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Time+Tide
CIGA's latest mechanical complication, a modern take on a wandering hours watch, is a fitting follow-up to its GPHG-winning Blue Planet.The post CIGA design’s Time Cipher puts wandering hours on an ultra-dark-dialled watch appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
SJX Watches
Schaffhausen-based H. Moser & Cie. returns to a complication it once offered with the Pioneer Flying Hours, a new take on the wandering hours. The watch indicates the minutes on a central ring, while the hours seemingly jump from one window to the other. With this intriguing new display, the Flying Hours might just be being one of the most interesting jumping hours on the market. Initial thoughts The Pioneer Flying Hours is not Moser’s first attempt at the wandering hours: the Endeavour Flying Hours was launched some seven years ago and an update on the historical complication. With new Pioneer, however, Moser manages to capture the mystique of both early wandering hours and mysterious clocks with its darting, wandering display. It is a tidy and admittedly novel reinterpretation of the wandering hours, which will surely appeal to collectors. There is something poetic about the minutes scale moving continuously across shuttered apertures, its sweep much like a bridge between points in time, here represented spatially. The combination of the sporty and large Pioneer case is also odd with the wandering hours, historically a complication associated with more formal, slim cases. At almost 43 mm, the case is large even for a sports watch. And to nitpick: if there is anything objectionable from the get-go, that is the name. Strictly speaking, “Flying hours” describes a revolving platform that is only supported from below - like a flying tourbillon. Here the hour disks a...
Hodinkee
The wandering hours complication gets a snazzy new chassis.
Monochrome
Our visit earlier this year to India’s prime watchmaking company, Titan, was a genuine eye-opening experience. Besides witnessing the impressive scale of production (it is immense, and a whole different level than Swiss watchmaking), we also discovered that the industry giant had some unexpected horological capacities. Titan, to celebrate its 40th anniversary, unveiled India’s first […]
Monochrome
The UR-101 is the watch that started it all for indie brand Urwerk. First introduced in 1997 alongside the UR-102, it laid the groundwork for the brand’s signature wandering hours display and its radical approach to time indication. After recently bringing the UR-101 back into the collection with a bold, textured T-Rex edition, Urwerk moves […]
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SJX Watches
Urwerk continues to iterate its most accessible model with the UR-100V “LightSpeed” Ceramic. The Lightspeed is essentially a variation of an earlier model, with ceramic composite replacing carbon composite. The ceramic composite incorporates fibreglass and carbon fibre, giving it a textured surface and greater strength. Though it’s relatively affordable compared to other Urwerk models, the UR-100V still retains the brand’s signature elements, including a wandering hours display and various astronomical-time indicators on the dial. Initial thoughts The UR-100V now exists in a multitude of variations, perhaps too many, but the Lightspeed stands out as one of the most interesting in both material and style. The ceramic composite case is appealing for both its appearance and utility – it is hard, strong, and lightweight – and is being used for the first time by Urwerk. It also doesn’t cost that much more than earlier versions of the model, making this iteration more compelling. More broadly, I would have liked Urwerk to vary the display across the UR-100V line, beyond the case material, making each iteration more distinct. As they stand, most share the same dial and indications, with only the case changing for each edition. Light and white Because the case is a ceramic composite rather than pure ceramic, it has a textured surface with a slight glossiness. These characteristics stem from the fibreglass and carbon fibre sheets within the composite, explaining the w...
