Introducing The Audemars Piguet 150e Héritage Pocket Watch

When a manufacture reaches 150 years, the temptation is often to look backward and refine familiar releases. Audemars Piguet chose a slightly different route. Rather than revisiting an existing icon, the brand returned to the format that historically offered it the greatest freedom of expression. Long before the wristwatch became the primary stage for high complication, Audemars Piguet developed its most ambitious mechanisms in pocket watches, where space, and mechanical layering could be explored without restraint. 

The 150e Héritage Pocket Watch, unveiled among the brand’s 2026 novelties, is not conceived as a tribute. Instead, it is a contemporary expression of that same ambition, executed with modern engineering priorities and a clear focus on usability.

The project draws on a lineage that includes the manufacture’s landmark ultra-complicated pocket watches from the turn of the twentieth century, while also reflecting more recent advances in ergonomic complication design. Yet the watch is not driven by historical quotation. It is defined by synthesis. A newly developed movement, a re-engineered control architecture, and an entirely new calendrical mechanism are brought together in a format that allows these ideas to be read clearly and operated intuitively.

The case is executed in hand-engraved platinum, measuring 50 mm in diameter and 23.4 mm in thickness. All crown-pushers and correctors are grouped and carefully positioned to optimise comfort and symmetry, leaving the remaining surfaces free for engraving. These engraved panels depict elements from Audemars Piguet’s history, including portraits of the founders and the anniversary emblem.

A discreet release at 6 o’clock opens a secret caseback through a full 180 degrees. This hinged back reveals both the movement and the Universal Calendar, while also functioning as a sapphire soundboard for the Supersonnerie system. By integrating the soundboard into the caseback, Audemars Piguet enhances acoustic performance without isolating the mechanism from view.

The main dial is crafted from 18-carat white gold and finished with translucent blue grand feu enamel, applied through successive firings to achieve depth and luminosity. Its surface is engraved with star-trail motifs that reinforce the astronomical theme. The dial features hand-engraved white-gold Roman numerals, hand-engraved pink-gold hands, and a white-gold split-seconds hand. Hours and minutes are displayed centrally, with chronograph indications at 3 and 9 o’clock and a flying tourbillon positioned at 6 o’clock.

Powering the watch is the hand-wound Calibre 1150, developed specifically for this pocket-watch configuration. Operating at a frequency of 21,600 vph (3 Hz), it delivers a power reserve of 60 hours. The movement comprises 1,140 components and integrates 40 functions and 22 complications, expanding to a total of 47 functions and 30 complications when combined with the Universal Calendar. Its technical scope includes grande and petite sonnerie, a minute repeater enhanced by Supersonnerie technology, a split-seconds flyback chronograph, a flying tourbillon, and a semi-Gregorian perpetual calendar accurate until the year 2399. Despite this complexity, the movement is designed around clarity of interaction, with all major functions controlled through a deliberately rationalised system and assigned to a minimal number of controls.

The watch is delivered with a hand-made platinum chain, and is produced as two unique platinum pieces. The price is available upon request.

For more information, visit Audemars Piguet’s official website. 

A list of all 47 functions of the Audemars Piguet 150e Héritage Pocket Watch:-