Still the watchmaker's watchmaker?

JLC was known for its innovation, high precision production, and reliability. Every watch enthusiast knows that JLC movements were used by a lot of high horology brands.

When I think of new watch tech nowadays, I tend to think about Omega and Patek's advance research arm.
Is JLC still innovating and delivering new designs? Or is it just eating old stock, and companies like Patek, Rolex, and the Swatch group have largely overtaken them on innovation?

Short of ornamental innovations (like ever-thinner movements or minute repeaters tethered to chronograph functions such as that recently released by PP), I’m not sure how much practical innovation we can still expect in the world of mechanical watchmaking. Higher beat rates, and spring drives, sure, but really the quartz movement was an innovation to end all innovations. The mechanical watch is an anachronism. Those of us who still favor them are like people who still use slide rules or horse-drawn carriages: cosplay obsolescence for sentimental reasons.

I’m being a little over the top, but it’s sort of true, right? Guess what I’m saying is that I wouldn’t judge any brands status these days on the measure of innovation. Omega’s co-axial is a huge innovation, obviously, and its robust antimagnetic master chronometers are world class. But all you need to do is hold a JLC with a transparent caseback in your hand to recognize—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that you are looking at a watch that exhibits a higher order of horology than most anything Omega will ever produce. They’re not comparable brands and they’re not trying to be. It’s not better or worse; it’s not more or less innovative; it’s just different brand ethos. Haute horlogerie vs mass produced. I for one prefer Omega.

Long winded answer, but no: I doubt that JLC still deserve that moniker—the high brands it used to produce for now mostly make their own in-house movements and many of those are superior to JLC itself. But that doesn’t take anything away from a historic and accomplished maker.

In the more or less affordable segment i dont really see much innovations at the moment..

But one cannot ignore these few pieces they created in the past couple of years. Neither Omega nor Patek comes even close in my opinion.
If this is not innovation, i dont know what is.

Glorious! But those are the kinds of things I was referring to as “ornamental”: innovations, sure, but more in the spirit of art and novelty and niche than of fundamental watchmaking, if that makes sense. Not at all like a revolutionary new escapement or something like that. Honestly, even the new super-deep dive ratings strike me as merely ornamental—it’s just peacocking now.

Maybe it’s just me, but with this generally retrograde obsession with mechanical watches, innovation isn’t what I look for.

I was going to mention this one as well, but for some reasons they stopped the Geophysics line.
I really dont know if the Gyrolab ballance really reduced the drag, compared to a round balance wheel, like they used to claim. But the dead beat feature is surely something you dont see often today. I really liked their Geophysics line.

Edit:
In the entry level models it really did feel like they are taking shortcuts somehow.
Fitting the 899 movement into Polaris case and putting an open caseback, didnt do them favours. Its a great movement, but when it looks too small people get turned off somehow. They could just reduce the case size a bit and kill two rabbits with one shot. But it seems they give a shit and just do what they believe is right. 😀

Btw the small movement didnt stop me from pulling a triger.

Frederique Constant Monolithic silicon oscillator
Zenith had similar but stopped production

I’ve always felt like JLC deserves a place in the Trinity