Monochrome
Satellite hour displays are exciting because, apart from the lyrical mood, for most brands, except Urwerk, which made it a signature feature, they are a departure from the ordinary. They stand out from the core collections, reflecting the design, engineering effort and each brand’s specific interpretation of the wandering hours indication. In 2018, when H. […]
SJX Watches
One of the standout releases from Dubai Watch Week was the UR-Freak, a collaboration between Ulysse Nardin (UN) and Urwerk that embodies some of the most enduring motifs of each brand. More UN than Uwerk, the UR-Freak nonetheless incorporate’s the latter’s satellite wandering hours display, adapted to the Freak’s slow-moving flying tourbillon. A limited run of just 100 individually numbered pieces, the UR-Freak confers some of Urwerk’s disruptive cache to UN, a legacy brand celebrating its 180th anniversary next year. The wandering hours tourbillon To understand why the UR-Freak is such a compelling collaboration, one must understand what UN and Urwerk bring to the table, respectively. The UN Freak turns 25 in 2026, marking a quarter-century of the quirky tourbillon that introduced silicon to watchmaking. That innovation alone would have secured the Freak’s place in watchmaking history, but it was arguably more memorable for its unusual design that put much of the movement (including the escapement) on a rotating platform on the dial. The Freak One is an example of the typical Freak architecture. Ulysse Nardin refers to this architecture as a flying carousel, perhaps to differentiate the standard models from those with a nested tourbillon. Nomenclature aside, it’s technically a tourbillon by nature of its operation, which powers the escapement through a fixed-ring gear (which can be seen around the edge of the dial). In all previous Freak models to date, the mo...
SJX Watches
Urwerk’s latest satellite-display creation, the UR-230 Black Star, builds on more than two decades of the brand redefining the wandering hours complication. A concept first teased in the Harry Winston Opus 5 and later perfected in the UR-210, the retrograde-satellite display has become synonymous with Urwerk’s identity, and the Black Star demonstrates how far the idea has come. With a lightweight fibreglass-reinforced ceramic case, the Black Star is a 35-piece limited edition that looks to be the final instalment of the UR-230 series. Initial thoughts Urwerk didn’t invent the wandering hours display, but the brand deserves credit for dragging the complication into modernity in the late 1990s. While the brand has dabbled in watches with conventional hands, it’s still the satellite time display that carries the essence of Urwerk’s DNA. The UR-230 traces its roots back to the 2012 launch of the UR-210, which introduced the retrograde frame that travels with the satellite cube for hours. The concept for a retrograde hand paired with wandering hours dates back even further, to the 2005 launch of the Harry Winston Opus 5, which was also designed by Urwerk. While the concept has subsequently been elaborated with the UR-150 Scorpion, the UR-230 still looks strikingly advanced even after all these years. The latest black-and-yellow livery seems to be the flavour of the day, closely matching the brand’s recent collaboration with Ulysse Nardin. The signature detail of the...
SJX Watches
The Ulysse Nardin UR-Freak brings together two of contemporary watchmaking’s most inventive forces. A collaboration between Ulysse Nardin and Urwerk, it merges the Freak’s revolving-movement architecture with Urwerk’s signature wandering hours display to create something that feels both inevitable and extraordinary. The partnership amplifies the strengths of each brand: Ulysse Nardin’s mastery of silicon technology and mechanical architecture, and Urwerk’s futuristic approach to time display. More than a meeting of aesthetics, the UR-Freak unites two brands that have long challenged convention. Both rose to prominence around the turn of the millennium by rewriting mechanical rules-Ulysse Nardin with its revolutionary 2001 Freak, and Urwerk with its satellite-hour timepieces that reimagined a traditional complication. Two decades later, their paths converge with a 100-piece limited edition in sandblasted titanium. Initial thoughts Some collaborations seem obvious in hindsight; the Ulysse Nardin UR-Freak is one of them. The collaboration plays to the strengths of both brands, with Urwerk’s signature wandering hours display plugging seamlessly into the UN Freak architecture. It turns out that Urwerk’s signature satellite wandering hours display feels right at home grafted onto Uylsse Nardin’s flagship. Frankly, they could have left it at that and called it a day. But the fact is Ulysse Nardin went the extra step to reimagine the Freak’s signature flying to...
