Designing my own watch (2020)
willem.com
willem.com
Body $30 https://www.casio.com/us/watches/casio/product.A158WA-1/
Movement $40 https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/sensor-wa...
I’ve added a new astronomical face and rejigged the world clock for my rellies (showing AW for Australian Western time.) Dirt simple changes but it’s thrilling to have something that’s partly mine. Because it is based on the Casio body it’s also an iconic design classic too.
I believe a version with tzdata in it is in the works by the author. My thanks to everyone involved in the project and everyone on HN who got me into this hobby!
[1]: https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/sensor-wa...
https://github.com/joeycastillo/Sensor-Watch/blob/0ad5fa4733...
So much fun to be had!
Thank you so much for sharing.
At the very least this makes author's watch rather less unique and custom than described. Perhaps it was an one of a kind back in 2020, but it's not anymore.
The cost is around $9K.
I love their timepieces.
I guess they now own and can continue to sell that design. They've gone all in on online customization at least: https://www.ochsundjunior.swiss/customizer-1-1/?watch=112&cu...
This is not a hand-made watch. It's just bespoke made to his specification and he never states its unique and limited edition 1 of 1.
This does however make it incredibly custom as stated as he gave the specifications, and the company made it for him, literally customisation I'd say!
¹ since then they also have a collection of non-customizable watches
² this undersells it a bit; most O&J watches (like mine!) are "just" customized realizations of a set of basic designs (which is a good thing, IMO, because those designs work better than what most buyers would come up with). But many of those designs were developed collaboratively in response to specific customer requests. I was in the workshop in 2018 and saw an early prototype of what became the day/night watch (https://www.ochsundjunior.swiss/watches/day-night/) in development for the customer who had proposed it. If you skim through their blog, you'll find lots of interesting projects done for customers with varying degrees of customization (I really love this day/night done with no conventional face: https://www.ochsundjunior.swiss/dirks-day-night/)
Better would be a Seiko with GPS, but too expensive.
The sapphire glass means I don’t treat it especially well and it looks brand new.
With regard to value and cost I would like to add the factor 'time' to the discussion. A watch like this can easily last for decades, possibly longer (and it will retain some value, possibly even appreciate in value, over time).
This is a sharp contrast with 'consumables' like most smartwatches and smartphones, that (given enough time) will add up in costs, too. I am not saying one should "do this or that" - but value/cost is a funny thing when you think of it in more than one dimension.
I see people driving round in cars that cost $100k+. I think this is insane, but it’s relatively normal.
Spend your money on things that make you happy.
But for my $200 Garmin to "add up in costs" to your $10,000 watch would require some extremely creative accounting.
Although I suppose time does factor into every discussion of watches, in a way :)
Passions should not be primarily measured in TCO or returns, then no vacation ever makes any sense since you just spend money, no expensive clothing, no expensive car, no restaurants just eating cheap salads whole life and so on. Also one should live in tiniest cheapest shed to maximize earnings. You see where this goes
Sure, but even if I replace my Garmin every 5 years for the next 100 years, I'll only have spent $4000, so I'll still be $6000 better off.
Or if I put that $10,000 into an investment that returns 2% above inflation? I can have a new Garmin every year and 100 years later, I'll also still have $10,000
And if I'm needing a new Garmin every year I'm either very careless or very passionate about having the latest gadgets. So will that $10k watch really be my last ever watch? Almost certainly not.
> Passions should not be primarily measured in TCO or returns
Yes, I agree - as I said in the first paragraph of my post. If you're buying a luxury watch because you like luxury watches, there's nothing wrong with that.
But pretending a $10k watch saves you money is just wishful thinking.
There are three questions at issue:
1. Is the point of this watch to be a sound, efficient investment? No, clearly it is meant to be a personal luxury object and experience. It’s ok to indulge, but seem to agree that this watch is an extravagance —and thus it is wonderful but fundamentally beyond purely rational.
2. Is this watch a good investment, money-wise? It would be if it appreciated, and it may. It could also wind up (ha) depreciating, as ochs and junior make many similar pieces and OP is wearing it actively enough to damage it.
3. Is a series of lower end, 4-year supported, shorter lasting goods ($500 for 4 years) a worse decision than one, long lasting, analog artifact ($100000 for 80+ years)? I think that’s up to each person.
