Audemars Piguet’s Intelligent Watch Winder Sets the Calendar

With the help of Dubai Future Labs.

Audemars Piguet unveiled the unexpected at Dubai Watch Week: an intelligent watch winder created in collaboration with Dubai Future Labs. Designed specifically for the brand’s latest perpetual calendar calibre, the device uses computer vision, a motorised arm, and Bluetooth connectivity to wind the watch, read the dial, and set all calendar indications automatically. It’s a curious blend of haute horlogerie and consumer robotics.

Initial thoughts

Perpetual calendars have long bedeviled collectors and after-sales service departments alike. Often tedious to reset after non-use, they can break or bind if adjusted at the wrong time. In the past couple of decades, this problem has been largely solved by watchmakers like Dr. Ludwig Oechslin, Stephen McDonnell, Andreas Strehler, Greubel Forsey, F.P. Journe, and most recently by Audemars Piguet.

Given that Audemars Piguet is among the names that have developed a fool-proof perpetual calendar, the intelligent watch winder seems like a solution in search of a problem. The choice of the launch platform is also puzzling.

On one hand, I understand why Audemars Piguet would develop the winder for its new cal. 7138; it makes sense to promote the new product. But on the other hand, the box would be far more useful if it worked for the brand’s earlier generations of perpetual calendars, which are more liable to break from improper use and need to be adjusted using pushers in the case. There are also many more of them in circulation, and thus represent a larger addressable market.

The intelligent winder is not yet in production, so perhaps when it eventually debuts it will be able to accommodate other movements, but that remains to be seen.

Of course, the functionality is probably beside the point. It’s an interesting gadget, and for someone who’s just gotten the call to pick up their new Royal Oak perpetual calendar, it’s probably an easy upsell that gives the brand another touchpoint with its customers.

A robotic companion

Put simply, the intelligent winder is a Bluetooth-linked connected device with a built-in camera and a motorised arm capable of gripping the watch’s crown. With a little bit of computer vision and a check of the local time and date via Bluetooth, the machine is capable of manually winding the watch via its crown, reading the dial, and making all necessary adjustments in less than five minutes.

Audemars Piguet chief executive Ilaria Resta (extreme right) at Dubai Watch Week 2025. Image – Dubai Watch Week

The concept is not new — in some ways it’s a contemporary take on the sympathique concept developed by Breguet. The Ressence Type 2 and Urwerk AMC are other examples of how contemporary watchmakers have sought ways of simplifying winding and/or setting certain functions using some kind of external electronic application or apparatus.

But what the intelligent winder has going for it is that it can work with an existing watch, so long as it’s one of the supported references.

The machine was developed in collaboration with Dubai Future Labs, which is the robotics arm of the Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), a state-backed technology incubator that partners with private sector companies. While DFF is primarily focused on future-proofing the local economy, the collaboration with Audemars Piguet indicates it’s willing to look beyond its borders as well.