It has been half a century since the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres, the independent guardian of Swiss watchmaking precision known as COSC, introduced its certification criteria for the highly accurate timepieces called chronometers.
Currently, to be certified as a “Swiss Made chronometer,” a label that gave a watch — and its owner — significant cachet, a timepiece has to be accurate to 10 seconds a day.
In the decades that followed, the organization has not changed its criteria. Until now.
On Feb. 12, COSC has said, it will announce the COSC Excellence Chronometer standard, tightening the range to no more than six seconds a day. The standard also will require 200 gauss of anti-magnetism (sufficient to withstand the everyday magnetic fields that interfere with a mechanical watch’s timekeeping) and that a watch’s power reserve (the length of time its mechanical battery will run) matches what has been advertised.
A watch’s movement was tested in the past, but now the fully encased watch will be tested and COSC will simulate what it called “intensive daily wear.” Some initial tests may begin in March, but the full process is expected to be available in October.
“The norm is 50 years old and a lot has happened in between,” said Sébastien Cretegny, COSC’s president and chairman of the board. He was referring to ISO 3159, the chronometric standard issued in 1976 by the global federation called the International Organization for Standardization, and adopted by COSC the same year. “We’re responding to an ever-evolving market to protect Swiss watchmaking,” he added, “and to make the barrier high for our competitors outside Switzerland.”
But as modern engineering has driven considerable improvements in precision, several watch brands already had tightened their standards.
In 2015, Rolex upgraded its Superlative Chronometer accuracy standard to four seconds a day. The same year, Omega introduced the Master Chronometer standard, certified by the Institut Fédéral de Métrologie, a Swiss government agency commonly known as METAS. As well as guaranteeing anti-magnetism to 15,000 gauss, METAS certification required a complete watch to be accurate to five seconds a day. The Master Chronometer standard has since been adopted by the Rolex-owned brand Tudor.
Other certifying organizations have popped up, too. Timelab, a foundation in Geneva, introduced its Observatoire Chronometrique+ standard in 2014. It also follows ISO 3159, but it will test and certify only watches made by brands headquartered in the Canton of Geneva.
Mr. Cretegny acknowledged that COSC, which will offer clients a choice of its new certification standard or the traditional one, had rested on its laurels. “It’s a question of survival for COSC,” he said of the new standard. “COSC has enjoyed a privileged position for many years and at some point the market diversified with new actors.”
Breitling, which submits all its movements to COSC for certification, welcomed the update. “While the current standards remain highly relevant, they no longer fully reflect the capabilities of modern watchmaking,” Daniel Braillard, the company’s chief operations officer, wrote in an email. “This is why the ‘Super COSC’ initiative is so compelling. Independent certification is essential.”
The existing chronometer standard tests a movement for 15 or 16 days and costs less than 10 Swiss francs ($12.80) per movement, according to Mr. Cretegny. The new standard adds five more days of testing once the movement has been encased, and is expected to cost 30 to 35 Swiss francs, although Mr. Cretegny said the fee has not been set yet.
COSC says it has certified 57 million movements over the years and it now serves 66 clients, certifying about two million movements a year.
Some industry experts said COSC should have acted sooner. “They’re late to the party,” said Pascal Ravessoud, a vice president of the Fondation Haute Horlogerie, a Swiss nonprofit organization devoted to fine watchmaking. “But it’s good because it means the need to certify chronometry is back. The core of a mechanical watch is that it has to be as accurate as possible.”
Analysts noted that watch buyers now place less value on chronometric capabilities. “Chronometry for mechanical watches hasn’t had any functional relevance since 1969 and the launch of the first quartz wristwatch by Seiko,” Oliver R. Müller, the founder and chief executive of the Swiss consultancy LuxeConsult, wrote in an email. “But chronometry is important because it’s the consequence of manufacturing excellency.”
Jiaxian Su, the founder of the specialist watch site SJX Watches, went further. “In the time that COSC stayed unchanged, its biggest client brands have strengthened to the level that they don’t need any external certification to sell their products,” he wrote in an email. “I don’t see the COSC update as having a major impact on business for that same reason. An in-demand watch from an in-demand brand is going to sell regardless.”
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