There are certainly no shortage of watches popping up on crowd-funding sites these days. There are so many there days that we have actually dialed back our coverage. A lot of that is due to an abundance of very (VERY) similar watches coming out with little differentiation past a dial color and logo. Then you have something like the Automat Oro Dato that is rather unlike what has come before it, and then it merits some discussion here on these pages.
After dive watches, I would hazard a guess that pilot watches are the next most popular style – in general – of watches. And if they aren’t, they have to be in the top 5, just based on the sheer number of models that I have seen released. A lot of these tend to come from the more established brands, or those with a particular history with aviation watches. What I have not noticed near as much are pilot-style watches coming from independent brands, especially those using Kickstarter to get the ball rolling. As you might guess, that’s where we find the MEW Depth Pilot.
I know we keep saying that we are going to limit our coverage of minimalist quartz watches, but it seems that the limit on what can be done with this simple formula has not yet be met. Take the Santis and Berg Vertice, a two hander that uses Eastern Arabic numerals for the chapter ring. Here is a watch design that truly is hard to find on the market, at least outside of the Middle East, and something that should appeal to quite a number of people.
Chronographs are popular complications, but I wonder just how useful they are. Sure, I have one, but I don’t really use the chrono feature, I just like the look of the watch. Well, the Conqueror WatcheCompany Opalus takes the chrono and puts it into the background, leaving the central second hand as, well, a second hand. The watch itself is comfortable and attractive, walking a nice line between dressy and sporty.
When it comes to crowd-funded watch projects these days, everyone and their brother seems to be coming up with a minimalist quartz watch. Not that there is anything wrong with a minimalist watch, or a quartz-driven one. It is just that we are not seeing a whole of of differentiation in the projects (check out this editorial to see what we think makes a project interesting) out there. So that is what we try to focus in on, what makes a watch different or unique, and will be bringing those to light. Which then brings us to the subject of today’s article, the Vejrhøj Nautic.
As you are no doubt aware, watches on Kickstarter have become quite a thing as of late. We, through Matt’s efforts, have covered a lot of them. Lately, though, we have restricted ourselves to the more interesting products, because there are a lot of “me too” thin quartz watches cropping up. While what I am going to be talking about today is indeed a quartz three-hander, the design merits a mention. With that, let’s take a look at what the Joogii J1 has to offer.
I left the family at home and waded into deep, German-watch waters recently. I almost drowned. I attended the WatchBuys.com road show in Atlanta and learned three uses of technology that are worth remembering the next time you buy a dive watch, all demonstrated by the Sinn UX EZM 2 B Hydro.
While watch shoppers are certainly spoiled for choice these days, there are also quite a few “me too” brands out there starting up that rehash the same tired and uninspired three-hander design. So, when we have a company that we’ve never heard of before contact us about their watch, we are understandably a bit cautious on what it is we going to be taking a look at. Fortunately, we do have some gems popping up when we have these sorts of contacts, and that leads us to running into pieces like the Corniche Heritage 40.
Over the last year-plus, we have spent time with just about every watch that has come from the team down in Sidney, IL. Some of these have been with watches that were already in production and hitting normal retail channels, and others – like we have today – we actually got to wear around while a Kickstarter campaign was underway. This latest campaign – which is more than fully-funded at this point – is for the brand’s first field watch, the Smith & Bradley Springfield.
If you travel, a world timer watch is a very handy complication. Switch cities, and you can easily switch time zones on your watch. But what if you want it done for you? That is where GPS watches come into play. Not GPS as in tracking watches, but GPS watches that update their clocks based on where they are in the world. Since they only update every other day (or on command), the receiver part uses little energy, so these are not power hogging watches like a GPS tracker would be. Now on Kickstarter is a new brand hoping to get into this technology with the first four Artstate GPS Solar Watch models (OK, only 2 are solar, but they are all GPS). This new brand is significantly less expensive than the other mainstream brands that are available.
