Dominique Renaud Launches His Own Brand With the Pulse60
A 1 Hz Watch That Rethinks the Fundamentals
The man behind some of the most celebrated complications in Swiss watchmaking history has put his own name on a dial for the first time. Dominique Renaud — co-founder of the Renaud Papi manufacture, later acquired by Audemars Piguet — is launching an eponymous brand under the Haute Horlogerie Dominique Renaud (HHDR) structure, with the Pulse60 as its debut piece.
The Pulse60 is not a grand complication. It is, in some ways, the opposite — a watch that strips the mechanical movement back to its most fundamental interaction, the balance and escapement, and asks whether there's a better way to make them work together.
A Career Spent at the Extremes
Dominique Renaud spent decades designing complications for the biggest names in Swiss watchmaking before co-founding the manufacture that would become Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi. He is not someone who tinkers at the margins. His earlier work pushed the regulating organ to extreme high frequencies — 12 Hz at just 30 degrees of amplitude, against an industry norm of 2.5 to 5 Hz. That project was about precision through sheer multiplication of events. The Pulse60 attacks the same problem from the opposite direction.
1 Hz: The Resting Heartbeat
The Pulse60's in-house BUA2024 movement — the name stands for Balancier Ultra Amplitude — operates at 1 Hz: one oscillation per second, 60 beats per minute, the resting frequency of a human heart. At this frequency, the balance completes a single to-and-fro motion every second, and the entire gear train is organized around that cadence.
The logic is counterintuitive but sound. Where high-frequency movements seek accuracy by averaging out errors across many oscillations, the Pulse60 seeks it by making each individual oscillation as clean and undisturbed as possible. Fewer impulses from the escapement means fewer opportunities for the escapement to interfere with the balance's natural motion. The second becomes the structuring unit of time, and the movement is built around mastering it.
A 20mm Balance Wheel That Acts Like a Marine Chronometer
To make a 1 Hz oscillation stable, you need inertia — and lots of it. The Pulse60 uses a 20mm balance wheel, enormous by wristwatch standards, paired with a 15mm hairspring. The press release draws an analogy to marine chronometers, and it's apt: the oversized balance stores enough rotational energy that small disturbances — torque fluctuations, minor shocks — represent a negligible fraction of the total energy in the system. Renaud himself uses the metaphor of a tightrope walker: the longer the pole, the less any individual gust of wind matters.
Amplitude Past 360° Without Knocking
This is the part that will make watchmakers sit up. In a conventional movement, the geometry of the balance, roller, and impulse pin creates a hard ceiling on amplitude. Push past it and you get "knocking" — the balance swings so far that it strikes the back of the pallet fork, causing the watch to gain time uncontrollably. Most movements operate uncomfortably close to that limit.
Dominique Renaud has completely rethought the construction of the balance-roller-impulse-pin assembly to allow amplitude greater than 360° without knocking. The theoretical maximum is around 700 degrees. The practical benefit is that the movement's normal operating range sits well below its mechanical limits — far from the redline, to borrow Renaud's own engine metaphor. Even at peak mainspring torque, the amplitude stays in a safe zone, and rate stability across positions improves dramatically because the balance spends more of its oscillation free from interaction with the escapement.
The regulating system itself has been patented and positioned outside the balance wheel, which means the full spectacle of that massive, slow-swinging balance is visible through the dial without obstruction.
Case and Display
The Pulse60's design follows from its mechanics. The case measures 40 × 44mm at 12mm thick in Grade 5 titanium (or pink gold and titanium for the bi-material version), with a domed sapphire crystal, no bezel, and no conventional lugs. The strap integrates directly into the case through a three-part construction that gives the watch a continuous, flowing profile.
On the dial, hours and minutes sit at 12 o'clock. A seconds counter at 9 o'clock displays a natural dead half-second — a direct consequence of the 1 Hz frequency, not a complication bolted on. A torque indicator at 3 o'clock reads remaining power directly from the barrel, a system Renaud first developed during the Renaud Papi era. The titanium versions feature opaline dials with diamond-cut openings; the bi-material version gets a guilloché dial. The case finishing pairs a circular satin-brushed top — nodding to 1970s design language — with polished flanks for contrast.
The caseback is equally considered: a streamlined arrangement of circles, half-circles, and straight lines, with an openworked escapement line that reveals the unusual offset double roller system.
The watch ships on an interchangeable rubber strap with a push-button release, and comes with both a pin buckle and a triple-folding clasp. Power reserve is four days. Water resistance is 3 ATM.
Bigger Picture: HHDR and DR Group
The Dominique Renaud brand is the second expression of HHDR, following the Renaud Tixier collaboration that produced the Monday in 2024. HHDR operates out of Tolochenaz in the Swiss watchmaking arc with a team of roughly twenty watchmakers, designers, engineers, and specialists.
The ambition is clear: HHDR is not a one-watch project. It is a structure designed to incubate and launch brands, each driven by Dominique Renaud's creative paradigm of rethinking mechanical fundamentals rather than adding complications on top of them.
Final Thoughts & Availability
The Pulse60 enters a market that has spent the last several years chasing higher frequencies — Zenith pushing past 15 Hz with its silicon oscillator, TAG Heuer's experimental work beyond that. Dominique Renaud is making the opposite argument: that the path to better timekeeping might run through fewer oscillations, not more, provided you rethink the regulating organ to exploit the benefits of low frequency rather than just accepting its traditional limitations.
Dominique Renaud watches are available at collectivehorology.com. Thanks as always for reading and supporting independent watchmaking.