SpotlightTwo Movements, One Watch: Armin Strom Unveil Dual Time GMT Resonance Black Edition At Watches And Wonders 2025
The ultimate traveller's watch doesn't need a 24-hour hand—it needs a second movement
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GMT watches aren’t exactly rare at Watches and Wonders. What is rare is genuine innovation. Armin Strom’s Dual Time GMT Resonance—now in a stainless steel Black Edition—arrives with an approach that most brands wouldn’t dare attempt: two complete time displays powered by twin movements linked by physics rather than gears.
The resonance principle at its core isn’t new—Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens noted it in 1655—but Armin Strom’s implementation transforms it from scientific curiosity into practical horology. Their 18th in-house calibre continues the brand’s quiet revolution against conventional watchmaking.
The Resonance Principle
The genius of Armin Strom’s approach lies in their patented resonance clutch spring—a slender component that connects two independent balance wheels. While most watchmakers treat physics as a challenge to overcome, Armin Strom embrace it as a solution.
When two oscillating mechanisms sit close enough, they begin to influence each other’s rate through tiny vibrations. Founders Serge Michel and master watchmaker Claude Greisler harnessed this phenomenon with their resonance clutch spring, which physically connects the balance wheels, allowing them to synchronise and compensate for each other’s errors. The result is improved chronometric consistency, particularly valuable when tracking two independent time zones.
Dark Matter
The black edition presents its complex mechanics in a remarkably wearable package. At 39mm across and just 9.05mm thick—a genuine achievement considering it houses essentially two complete movements—the stainless steel case balances presence with practicality. Polished surfaces contrast with brushed flanks, while dual crowns at four and eight o’clock maintain the watch’s symmetrical theme.
As the name suggests, black dominates the visual landscape. Twin dials with hand-grained centres and snailed chapter rings anchor the design, while the darkened mainplate recedes, allowing the moving components to take centre stage. Applied indices and faceted hands provide necessary contrast, with hand-engraved day-night indicators—the Sun and a Moon—offering brief flourishes of artistic detail in an otherwise technical composition.
Two Watches In One
The ARF22 calibre isn’t just visually arresting—it’s functionally superior to conventional GMT mechanisms. Unlike standard GMT watches that typically allow only hourly adjustments to the second time zone, Armin Strom’s dual-crown system enables independent setting of both hours and minutes on each dial, accommodating even those troublesome time zones with 30 or 45-minute offsets.
Each side operates at 25,200vph with its own 42-hour power reserve. The movement’s 231 components work in concert, with the twin balance wheels and their connecting resonance clutch spring dominating the upper portion of the dial. Below them, a three-dimensional ratchet wheel bisects the twin time displays, providing visual animation during winding.
Turn the watch over and the symmetrical design continues. Côtes de Genève decorates the bridges, two circular apertures reveal the independent barrels, and anthracite openworked bridges allow glimpses of the technical inscriptions beneath. It’s finished with the fastidious attention to detail expected at this level, but never at the expense of its mechanical integrity.
Final Thoughts
The Black Edition GMT Resonance represents what independent watchmaking does best—solving problems we didn’t know needed solving, in ways we wouldn’t have imagined. While most GMT watches add a hand and call it a day, Armin Strom essentially built two complete watches, connected them through a physical manifestation of a 17th century scientific principle, and somehow fit everything into a case thinner than many standard three-handers. It’s excessive, unconventional, and entirely wonderful—exactly what mechanical watchmaking should be in an age when nobody actually needs a watch.