I look at watches as a piece of jewelry more than an engineering item, they might or might nor keep their value but I like how they look, make me look and make me feel especially if there is a nice story behind the watch.
Good advice for people that have money to commission custom pieces from lauded swiss companies.
Meanwhile I'm wearing the watch I got for "free" (ended up still costing for maint/repairs), and trying to get my mortage paid.
The alternative option is to order some parts from AliExpress and make your own custom watch. Elliot Coll has some videos on how to do that on YT.
It’s funny how the word “luxury” and “expensive” means different things for different people.
I want a watch that I can wear everywhere and anytime, bump against walls and stuff, and if it breaks, I don't feel bad.
And while I never planned to have any of that changed because I thought it added to the cool factor, the appraisal guaranteed that decision. I was recommended a local watchmaker who could service the movement only and ensure the seals were all intact. Or I could send it back to Rolex for servicing where they’d polish the case, relume the numbers, and swap the acrylic dome for sapphire - and by doing so chop ~50% off the value of the watch.
It turns out collectors love patinas and scratches and for a 60 year old watch to look its age.
This isn't like your expensive Apple item that becomes disposable/worthless after 4 years :).
[1]:https://www.rolex.com/watches/new-watches/sky-dweller [2]:https://24carat.co.uk/frame.php?url=hardnessofgoldalloys.htm... [3]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_hardness_test
If you hire a repair shop to do it, expect your luxury watch to also cost luxury repair prices. The price has nowhere to go but up as I doubt there are a lot of people lining up for watchmaker's school.
When I got a passed-down luxury watch repaired at an authorized repair center, it costs more than the purchase price of all my other watches combined.
The guy is happy about his watch and goes into great detail explaining how it works and how it's made and why.
Why comment in such a negative way? I can't afford a 20k watch either, but so what? Why such jealousy?
You have contributed nothing, yet made the internet ever so slightly worse.
This doesn't work. Use the vote button.
It's just interesting to me that lower in the thread with less votes there are actually insightful comments that have real content and the most upvoted comment is the one that says "this sucks because I can't afford it".
This seems to me to be an issue in a number of other places as well - the website previously known as twitter is probably a good example where someone posts something and a lot of the replies are just random hate and nitpicking about a single, irrelevant word in the comment.
I guess I just don't get why people bother to do that. And it is kind of interesting to think about - is there some way to encourage more thoughtful responses?
It doesn't help that the whole post is titled "Designing my own watch" while the actual design work was seemingly mostly done by ochs; mixing up doing something and commissioning something done is another of those things that has echoes of ages past, and not in a good way.
For the authors defence I do say that 5 years ago was slightly different time and back then these sort of things could pass more easily.
The post for most parts was neat, not disagreeing there. But wrapping it up as some sort of empowering life lesson feels so utterly out of touch that I felt like reminding that it is huge privilege to be able to do this sort of thing.
Never was it my intention to provide one with "overarching life lessons". Your reaction points out that I still have a lot to learn in refining the tone of my English use. As non-native English language user, I use my blog to "hone my skills". You helped me learn, for which I am grateful.
For what it is worth, I use the knowledge and expertise that enable my "privileges" in my work as volunteer. You can find some posts on this here: https://willem.com/blog/2016-11-21_being-a-volunteer-in-amst... TLDR: I am very grateful.
Someone not wearing custom luxury watch is most likely not due being afraid to make decisions for themselves. Attributing the ability to do this sort of thing to "connected world" and "people willing to help" is just distasteful to me.
I do not entirely follow your reasoning here as I never have intended to "judge" or "rank" other people's choices and decisions. The post (on _my_ blog) is about _my_ watch, not much more than that.
It doesn't help that the whole post is titled "Designing my own watch" while the actual design work was seemingly mostly done by ochs; mixing up doing something and commissioning something done is another of those things that has echoes of ages past, and not in a good way.
Naturally I agree with you that a large part of the mechanical design is done by ochs und junior; however I do think that if you take the concept a little broader it might make a little more sense: given all the options out there, I set out to have a watch created that would fit my specific wishes. When I look at the result, I very deliberately know why I made certain choices in style, size, colour, material, function, capability and weight. In that sense I did take part in the design process.
