The problem with the Swiss lever
The standard Swiss lever escapement has powered virtually every Swiss mechanical watch since the 19th century. It works by sliding: each impulse, the lever's pallet jewel slides along the tooth of the escape wheel before locking. This sliding generates friction, and friction needs oil. As the oil ages and dries, friction increases, the balance amplitude drops, and the watch loses time. The fix is a 5-7 year service: stripping the movement, cleaning everything, and re-lubricating.
The co-axial fix
George Daniels, the English watchmaker who built complete watches by hand, spent the 1970s designing an escapement that delivered impulse radially rather than sliding tangentially. His co-axial design uses two escape wheels stacked on a single arbor (hence "co-axial") and transfers energy through three short, near-frictionless impulses per swing. The result is an escapement where the impulse surfaces need almost no lubrication, slowing rate drift dramatically. Daniels prototyped the idea through the 1980s, presented it to every major Swiss brand, and was repeatedly told it was impractical to industrialise.
Omega industrialises it (1999)
Omega finally licensed the co-axial in the late 1990s and launched it in 1999 as Calibre 2500, a modified ETA 2892 with a co-axial escapement bolted on. Early Cal. 2500 had teething problems (rate instability above 4 Hz, hence the drop to 3.5 Hz / 25,200 vph), but by Cal. 2500C the architecture was solid. In 2007 Omega released its first ground-up co-axial calibre, the 8500, designed around the escapement rather than retrofit to a Swiss-lever movement. Today every Omega Master Chronometer and almost every Omega mechanical uses some flavour of co-axial.
What it gives you in real life
Three things. First, longer service intervals: Omega rates the modern co-axial at 8-10 years between full services, versus 5-7 for a Swiss lever (in practice many users push much further). Second, more stable rate: the co-axial drifts less between services because impulse efficiency does not degrade with oil aging. Third, higher torque transmission: the impulse is more efficient, so amplitude holds up better at the end of a long power reserve. Combined with the Master Chronometer METAS programme (silicon hairspring + 15,000-gauss anti-magnetism + 0/+5 sec/day in case), this is currently the highest-spec industrial escapement on the market.
Why nobody else uses it
Three reasons. First, patents: Omega held the key co-axial patents until the mid-2010s, and even after expiry the industrial knowledge of how to make them is hard-won. Second, tooling: producing the dual-wheel co-axial needs different machines than the standard lever escapement most factories already own. Third, ROI: the lever escapement is "good enough" for most price points, and switching adds cost without obvious marketing payoff. A handful of independents (Roger Smith, the late Daniels's direct successor) build hand-finished co-axials, but at industrial scale the co-axial is currently an Omega monopoly.
Daniels, Smith, and the legacy
George Daniels died in 2011, having sold the patent rights to Omega and trained Roger Smith on the Isle of Man to continue the hand-built tradition. Roger Smith's work today is the spiritual core of British high horology, and every co-axial Omega in your local boutique traces its DNA back to Daniels's workshop. For Daniels's own writing on the design, Watchmaking (1981) is the standard reference; for the Omega industrial story see our Omega brand page.