Luxury house Bulgari has teamed up with a digital security specialist to offer a concept luxury watch that keeps personal information totally secure in an ‘electronic vault’.

The Diagono Magnesium concept is a self-winding mechanical watch incorporating all the codes of luxury, as well as an electronic passport connected to the watch and its wearer, whose confidential data now enjoys total protection. 

The intelligent “wrist-vault” is the result of a partnership between the luxury brand and WISeKey, a Swiss digital security and data storage expert.

Bulgari says it has always operated “in sharp contrast to established codes and conformity” and affirms its difference in the “exciting watchmaking debate around the theme of the so-called connected watch”. 

Several brands have unveiled products that hover between multi-functional gadgets lacking any real added value, and objects that are more like a games console rather than a luxury watch, it points out.

In contrast to this, Bulgari says the Diagono Magnesium is a pioneering, tangible product that “meets the needs of everyday wear of tomorrow, in a connected world with increasingly blurred boundaries”.

While preserving the values and codes of the luxury watch, the model “unlocks the door to the functionalities of the age of digital technology”. 

Diagono Magnesium has a cryptographic chip and invisible antenna which, using NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, enables the watch to transmit a digital certificate to the Bulgari Vault app on one’s iOS or Android smartphone. 

The watch simply has to be placed near the smartphone which itself is equipped with an NFC chip for the application to be activated. 

Only the owner of the watch has access to the confidential content that is recorded here with banking level security. 

To date, NFC technology is the most secure in the realm of data transmission as it requires the two devices be very close together in order for them to connect, in contrast to Bluetooth or other wireless technologies, the manufacture points out.

The encrypted information is stored in a cloud buried in a Swiss military bunker, somewhere in the Alps. And in the event of loss or theft of the telephone, the parameters of the Bulgari Vault application will prompt the destruction of the data, making it inaccessible to a third party. 

It can subsequently be restored using the encrypted backup activated via the watch.

The possibilities proposed by this concept offer immense value as in the near future, cryptographic keys will be used to unlock doors, activate alarm systems, make payments in total security and much more, it adds. 

 “Diagono Magnesium perfectly represents the duality of Bulgari. A luxury watch brand with Italian origins symbolised by the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, artist and scientist, it melds contemporary design with the best of Swiss watchmaking expertise and the most advanced Swiss technologies such as WISeKey,” says Jean-Christophe Babin, President of the Bulgari Group. 

“The age of using physical and digital keys to gain access is behind us. Diagono Magnesium is the key and it is always with its owner, and Bulgari Vault was specially developed on WISeID Personal Clouds, designed to develop Bulgari’s trusted ecosystem,” adds Carlos Moreira, founder and CEO of WISeKey.

The concept watch has a 41-mm diameter steel case in magnesium and Peek (polymer), a ceramic bezel engraved with double Bulgari logo, black PVD caseback; and a steel PVD crown set with a black ceramic lozenge.

It has an NFC chip and antenna, mechanical self-winding movement, and 42-hour power reserve.

The concept watch was revealed at Baselworld 2015, the watch and jewellery show currently under way in Basel, Switzerland.