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Comment by samatman | Hacker News Reader

I'm disappointed to see this merger of art and engineering received so poorly here.

This pushes the envelope of the possible, something I consider beautiful. It's roughly as impractical, expensive, and awkward looking, as a human-propelled airplane.

I don't think any of the many commenters here who panned this watch would have anything bad to say about a human-propelled airplane. It's a pity that they can't appreciate this object in that spirit.

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It's a flat watch - no doubt mechanically clever, but it also happens to be jarringly ugly.

There's an entire economy dedicated to pandering to the pretensions of the vulgar rich, and it certainly fits in there.

But as a design classic - no.

I think it looks pretty cool, and I agree with gp that it's sad people are so caught up in some weird hatred for watch enthusiasts that they can't appreciate the engineering.

This, especially compared to the Octo Finissimo they “out-done”.

If we'd started to replace airplanes with affordable $200 flying saucers, and somebody came up with a $1.8M human-propelled airplane as "innovation", I bet it wouldn't have been liked as much.

Why compare with flying saucers, why not bikes? It's the bike industry existing which makes enormous gossamer human-powered craft possible, after all.

Most art has little reason to exist, kind of by definition, and is seriously expensive at the high end. This is engineering art, where most expensive wristwatches are just art, specifically jewelry.

I wouldn't expect the latest Hublot limited to end up on the front page of HN, but a 1.75mm mechanical wristwatch? Gratified my intellectual curiousity!

Because that's just a lightweight version of an old technology. No new value is being added here. Had this watch provided, say, some smartwatch features mechanically (such as an analog heart monitor, or an analog altimeter etc) I might have found it interesting despite the technology still being old. This feels like just a flex on contemporary manufacturing capabilities. They just spent more money than everyone else.

Indeed, it's a bit like finding it hard to get all that hyped up about the latest Intel i9 whatever-K. Sure it's objectively a monstrous amount of processing on a sliver of matter (just like the one before it), but it's "just" throwing more transistors and fab at the same thing as the [whatever-1]-K.

And then this is basically just an "if you know, you know" flex for a rich person. At least the incremental CPU "tick" or "tock" was somewhat useful, even if the -K variant is not especially useful in the general case.

Maybe we shouldn’t be pushig that hard towards reducing the size of processors/transistors?

If we're doing it for aesthetics, I agree, we shouldn't.

These things have become symbols of wealth inequality, and sports cars in particular have become symbols of wilful environmental degradation. Many commenters would hate on a non-technical piece of art that symbolized/promoted the same things.

>envelope of the possible

Maybe limits of human hand craft which I assume is the allure of these bespoke time pieces. That said I don't actually see the description mention hand crafting other than polishing and drawing a few surfaces. Otherwise I don't see why this is pushing any envelopes when we can make micrometer MEMS machinery. Which would be pretty slick - theoretical minimum micrometer thick watch mechanism encased in sub millimeter baseplate.

I'm sure you're correct and making a thinner mechanical wristwatch that doesn't just fold in half is really easy!

I look forward to your Show HN on a wristwatch < 1.75mm in thickness.

How long do you figure it will take you? three months? six? should I send an email to remind you?

I don't need to design a thinner mechanical watch to correctly point out that they are far from the envelops of possible with respect to modern mechanics. Like this is a neat object but let's not pretend modern watch making is pushing envelopes outside it's niche domain.

the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, or so its said. I'm thrilled to see the envelope pushed but I find seventeen jewel Chinese movements and old soviet designs so much more enriching. they tell a story that isn't just a bourgeois expression of the craft. luch, Vostok, sturmanskie, sugess and shanghai diamond all paint a rich tapestry that bridges history and modern craft, and are refreshingly approachable.

If I had 1.8mm to spend on watches I'd have to figure out what to do with the other 1.7 million, I'm happy to appreciate them on their own terms and from a safe distance.

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