Felix

The Felix is Habring²'s jumping seconds watch, built around a seconds hand that ticks in sharp one-second steps rather than sweeping continuously. At 38.5mm, it is compact enough to wear unnoticed but distinctive enough that anyone who knows it will notice. This is a small-workshop watch in the truest sense: low production, personal, and completely earnest about what it is.

What it is

Habring² was founded in 2004 by Richard and Maria Habring after Richard spent years at IWC, where he led movement development including the Portugieser's perpetual calendar. The Felix launched in 2014 and takes its name from Felix Baumgartner, not the skydiver, but the Swiss watchmaker and Urwerk co-founder who has been a close collaborator and source of inspiration for the Habrings. The A11B caliber adapts a jumping seconds complication onto a hand-wound base, using a dedicated seconds wheel that is held and released once per second by a detent.

Production volumes are genuinely small, with the Habrings making watches in their Carinthian workshop at a pace that keeps the Felix rare without being artificially scarce. It represents the Habrings doing exactly what they want: complications chosen for horological interest rather than market expectation.

Buying notes

The Felix is not widely stocked and typically requires direct contact with Habring² or one of their small network of authorized dealers, so buying under time pressure is difficult. Because production is low, pre-owned examples appear infrequently, and pricing tends to hold firm rather than dropping on the secondary market. The jumping seconds mechanism is reliable, but any service should go to a watchmaker familiar with the A11B; sending it to a generic independent risks mishandling the detent assembly that controls the jump.

Dial condition matters more than usual here because replacement parts and dials are not sitting in a warehouse somewhere. Confirm the seller can provide full provenance, as grey-market sourcing is harder to verify with a workshop this small.

Market read

New Felix pricing sits in a range that feels fair for what you are getting but not cheap by any measure. Pre-owned examples rarely trade below retail because demand among collectors who know the brand tends to absorb available supply. This is not a watch you buy expecting appreciation; you buy it because you want this specific complication from this specific workshop.

Service expectations

The Felix runs the in-house A11B hand-wound caliber, a movement Habring² developed specifically to house the jumping seconds complication. Habring² recommends service intervals of around five to seven years. For anything beyond a regulated timing adjustment, the workshop in Guttaring, Austria is the right address.