With watches, we’re very used to sapphire showing up in the crystals, both front and back. We’ve also seen some VERY high-end watches starting to use the material for the entirety of the case. Those are firmly out of the reach of most of us – that is, until the WTIF came onto the scene.
Frankly, stumbling across the WTIF on Kickstarter was a bit of a happy accident. And somehow – even thought the project has hit it’s funding goal – there are still plenty of earlybird tier rewards left of the watch. The big story here, of course, is the faceted sapphire case used. At 44mm, it’s plenty large, but that’ll allow you to see all of the light catching on things.
It also gives you a solid view of the STP 1-11 automatic movement doing the timing work in the case. And you can see a lot of this movement. On the back of the watch, you see all the normal bits; around front, you’ve got a barely-there sort of a dial. While I get the impetus here (the case is invisible, so why not the dial?), I think it short-changes the watch. For one, I’ve never liked seeing the whole date disc. Secondly, the movement plate you’re seeing here isn’t particularly finished or anything, so it’s just sort of… there.
For my money, if there was an option for a solid dial (or even a piece of smoked crystal), that would really elevate what the WTIF is offering. Then again, with earlybird pricing coming in at just $375 you can understand the focus went primarily to that lovely case. I think it’s a great start for the brand, and I’m interested to see how the designs grow over time. You can check out all the details before the project ends on December 10, right over at the campaign page.
Tech Specs