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Monochrome
Now that is something paradoxical… An Urwerk watch equipped with centrally-mounted hands rotating traditionally on top of a round dial, with concentric counters underneath. That’s nothing what you’d expect to see from Urwerk, a brand known for its unconventional displays of the time with wandering hours and satellites. Look at our retrospective of the entire […]
Worn & Wound
Ōtsuka Lōtec had a viral moment over the weekend with the surprise launch of the No. 9, the latest creation from the Japanese microbrand headed by designer and watchmaker Jiro Katayama. These watches have captured the attention and imagination of enthusiasts worldwide for their unique steampunk aesthetic, filtered through a unique Japanese industrial design perspective. Up until now, their watches have been defined by interesting complications (wandering hours, retrograde displays, etc.) at ultra competitive price points topping out at around $5,000, and being genuinely difficult to obtain outside of Japan thanks to extremely limited production and simply not being offered to en masse to those outside the country. With the No. 9, it certainly appears that Ōtsuka Lōtec will continue to make watches that are tough to obtain, but they’ve thrown the pricing structure out the window with this release, offering up a far more complicated watch than anything they’ve previously attempted. The No. 9 is a rectangular watch in a stainless steel case measuring 41.3mm by 26.4mm. It’s 10.35mm tall, which makes this a quite compact package, and all the more impressive given the mechanical complexity. Going through the list of features and mechanical complications here is going to be a bit like the Stefon sketch on SNL (“This watch has everything…”) so let’s just embrace it: across 278 components, this watch features a tourbillon, a jump hour, “rewinding minutes,” a...
Hodinkee
The impressive retrograde wandering hours watch gets a bright blue treatment.
Hodinkee
A long overdue update to the brand's take on a wandering hours watch.
Hodinkee
A limited edition colorway for Urwerk's signature wandering hours complication.
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SJX Watches
Urwerk is universally known for its unique approach to time-telling, usually marrying the classic concept of wandering hours with avant-garde styling and reinvented mechanics. The brand’s signature brand of watchmaking is exemplified by the UR-150 “Scorpion”, which demonstrates the brand’s ability to reinvent the wheel in displaying the time. The UR-150 is a time-only watch, showing just the hours and minutes, but with a technical execution that is sophisticated and elaborate. Nicknamed “Scorpion” due to its crisp retrograde hour hand that brings to mind the desert creature’s swift sting, the UR-150 features a central carousel that creeps slowly over the course of one hour, only for the hour hand to snap back and reset with a lively action at the top of each hour. The concept of satellite and retrograde hours is not new to Urwerk – in fact the idea dates back to the Opus V – but in the UR-150 the mechanics underlying the time display have been refined, upgraded, and elaborated upon. Dissecting the time display module of the UR-150 is a fascinating process that speaks to the talent of the watchmakers and constructors at Urwerk who conceived these radical time displays. The mechanics are inventive, especially in the interconnected nature of the various sub-assemblies ranging from the retrograde to the satellite discs. The construction also incorporates finer engineering details like main shaft that supports two concentric but independent axes of the carrier...
SJX Watches
Modelled on the first-ever Urwerk wristwatch, the UR-101 T-Rex is the independent watchmaker’s latest entry-level model. Priced at CHF38,000 before taxes, or about US$43,000, the UR-101 combines the brand’s signature wandering hours display with an aged bronze case finished with a scale-like guilloche. Initial thoughts Urwerk doesn’t do vintage-inspired watches often, and when it does the result is restyled enough to make it clearly modern. This is in keeping with the brand founders’ ethos, which looks forward rather than back. That’s the case with the UR-101 T-Rex. Though it takes the same form as the vintage original, it’s recognisable as a new creation. The vintage-inspired concept is appealing, as is the sub-US$50,000 price. While I like the idea of a revival, I find the “T-Rex” pattern a bit too aggressive. A polished finish that replicates the original would have been unimaginative, but more subtle engine turning would be an interesting counterpoint to the avant-garde style of the watch. That said, since the UR-101 is a limited edition of 100 pieces, I can safely assume that new variants are planned for the future. The tab on the back releases the crown to set the time Vintage inspired The new UR-101 is Urwerk’s second historically-inspired watch after the UR-102 “Reloaded” of 2023 that was similarly based on the brand’s early creations. Like its predecessor, the UR-101 retains the form of the vintage original, but is scaled up to 41 mm wide ...
