OMEGA Constellation Observatory Collection: Are Watches Without a Seconds Hands The Future?
When it comes to gadgets on your wrist, most people will naturally think of the numerous different smart watches that are on the market.
Whether it be those from companies like Apple or Samsung or the more sport-centric brands such as Garmin, smart watches are inevitably thought of as being those that can send you notifications from your phone to allow you to see what is going on without the need to unlock your phone.
A different type of ‘smart’ watch is hitting the headlines, however, thanks to Omega’s Constellation Observatory Collection, which has achieved something that no other ‘dress watch’ has previously managed.
What is the Master Chronometer Certification?
If you want to learn more about METAS, better known as the Federal Institute of Metrology, then you will need to head to a small village near to Bern in Switzerland called Köniz. Established by the Swatch Group in 2015, it quickly came to be considered the blue chip of watch evaluation. In order to get METAS Master Chronometer certification, a watch needs to already have a certification from the COSC.
As with METAS, the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres puts a watch through numerous different tests in order to ensure that it boasts both quality and reliability, with METAS being considered the stricter of the two.
If a watch company is hoping to get one of its watches through METAS’ rigorous testing regime, they have to ensure that they will be able to pass five different levels of tests. The first is Magnetic Exposure Testing, requiring the watch to be able to withstand 156,000 gauss. Next up is Water Resistance Testing, whereby the watch has to be able to survive the water resistance that the manufacturer is claiming.
Power Reserve Testing is also something outlined by the manufacturer, whilst Accuracy Testing sees a watch face four days of normal conditions, then heavier testing to ensure it stays within a five-second range before Rate Deviation Testing takes place.
What Makes the Omega Watch So Special
Prior to now, there has never been a watch that has been given METAS certification without having a second hand. Given the fact that a watch needs to be within a deviation of five seconds in order to be shown to have passed the Accuracy Testing, the presence of a second hand was seen by watch manufacturers as a crucial component.
That Omega have been able to produce a watch without a second hand that has still been considered to have passed both the COSC testing and the testing carried out by METAS is therefore being thought of by many as ground-breaking. The company has, it claims, ‘passed every test that matters’.
The Constellation Observatory Collection has managed to pass an acoustic testing method that Omega’s own Laboratoire de Précision has come up with. Whilst you might wonder whether that is a little bit like Omega choosing to mark their own homework, the tests that a watch has to pass in order to be given the Master Chronometer title are all set by the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology.
Function of movement and the complete watch itself during magnetic exposure, performance when both magnetised and demagnetised, isochronism and numerous other tests have all been passed to give the Collection its title.
An Incredible Achievement of Engineering
The truth of the matter is that the Constellation Observatory Collection features a remarkable feat of engineering, which is what has allowed it to earn its certification. Coming in a 39.4 millimetre case and spanning nine references, the design draws on the heritage of the Constellation series from the past.
All of the features of the new watches can trace their features back to the 1950s, powered by two new movements. The first is the Calibre 8915, which powers the precious metal versions, whilst the second is the 8914 that can be found in the ‘O-MEGASTEEL’, including that with the black ceramic pie-pan dial.
The Constellation Observatory collection is the world’s first two-hand watch to achieve Master Chronometer certification. Two new Co-Axial Master Chronometer calibres power references across O-MEGASTEEL, 18K gold, and 950 Platinum-gold. #OMEGA#Constellation pic.twitter.com/ikajNxnQgt
— OMEGA (@omegawatches) March 26, 2026
Across 25 days of testing, a wireless unit has continuously monitored the acoustic signature of every single tick, producing continuous data from the first tick of the watch. That differs from traditional testing, which has only looked at one data point per day.
There are some who might not think that such a dress watch can really count as a gadget, but when the starting price is £9,100 for the O-MEGASTEEL version and the amount of testing has gone into it that we’ve outlined, it would be churlish to make such a suggestion. This is, almost without question, the most technologically advanced two-hand watch that has ever been produced.