching the light, and the granular texture of the mainplate demonstrating the depth of Lederer’s savoir-faire.

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Bernhard Lederer has spent over four decades redefining the boundaries of chronometry. His work is focused on the escapement, the mechanism that governs time itself. Through deep research and independent engineering, he has produced a truly new escapement—reliable, efficient, wristwatch-compatible, and high-performance—a feat few in the history of watchmaking have ever achieved.

Triple Certified Observatory Chronometer

In our short time with Bernard and his wife, we had the chance to photograph several exceptional timepieces, but none more so than the LEDERER Triple Certified Observatory Chronometer. What sets this apart is its unprecedented certification by three recognized observatory institutions, in addition to COSC. Such recognition is almost unheard of in modern horology and places the watch in a category of its own.

The watch recorded a maximum daily deviation of just +0.5 seconds across five positions—far beyond the usual 8-second COSC allowance. Its average deviation of +0.18 seconds per day reflects a level of mechanical precision once reserved for marine chronometers, where a single second could mean a navigational error of hundreds of meters. To underscore this heritage, each piece is engraved with a Compass Rose and individually numbered with one of the eight cardinal directions—e.g., N 360°, SW 225°, and so on—limited to just eight pieces.

This emphasis on nautical heritage and ultra-precise timekeeping places the LEDERER Observatory Chronometer in rare company: it is not just a timepiece, but a historical statement. It is a reminder that accuracy is not only a technical goal but a philosophical one—an aspiration toward truth in the measurement of time.

In recognition of his achievement, Bernhard Lederer received acclaim at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG), where his technical mastery and poetic vision were celebrated on the world stage. For collectors, the Central Impulse Chronometer and the Triple Certified Observatory Chronometer represent more than mechanical accomplishments—they are tributes to horology’s intellectual and emotional depths.

Final Thoughts

In the end, our brief meeting during Watches and Wonders felt far too short. But the impression it left will endure—etched in our memory, like the deep grooves of an anchor’s swing, or the soft, rhythmic beat of a watch that tells time not just with precision, but with purpose.

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About the author

Brent Robillard is a writer, educator, craftsman, and watch enthusiast. He is the author of four novels. You can follow him on Instagram.

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