Tom Austin Jaeger-Lecoultre unveils the latest Atmos Clock with an impressive white lacquered dial. Driven by temperature changes in the air, Atmos can be run forever thanks to its ingenious breath-driven mechanism. The Atmos Infinite Halo, unveiled during Milan Design Week, proves that JLC ​​is a force to be considered when it comes to modern watch designs.
One of the beautiful things about watchmaking, or in this case, watch executives, is that watchmakers and brands push boundaries with everyday products, but some of them really enjoy dropping their hair and trying to do what a watch can. Jaeger-Lecoultre has completed the groundbreaking line of Atmos Clocks for almost a century, with 2025 showing the release of the latest version of Atmos Infinite Halo.
JLC’s Atmos Clock first appeared in 1928. This is a non-commercial concept piece now known as Atmos 0, created by Swiss Engineer Jean-Léon Reutter. The watch uses mercury to respond to temperature changes and operates the expansion device to provide power to the movement of the watch. Over the next decades, JLC produced over 500,000 Atmos clocks, all of which brought about various technical improvements over time. They represent ingenuity not only in the engineering capabilities of JLC, but also in terms of the aesthetics of watch design. In 2022, Atmos Infinite was introduced and laid the foundation for Infinite Halo, the latest interpretation of the brand’s design.
Wrapped in a seamless glass cabinet, this design is based on an early Atmos watch surrounded by glass bell jar domes. It provides a 360-degree view of everything happening in the mechanism inside the clock. Its mechanism is complicated, but the design is minimalist (with a slight echo of Art Deco), moving on to lengths that incorporate the mechanism into a glass support that is almost invisible, keeping details unnoticed.
The JLC only let the clock mechanism talk, but the new Atmos Halo doesn’t stop there. The large, halo-like dial features a perfect, white-packed perfect finish, completing 10 applications of lacquer. If someone understands the complexity of dial finishing, it is Jaeger-lecoultre, and internal features allow us to achieve the purest finish and produce great results. The Atmos Halo dial is the same, and somehow it can make essentially just white things attractive at the same time. The details of the dial are equally complex, with the outer ring of metal with a 1 minute track indentation and a highly polished application time marker. The large polished hand extends throughout the dial and bends around the convex edge profile of the main dial plate.
The open work structure of Atmos Halo is functional and aesthetically pleasing. The caliber function is simple. There are no high-end complications here. It’s a pure, time-only work, but beauty lies in power delivery. This movement is permanently carried out through the bellows system, drawing energy from fluctuations in ambient temperature. This is possible thanks to the enclosed gas-filled capsules connected to the clock’s drive spring. When the temperature in the air fluctuates, the gas expands and contracts, moving the bellows and wraps the curly hair around.
Unless you live in a vacuum, temperature fluctuates even in the most sensitive environments, and the ingenious design of JLC means that even one degree variation can power the clock for two days. Therefore, in a real world environment like your home office, Atmos Halo runs almost forever without human intervention. Needless to say, the entire mechanism is treated to a classic Yeager Krukl level finish with hand polling, brushed surfaces and coat degeneves.
Jaeger-Lecoultre Atmos Infinite Halo Pricing and Availability
The Jaeger-Lecoultre Atmos Infinite Halo will be on sale at Milan Design Week on April 8th. Available directly from Jaeger-lecoultre and is limited to 100. Price: CHF 18,400, $32,200
Brand Jaeger-Lecoultre Model Atmos Infinite Halo Reference Q540532J Dimensions 215mm (D) x 253mm (H) x 253mm (H) x 253mm (H) x 253mm (H) Glass Glass Dial White Lacquer Movement Caliber 570, in-house, 60 seconds vibration power reserve and 1 degree temperature fluctuation, in theory, the infinite action work with infinite action function will cost 100,400.
$32,200
