Aesthetic and Technical Armin Strom

You don't need to flip over to the caseback to appreciate the technical beauty of the Armin Strom Orbit model.

Caliber ASS20 is both aesthetically pleasing and boasts a range of innovative technical solutions with a very subtle appearance. The first thing that catches your eye are the three parallel bridges which shape the dial's architecture.

Their neighbors are a micro-rotor and a Geneva wheel mounted to the barrel-housing cover. The torque-limiting barrel delivers a smooth and consistent amount of energy throughout the entire period when the watch is running. This system limits the mainspring barrel to nine full turns of the spring out of the possible 12.5 turns.

That's the period when a constant transmission of energy is ensured — 72 hours in this case. This stop-work mechanism in the Armin Strom Orbit is based on the Gravity Equal Force, which was the world's first automatic watch to feature equal force transmission.

Caliber ASS20 consists of 273 components and stands out for its high-quality finishing (you do need to flip the case over to appreciate this). The Armin Strom Orbit First Edition was introduced in spring. Its equal force barrel isn't the only innovative solution used in this watch that also happens to have an impressive appearance.

We're talking about the date shown on the bezel. The indication is in the form of a central hand with a red tip that reminds you of the letter "A" in the brand's name. The hand driven by a column wheel isn't constantly engaged. It can be activated by pressing the pusher at 10 o'clock.

The hand will then jump to point the current date on the bezel and track the date. The watch owner can also return the hand to its stationary position. That being said, the hand retains a mechanical memory of the date and is ready to point the correct date at any moment.

A retrograde mechanism is used so that the date hand jumps back from 31 to 1, avoiding confusion with the hand's disengaged stationary mode at 12 o'clock. Armin Strom revisited the Orbit models this summer and decided to present a more dynamic version called the Manufacture Edition.

The novelty's distinguishing feature is its black off-centered dial for this version. The bezel is furnished with a black ceramic inset, while the case itself is made of stainless steel and measures 43.4 mm in diameter and 12.6 mm in height.