Instrument N°1 · Zürich

The night, composed.

Nocturne N°1 is a bedside instrument that tunes a room's light and sound for sleep — and gives them back at dawn. Machined from a single billet. Numbered by hand. Built to be kept.

Acquire — CHF 2,940 Read the method ↓

Light — 1900 to 5600 K Sound — 27 dB floor Mass — 3.4 kg · Ø 118 mm

Fig. 01 — Nocturne N°1 in Lampblack · Ø 118 × H 284 mm

Nocturne N°1 — 1900–5600 K blackbody track — 27 dB(A) acoustic floor — machined EN AW-6082 — borosilicate halo — 0.4 W standby — no app, no microphone — ten-year pledge — assembled in Zürich — Nocturne N°1 — 1900–5600 K blackbody track — 27 dB(A) acoustic floor — machined EN AW-6082 — borosilicate halo — 0.4 W standby — no app, no microphone — ten-year pledge — assembled in Zürich —

01 — Method

One night, four movements

Sleep is not a soundtrack and not a switch — it is a room, kept. Nocturne keeps it in four movements, nightly, asking nothing of you.

I — 21:30

Descent

Light falls to 1900 K and gathers below eye-line, warm as a struck match. A bed of shaped noise, tuned once to your walls, takes the place of the street. The room begins to lean.

1900 K · 27 dB(A) · diffusion 17°

II — 23:30

Deep

The emitters close. Nocturne holds darkness the way a case holds an instrument — total, and careful. What sound remains sits beneath the threshold of waking, felt and then forgotten.

0 lm visible · masking −12 dB · standby 0.4 W

III — 03:00

Turn

If you wake, one touch of the crown returns a floor of dull ember — enough to see by, too little to be fully awake. No screen, no clock face. Nothing in the room is listening.

Touch-lit 8 lm · no microphone · no telemetry

IV — 06:10

Dawn

Forty minutes of slow amber rising toward pale daylight, the masking thinning to silence on the same curve. You wake by light — the oldest alarm there is, and the kindest.

→ 5600 K · fade 40 min · zero alarm

02 — Inside

Five assemblies, one intention

Everything on the outside is worked on the inside. Nothing decorative, nothing hidden that you couldn't service yourself.

Fig. 02 — Exploded assembly, on axis

01 / The Crown

One control, because one is enough

Press for light, turn for sound, hold for night. Knurled by a single-point tool in brass, indexed in half-degree clicks you can find in the dark without opening your eyes.

Brass · single-point knurl · 0.5° detents

02 / The Halo

Light that leaves like evening

Ninety-six emitters run a true blackbody track behind an edge-lit borosilicate dome. Light exits without edges, the way dusk exits a window — nowhere in particular, everywhere at once.

96 emitters · CRI 97 · borosilicate dome

03 / The Lattice

Masking, not music

A wool-damped acoustic ring shapes noise to the resonances of your room, then holds still. It covers the street, the boiler, the neighbour — and never once asks to be heard.

Wool felt · room-measured · 20 Hz–20 kHz

04 / The Core

Decay, not switch-off

A shielded DSP drives the night, paired with a copper thermal mass so light fades the way a filament dies — in a curve, not a click. Standby draws less than a wristwatch.

Shielded DSP · copper mass · 0.4 W standby

05 / The Monocoque

Eleven hours of milling

The enclosure begins as one billet of EN AW-6082 and ends eleven hours later as a single uninterrupted surface — anodised, brushed along one grain, signed, and numbered.

EN AW-6082 · one billet · no visible fasteners

03 — Matter

Matter, honestly

Nothing plated, nothing painted, nothing pretending to be something it is not.

Every surface of Nocturne is the material it appears to be. The finishes are the metal and the glass, left as they are — so the object ages the way an instrument should, toward you.

Borosilicate dome, flame-polished
EN AW-6082, milled from one billet
Wool acoustic felt, undyed
Knurled brass crown
No adhesives on the service path

Lampblack

Deep anodyse, bead-blasted to a soft matte. Made to disappear into a darkened room.

F·01 / Anodised

Bone

Raw aluminium brushed along the grain and waxed by hand. Brightens with the years.

F·02 / Brushed

Oxide

Heat-tinted steel base in burnt umber. The warm one, for colder rooms.

F·03 / Heat-tinted

04 — Specifications

Measured as we build it

One instrument, one pair of hands, eleven hours. Every unit is benched twice before it is packed once.

Optical: 4–620 lm · 1900–5600 K, blackbody track · CRI 97
Acoustic: 27–63 dB(A) shaped masking · 20 Hz–20 kHz · room-corrected once
Optics: Edge-lit borosilicate dome · 17° asymmetric diffusion, ceiling-biased
Body: EN AW-6082 billet · borosilicate · wool felt · brass crown
Mass: 3.4 kg · Ø 118 × H 284 mm · felt base, no vibration
Power: 100–240 V · 14 W peak · 0.4 W standby · braided textile cord, 2.5 m
Control: One crown, one gesture · no app · no account · no microphone
Service: Ten-year pledge · numbered series · serviceable with a single driver

05 — Acquire

Kept, not consumed

N° 0214 ⁄ 0500

CHF 2,940

Series I · 500 pieces · fitting included

Nocturne N°1 is made in a first series of five hundred. Each is numbered, signed by its machinist, and delivered by hand where we can reach you — or by post, crated in wool, where we cannot.

In the fitting

01A calibration at your bedside, or a kit measured to your room
02Dawn set to your latitude and your season
03One brass key, one linen cloth, one braided cord
04The ten-year pledge; service by a single driver, for life
05A letter from your machinist, numbered and signed

No account. No app. No telemetry.
The instrument is the interface.