Time+Tide
Wandering hours and a wild crystal make this one a real looker.The post The Ōtsuka Lōtec No. 5 Kai is Jiro Katayama’s latest innovative creation, but is it a step in the right direction? appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
SJX Watches
As Urwerk has matured as a brand, its products have evolved to become more wearable. The recently launched UR-150 Scorpion embodies this evolution. The UR-150 incorporates the familiar Urwerk time display – but with a retrograde twist – but in a sleeker, curved case that hugs the wrist. Initial thoughts The UR-150 continues the emphasis on wearability established by the compact UR-100. The UR-150 is bigger and bolder, but despite its size, the curved case profile allows it to sit well on the wrist. This contrasts with many of Urwerk’s past models, which tended to have wide, flat case backs that were less ergonomic. The curved case also looks good, especially since it continues the line of the domed sapphire crystal. This design moderates the hyper-mechanical aesthetic of many Urwerk models, leaving the UR-150 a little more elegant, albeit in a war machine-like way. In some ways, the UR-150 seems descended from the UR-100. It has a similar tonneau shape, but more streamlined. And it has the signature satellite disc wandering hours, but enhanced with a retrograde minute hand (that’s no doubt borrowed from the UR-210/220/230). The combination of the retrograde minutes with the satellite disc display is notable for Urwerk as the brand historically kept this time display on its simpler watches, while the top-of-the-line satellite cube display was accompanied by the retrograde indicator. This leaves the UR-150 as something of a bridge between two distinct lines of the br...
SJX Watches
A lightweight version of Urwerk’s most affordable model, the UR-100V “Lightspeed” retains the signature wandering hours time and carbon composite case of the earlier “C52” model. The Lightspeed, however, gains a facelift with a display that tracks the speed of light from the Sun traveling through the solar system. Initial thoughts At first glance, the Lightspeed may appear similar to the standard UR-100V. Yet, closer scrutiny reveals distinct features, most notably a display indicating the time it takes for light to travel to each of the planets in our solar system. Furthermore, the black carbon case easily complements the aesthetic of the watch. Attention to detail was paid to the light speed display, which also incorporates a new, streamlined cover for the central carousel. And of course the calculations required for the display were clearly substantial. That being said, the display might not be for everyone, as all of the text crowds the dial. A more streamlined arrangement of the planet names or even symbols might have worked better. The Lightspeed retails for CHF65,000 with a limited but unrevealed production run. As Urwerk’s entry-level watch, the new UR-100V is a reasonable proposition in terms of independent watchmaking. However, it has competition from Urwerk’s own catalogue, where the titanium “Magic T” with a matching bracelet (albeit with a simpler case construction) costs CHF10,000 less. Tracing the speed of light The new model is named a...
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Time+Tide
Another M.A.D. raffle, perpetual calendar goodness from A. Lange & Söhne, and wandering hours for wandering explorers from Vacheron ConstantinThe post New releases from M.A.D., A. Lange & Söhne, Tudor, and more appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Quill & Pad
Wandering hours has become an essential part of Urwerk's DNA. Unlike any other brand out there, they have explored, lived through, and lost sleep over wandering hours. Over the years, Urwerk have introduced different varieties of this way of displaying time, of which the UR-120 is one of the most spectacular.
