You might be wondering how possible a wrist watch can save one’s life. Yes…no gimmicks about that, Breitling Emergency 11 is designed to save your life. Just like one of those unusual stunt in James Bond movies, with this watch you can be the next James Bond but not in the movies. The Breitling Emergency 11 watch could have helped #BringBackOurGirls, but unfortunately they never knew about it.
As Askmen put it;
Watch brands know a killer stat will get a headline, so they go at it like fighting cocks to draw first blood. Lines like, ‘this is the first time we’ve done this watch on a brown strap’ get stuck in the craw, while the even more desperate ‘only [insert brand name here] could do this’ doesn’t even make it past first base.
But then comes this: ‘This watch is the world’s first watch with a dual frequency personal locator beacon’.
The world’s first what?
I could reasonably have put that last line in for effect, but that is actually what I said — complete with raised eyebrow — when Breitling first introduced me to its new Emergency II.
The explanation went something like this.
The Breitling Emergency II has a dual frequency transmitter that’s ‘compliant with the specifications of the Cospos-Sarsat international satellite alert system’.
That transmitter sends out an alert on the 121.5MHz analogue and 406MHz digital frequencies over a 24-hour period, giving homing and rescue teams a good chance of getting to you if you find yourself in a spot of bother while somewhere in the world humans aren’t supposed to go.
Translated, it’s an object to attach to your wrist if you’re likely to get stuck in a ravine with nothing but a pen knife and a packet of ginger biscuits for company, and would rather search and rescue found you before the bears do.
Now, getting one of these transmitters into a watch wasn’t easy — in fact, it took Breitling’s microelectronic and microtechnical boffins five years to figure it out. The end product includes a Breitling-developed rechargeable battery (the watch comes with a dock, just like a digital camera), a miniaturised transmitter and an integrated antenna system.
Not surprisingly, this isn’t a watch for mucking about with down the pub. If you’ve had a few too many shandies and pull the antenna out by unscrewing that huge crown on the bottom right, you’ll have a man with a moustache and a sense of humour failure all over your ass, and a bill for the night that suddenly runs into four, if not five figures.
But for pilots, mountaineers, polar explorers et al, this is a seriously handy bit of kit. The Cospas-Sarsat system has assisted in the rescue of 33,000 people since it was launched in 1982 — worth being connected to if you’re heading out of suburbia.
Anyway, the Emergency II is cast in 51mm of titanium and comes with either a black, orange or yellow dial, and, because this is a Breitling, is also a chronometer-certified, multi-function chronograph.
All of which means I can legitimately say this: ‘Yep. THAT’S a watch.’
£12,500
www.breitling.com
