Hoptroff_London

Hoptroff

Hoptroff

British time-signal provider and former timepiece maker


Hoptroff is a provider of distributed timing services, based in London, England.

Quick Facts Company type, Founded ...

The company was previously a watch manufacturer based in London, England, known for its atomic clock and high accuracy watches.[1][2][3][4][5]

History

Hoptroff was founded in 2010 as Hoptroff London by Richard Hoptroff,[6] a physicist with the original intention of supplying smart mechanical watch movements to the industry.[7] In 2012, the company incorporated Bluetooth Low Energy technology[4] to its watches for the movement and sync with the mobile phones for configuration in order to display internet connected information.[6][8]

In April 2013, the company unveiled its first atomic timepiece in London, which conceptualized it as a new variety of time regulation devices in clocks and watches, that could be placed alongside the balance spring, quartz crystal and the pendulum.[5] After the launch, the brand gained a reputation for the most accurate watch ever produced[9] and was mentioned in several media outlets, such as New York Times, Engadget, The Telegraph and others.[10] In 2015, Hoptroff London launched a classic quartz watch range with a claim to being the first watchmaker to achieve better than one second per year accuracy in its quartz watches.[11][12]

In 2015, the company repositioned itself as Hoptroff London Limited and started work building a proprietary network of timing hubs, incorporating Grand Master atomic clocks, in London, New York and Tokyo.

In 2020, Hoptroff successfully raised £982,700 through crowd funding, with the goal towards developing a global distributed timing network.[13]

Technology

Hoptroff London watches are advertised by the company as "The most accurate timepieces in the world”. Its atomic timepieces use chip scale atomic clock technology,[14] where a small vessel of Caesium 133 is exposed to 130 °C.[15] A laser is used to excite the atoms and a microwave resonator which causes the hyperfine transition frequency of the atoms. The resultant watch after this process has a higher accuracy of 1.5 seconds every thousand years.[16][17]

However, the technology used its quartz timepieces is still unknown to the public.[15]

As of 2015, the company moved away from watch production to focus on high accuracy time synchronization software for companies operating across distributed infrastructure.

See also


References

  1. STEPHEN DOIG (6 October 2015). "Hop stuff: meet the maker of the atomic watch". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 27 April 2016. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  2. Timothy Barber (7 November 2013). "A true original on Clink Street". City A.M. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  3. Kate Doherty (31 July 2013). "Hoptroff to unveil atomic pocket watch at Salon QP". Watchpro. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  4. Daniel Cooper (1 May 2013). "Hoptroff's atomic pocket watch is the ultimate rich guy accessory". Engadget. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  5. Tony Smith (1 May 2013). "Brit horologist hammers out 'first' ATOMIC-POWERED watch". The Register. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  6. Chris Hall (17 April 2014). "Call that a smartwatch? THIS is a smartwatch..." Yahoo News. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  7. Chris Newlands (7 November 2014). "The Hotblack Stockmarket, a British-made smartwatch". Financial Times. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  8. FELICIA CRADDOCK (18 March 2015). "Dreaming Designs for Land and Space". New York Times. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  9. Judy Mottl (8 March 2015). "Apple Watch Edition Has Serious Competition And Its Name Is Hoptroff No.8 Diary Watch". Tech Times. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  10. "The Watch That Tracks Your Favorite Stock". Bloomberg. 19 November 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  11. "A weekend of firsts at SalonQP". 12 November 2014. PAUL O'NEIL. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  12. "SalonQP: fine-watch fair returns". The Daily Telegraph. 14 October 2013. Archived from the original on 25 October 2013. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  13. "HotBlack ― The smartwatch dedicated to football". 29 June 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  14. "About Hoptroff". Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  15. "British "C" Power – The Hoptroff No. 10 Atomic Pocket Watch". Beckertime. 13 November 2013. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  16. Paul O’Neil (26 August 2013). "Lab - HOPTROFF - The world's most accurate watch". Retrieved 16 October 2015.

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