Two childhood friends, a watch enthusiast and a master watchmaker, opened a manufacture in Biel/Bienne in 2009 to make movements that show how they work.
How it began
Armin Strom opened its fully integrated manufacture in Biel/Bienne in 2009. Its founders are Serge Michel, a watch enthusiast, and Claude Greisler, a master watchmaker. The two were childhood friends who shared a dream of co-founding a watch company.
The name is older than the manufacture. The brand calls Mr Armin Strom its founding father, and says he opened his first shop in Burgdorf.
Michel became the driving business force behind the brand. Watchmaking has been a Greisler family profession for generations, and Claude’s training began in his grandfather’s workshop. Eight years of formal study followed, including movement restoration and the construction of complicated watches.
Transparent mechanics
From the first day, the house chose openworked designs. It calls the approach “transparent mechanics”: the decorated parts of the movement stay in view, and the inner workings are shown on the dial side.
Behind the look sits a rule the brand calls “mechanical poetry”. Every movement must have a purpose, such as resolving a horological problem, rather than exist for decoration alone.
Greisler, co-founder and master watchmaker, explains the choice. “A passion for ‘transparent mechanics’, both from an aesthetic perspective and to showcase how our watches actually work, has always guided my design sensibility.”
Showing the parts means making them well. The brand says 97% of its movement parts are developed, produced and hand-finished in Biel/Bienne, starting from raw bars of steel, brass, copper and titanium. Decorating a part can take up to ten times longer than making it, so Armin Strom employs more watchmakers for decoration than for assembly. Every movement is assembled twice: built, taken apart, cleaned, then built again.
The watches
The Resonance collection rests on a physical effect that has interested watchmakers since the 17th century. Two balance wheels beating side by side can fall into step and steady each other’s rate. On the wrist, though, movement and small shocks easily disrupt it.
Greisler spent three years on the answer, a patented spring the brand calls the Resonance Clutch. It links the two balances so that they stay in resonance. The brand says the Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique has certified its approach as “True Resonance”.
The Mirrored Force Resonance puts this on the dial. Its two balances sit on the left and the time sits on the right. Two seconds hands show both movements beating together, and a flyback resets them at once without stopping the watch.
The Dual Time GMT Resonance fits two time zones into a 39mm case. Its calibre took three years to develop and is the 18th from the manufacture. In April 2026 came the Minute Repeater Resonance 12:59 First Edition, with four hammers and four gongs. A selector lets the wearer choose the 12:59 sequence, the longest strike the mechanism can make.
The System 78 collection uses in-house automatic and manual-winding calibres. The Gravity Equal Force runs on Caliber ASB19, which the brand calls the first automatic movement to combine a stop-work declutch with a Geneva cross in the barrel. It keeps the force reaching the balance constant across its 72-hour power reserve.
The One Week runs for seven days on two barrels working in series. The Orbit, in the brand’s words, is the first watch with an on-demand date indicated on the bezel. A push sends the date hand to the right day, and another returns it to 12 o’clock.
The house today
Armin Strom designs, makes and hand-finishes its movements in-house, independent of any watch group. Michel and Greisler still lead it, with their own team of watchmakers and finishing specialists. Greisler has said that the resonance system was a dream that came true, and that the patented spring leaves room to go further.
At a glance
- Founded: 2009, when the manufacture opened in Biel/Bienne
- Founders: Serge Michel and Claude Greisler
- Based in: Biel/Bienne, Switzerland
- Known for: Openworked “transparent mechanics”; the patented Resonance Clutch; movements made in-house
- Independent: Yes, independent of any watch group (the brand’s own words)
Sources: Armin Strom’s own website (About, FAQ, Science of Movement, Manufacture, Resonance collection, System 78 collection, model pages for the Mirrored Force Resonance, Gravity Equal Force, One Week, Orbit and Minute Repeater Resonance, press corner and blog).