![[VIDEO] Hands-On: Argon Space One Jump Hour](https://wornandwound.com/library/uploads/2023/05/ARGON_SPACEONE_12.jpg)
Worn & Wound
Are you ready for the final frontier? Or rather, the next frontier? A new frontier, at the very least? Yes, all signs point to a big change in the world of watches on the horizon. A new world, or I guess frontier to be consistent, where you don’t have to win the lotto, inherit tons of wealth, or be uncommonly successful to buy an exotic watch. A world where brands that were once considered too small to matter are standing their ground against giants, showing that with a passion for watches and an innovative spirit, the seemingly impossible can occur. This is a very dramatic way of saying that there have been some cool releases in the last few years that have been accelerating in their frequency, indicating the beginning of a new trend of the previously “exotic” becoming more obtainable. We’ve seen affordable wandering hours pop up for a few years from the likes of Gorilla and Atowak. We’ve seen unexpected collaborations between approachable brands and high-end independents like Louis Erard and Vianney Halter. We’ve seen high-end independents branch out into the approachable space with offshoots like Kurono Tokyo by Hajime Asaoke, SUF Helsinki by Stepan Sarpaneva, and M.A.D. Editions by Max Büsser. We’ve seen Christopher Ward shock the world by releasing a dial-side sonnerie au passage with the C1 Bel Canto. We’ve seen more too, so perhaps the trend is already here. Reinforcing this is the subject of today’s review, the Argon Space One. The first watch by...
SJX Watches
Continuing with iterations on its bestseller, Urwerk has just taken the covers off the UR-100V “Magic T”. Retaining Urwerk’s signature wandering hours time display, the Magic T has both its case and matching bracelet in finely-blasted titanium, giving it a look that is distinct from the UR-100V “Full Metal Jacket” launched in 2021. Initial thoughts At first glance, the Magic T looks identical to its 2021 predecessor. Both are identical in design and share a matte titanium case and bracelet. But in person the Magic T is clearly different, even though it’s only the finishing of the titanium that differs. The Magic T has a finer, smoother finish that gives it a softer, more refined feel. This gives more tactile appeal than the Full Metal Jacket for me, so anyone who missed out on last year’s model should not have any regrets. That said, I hope Urwerk doesn’t do too many limited-edition variants of the UR-100V on a bracelet, because it would risk getting repetitive. For now, however, the runs are small enough and editions few enough that the model remains appealing and interesting. Finely “shotblasted” Unlike the Full Metal Jacket that was finished with a tangibly granular finish, the Magic T is entirely in “sanded shotblasted titanium”. In other words, it was blasted with smaller abrasive particles than those used for the Full Metal Jacket, resulting in its smoother, finer finish. The difference in finish is tactile enough that both watches feel differ...
![[VIDEO] Owner’s Review: The Formex Essence Leggera](https://wornandwound.com/library/uploads/2023/04/Formex_EssenceLeggera_13.jpg)
Worn & Wound
A big part of the appeal of micro-brands* rests in their ability to exercise a greater level of general creativity to bring a specific vision to life, something we’ve always found value in around here. We’ve seen some pretty sophisticated stuff take shape, from unique hand sets and dials, to wandering hours and composite cases. One brand in particular has proven rather adept at implementing what I have no issues calling exotic engineering solutions to their watches, and that brand is Formex. With “roots in high-end watch manufacturing” that should come as no surprise, and while the brand’s own aesthetic has undergone some pretty wild transitions, they seem to have landed in a cohesive space with their latest generations of watches in the Essence, Reef, and Field collections. *Okay, Formex isn’t exactly a micro-brand. They are attached to that noted “high-end watch manufacturer” in a way that very, very few brands (large or small) are. This allows them access to engineer solutions for things like quick adjustment mechanisms in a manner that almost zero micro-brands can. Formex is a small (but not really) manufacturer that produces their own watches, which take full advantage of that fact. The micro-brand or small-independent nomenclature doesn’t neatly apply here, but given the price points that Formex tends to play in, I view them along the same lines as more traditional micro-brands the likes of which we frequently discuss around here. $1790 [VIDEO] Ow...
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