MB&F Announces The HM12 Guardian – With A Watch That’s The Head Of A Robot
Gives new meaning to the phrase, “watch head.”
Although the last couple of years have been busy ones for MB&F – pretty much every year is a busy one for MB&F, ever since the first Horological Machine debuted, all the way back in 2007 – it has been over two years since the last Horological Machine launch, which took place at Dubai Watch Week in 2023.
The Horological Machines are basically mechanical timekeepers which draw inspiration from a number of sources, but always with roots in imagery from futurist or retro-futurist design, manga culture, and steampunk culture in particular and science fiction in general. Over the years, the Horological Machines have drawn design cues from worlds as diverse as architecture, aviation, imaginary spacecraft, the animal kingdom, and the world of high end automotive design. The latest Horological Machine, however, is being described by MB&F as a “return to its roots,” and says it’s “a way to ‘put the church back at the center of the village.'”
Playfulness informs just about everything MB&F does, and HM12 is a return to its roots in that sense as well. HM12 is the result of asking a simple question: What if a watch were the head of a robot? The result is a wristwatch that looks like a stylized robotic face – like something Tony Stark might have designed – and which attaches to a dock shaped like something you might see in one of the giant-robot-fights-kaiju Pacific Rim movies.
The entire project was in development for four years – the original idea was for it to be a 20th Anniversary watch, to celebrate the founding of MB&F in 2005, but the project took longer than anticipated. The watch and the Guardian robot are both highly complicated – the watch has a movement developed in-house (in the past, MB&F has often relied on base calibers from Girard-Perregaux, albeit modified almost out of all recognition) and of course, the Guardian itself is not exactly something you can assemble from off-the-shelf-components from a supplier.
The HM12 caliber features a number of hand finished components, as does the Guardian, and has 646 components. The Guardian was developed with clockmaker L’Epée (which was acquired by LVMH in 2024; Chanel owns 25% of MB&F since 2024, so in a way this is a sort of de facto collab between Chanel, MB&F, and LVMH) The Guardian clocks in, if I may make a feeble pun, at 755 components.
The movement is an automatic, with a power reserve of 84 hours. The flying tourbillon is at the top and is a sort of representation of the Guardian’s “brain” and the time’s read off a jumping hours indication on the left, and a trailing minutes indication on the right. Beneath, there’s a double rotor for the automatic winding system and on the front, it’s in the form of MB&F’s signature, manga inspired double battleaxe design.
One of the most unusual features of the watch, is the mechanically actuated “face shield.” The face shield consists of six individual colored plates, which can be made to extend from their retracted position with the crown on the left side of the watch case. The owner controls the position of the shields and the crown disengages once they’re fully deployed. While the face of the watch – which is, literally, a face – is pretty anthropomorphic to begin with, the face shields give it an even more humanoid appearance that’s slightly menacing – as if the Guardian is getting ready to live up to its name.
The Guardian is imposing and certainly one of the most unusual watch stands ever made – it’s not a stand so much as an integral part of the overall design and experience of the watch. It’s 38.2 centimeters tall (just about exactly 15 inches) including the base, which has a drawer in it for strap storage; there is a large thermometer in the Guardian’s chest (this is a complication which, while not found often in modern watchmaking, was more widely used in the past; Breguet placed a thermometer in the watch he made for Caroline Murat, the Queen of Naples). A magnifying glass is set into the shield the Guardian carries, and in its other hand, it carries a powerful UV torch, to charge the lume outlining the Guardian’s shape:
The Guardian is a bit reminiscent of MB&F’s legacy machines as well, in the quality of the hand finishing. The guilloché on the rear microrotor was done by Kari Voutilainen (a challenging execution, as the surface of the microrotor has a domed shape).
The quality of the steelwork on the flying tourbillon carriage is quite high – it’s not, of course, the main event of this piece of horological exotica, but I think it would be tempting for many brands, if they did such a project, to relax a little bit when it comes to movement component finishing and it’s nice to see MB&F paying attention to the details – these things matter, especially in the long run, after the first flush of novelty wears off.
The Guardian is going to be produced in three limited editions, in 12 pieces each, and in three different colors: blue, purple, or green –I think the choice of colors might be at least partly to ensure maximum brightness from the lume; red-emission Super-Luminova seems like it would be great fun on the Guardian but it’s noticeably less bright, even when fully charged. Radium would solve that problem, but of course we all know better than to play around with that stuff – unless maybe MB&F wants to do a version of the Guardian based on the Pacific Rim Jaeger, Cherno Alpha.
Although MB&F has collaborated with designer Eric Giroud for 20 years, the Guardian was designed by Maximillian Maertens, who has been with MB&F for several years, but who up until now has been involved mostly in the clocks and music boxes produced in collaboration with L’Epée and Reuge. Max Büsser came up with the original idea for the Guardian, but left most of the design process to Maertens.
Looks like the design process started out with a kind of Mobile Suit Gundam vibe, which is a natural place to start.
This whole thing is very much one of those projects where I think you pretty much know right away if it’s for you, or it’s not. It’s definitely for me – as a lifelong scifi enthusiast, I’m right in the target demographic for the Guardian in every way except financially. The only caveat I can think of is that a Sympathique version of this would be the bee’s knees, but I hate to think what that would have done to the development and design timeline. Four years is already pretty intense.
MB&F’s motto has always been, “a creative adult is a child who survived,” and there is plenty of unadulterated exuberance in the Guardian. In what’s been so far, a fairly incremental year in watchmaking, it’s great to see MB&F can still make joyous projects that are fun for kids of all ages.
As usual, MB&F practices complete transparency about the Friends who collaborate on Horological Machines; component finishing, for instance, is by C-L Rochat, DSMI Electronics SA, MBG Watch Décor, Rhodior SA, Transcendance, SVMA, Brodbeck Guillochage, and STS.
The MB&F Guardian: Guardian Robot, by L’Epée 1839; base 22 cm, height, 38.2 cm; approximate weight, 15 kg. HM12, case in grade 5 titanium, with three sapphire crystals; 49.3mm x 43.6mm x 13.8mm, with quick release strap for mounting on the Guardian. Flying tourbillon with double microrotor, instantaneous jumping hours and trailing minutes. Three series of 12 watches each; price $384,000. See it at MB&F.com.