Richard Mille’s Most Complicated Watch Is a Flawless Paradox

The two companies first teamed up in 2016, co-designing the limited-edition RM 50-02 ACJ Tourbillon Split Seconds Chronograph, a timepiece that came with a jaw-dropping price tag of $1.05 million apiece and became a landmark in horology (and unlikely partnerships).

In 2019, they teamed up again, this time for a piece that Richard Mille dubs the “five legged sheep” because of a new complication included in it (one that seemed impossible until that point), or the ultimate “paradox:” an alarm watch that no one can hear. Thus, this timepiece comes to defy the very idea that inspired it.

The RM 62-01 Tourbillon Vibrating Alarm ACJ is also a limited edition and it’s the most complicated timepiece RM ever created – and given RM’s history, that’s no small feat. It took the team of builders at Richard Mille 5 years working full-time to bring the complication from design to actual development stage, and then to fully test it to see that it did not interfere with the other complications in the watch.

RM 62-01 is an alarm watch, but one that no one can hear. Hence the paradox of the design. “Normally, an effective alarm needs to be audible from afar… Ours however, needed to remain within the compass of a few millimeters,” the watchmaker says.

The idea, though simple, proved difficult to bring into a watch. The programmable alarm can only be felt by the wearer and it’s the first ever incorporated into this type of mechanism, made possible through a partnership movement makers at Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi. Because it’s never been done, Richard Mille builders had to make sure the vibrations didn’t interfere with the manual winding movement.

“The project has been something of a marathon because it is extremely complex,” Salvador Arbona, Technical Director – Movement, says. “These timepieces designed to take us into entirely new territory require mechanisms that entail many years of development. A vibrating alarm simply did not exist, so there was a very long phase of experimentation.”

The RM 25-01 Tourbillon Adventure Watch, a Richard Mille watch designed with help from none other than actor Sylvester Stallone, is another example of one of these complicated timepieces Arbona is talking about. RM 25-01 doubles as a compass and comes with an interchangeable bezel.

Back on the topic of RM 62-10, the result of all this hard work is a timepiece made up of 816 parts, including 2 barrels, 7 even hands, 11 displays and the tourbillon cage, encased in a caseback of steel and titanium. The bridges are made of titanium, while the oscillating weight that produces the vibrations when the alarm is triggered is made of one piece of solid gold. The bezel is made of steel and titanium, while the second bezel (designed to resemble an airplane window, in an elegant nod to Airbus) is made of Carbon TPT.

With a power reserve of 70 hours, RM 62-01 is designed for the ultimate traveler: rugged, reliable yet still elegant. It’s outstanding both in terms of design and engineering, and the high-quality materials used. Moreover, rigorous testing guarantees its durability. Richard Mille has long been a standard of excellent watchmaking, but the RM 62-01 strengthens its position as a pioneer in horological experimentation.

“The ability of our watches to function in hostile conditions, to resist considerable forces and to withstand wear and tear has led us to test our innovations by subjecting them to a ‘torture chamber’ we built at our manufacture,” Richard Mille says. “Like aviation, which demands a safety margin of 120%-150%, we want our watches to exceed all norms in terms of their functionality.”

Only 30 copies of the RM 62-01 Tourbillon Vibrating Alarm ACJ have been made, retailing for $1,225,000.