For the authors defence I do say that 5 years ago was slightly different time and back then these sort of things could pass more easily.
Thank you sincerely, reactions like those of yourself enable me to learn. That is very much one of the reasons why I like the blog. Have a nice day!
And of course a book on watchmaking.
We've been making watches for about half a millennium now, and if a craftsman in the 1500s could do it, surely a curious man with semi-modern secondhand tools from the 70s can too.
I'm going to do exactly this eventually and it's going to "cost" me maybe as much as a flagship phone all up, time and effort not included.
The majority of the cost will be time and effort. I think George Daniels estimates it to be 3000 hours for a skilled amateur to make the tourbillion pocket watch described in his book. This number will be decreased if you forego the tourbillion. But even so, other equipment costs: jewelling press, staking set, poising tools, depthing tool, all kinds of abrasives, oils and greases. The largest tool cost will be lathe attachments like collets, cross slide, milling attachment, wheel and pinion cutters. You may be able to cut wheels and pinions on the pantograph but probably not to the precision needed for a wristwatch, maybe for a large pocket watch or clock. Maybe you could put the lathe on the milling table to index the stock and use the mill to cut?
That's not counting all the theory needed to design and build a movement from scratch.
My advice would be to steal the going train, escapement and balance from an existing movement and fabricate the remaining parts
Some folks put money into ferraris or porsches and then race them, or watch them appreciate (if smart & lucky). Or boats. Some folks spend money otherwise. Half of this forum spent similar amount on just non-mandatory technical gadgets in past few years.
This watch making is actually an investment that can bring nice returns in the future, barring damage/theft/loss happens. Also an interesting skill learned, plus skill explained to others. I can't do anything but appreciate such folks.
Is it still all about the product when the product is a luxury item itself?
Why lack of superfluous boxes is good when the product itself is superfluous?
Hence why I said it’s a property of the piece itself.
It's not completely custom, i.e. ochs und junior is using their own design, but the blog post is a lovely showcase of why he loves the watch, and watches in general.
(I live in .ch, where people love watched a bit more than I've experienced elsewhere)
$20k is in a ballpark of a Ressence watch [1], which, given a choice, I would choose without any hesitation.
The reason he landed on that design is pretty well detailed in the article too.
If you want to make a custom watch, design the case and dial yourself, and buy an off the shelf swiss or japanese movement like a ETA / miyota or a sellita movement, https://sellita.ch/index.php/en/movements these are used in top luxury watches and have great accuracy and reliability.
>Base Movement
> ETA 2824-2 with 38 hours of power reserve. Manufacturer: ETA SA / Grenchen / Switzerland.
it's literally an off the shelf movement.
> Although ETA movements are now unavailable for purchase from ETA, you can still find watch parts suppliers offering replacement movements for sale. The gold tone version (see example below) appears to cost less than the silver (nickel plated) version. Prices generally range from $200-$300 USD, but at the time of this post, the gold tone 2824-2 can be purchased for $236.20 USD here, and the nickel plated for $262.42 USD here.
The main thing that drives the cost in something like this is the movement, and this doesn't have a custom movement at all, there's no way the rest of this is worth around 10k.
Without a nice dial I don't really see the point.
It's like putting a ferrari engine in a mini. Sure it's incredibly cool how it works, but I couldn't imagine buying one of the watches, and I am a watch collector.
The dial and hands design and quality looks just so so poor. The huge lines in the case pieces don't inspire much confidence in the craftsmanship either.
Obviously the article mentions they want the case to be unpolished which is fine if the machining wasn't so poor.
The buyer obviously thought they were getting something custom because they showed him a few CAD screenshots, but the watchmaker is selling this on their website still.
From the image where the caption reads:
> The curved case design is very comfortable on the wrist, as there are no sharp edges sticking in your arm
This isn't even correct, it's literally got flat lugs which do not curve on the wrist.
It has an annual calendar module added on. Surely that's semi custom and worth something, considering how expensive the calendar watches usually are.
(edit): actually there's a secondhand annual calendar longines on chrono24 for less than $2000 so maybe not worth that much. Probably still quite novel though.
Our goal for battery life is 18 hours after an overnight charge -- Apple Watch
Not very durable, though. I bought one for each family member once and loaded a custom face.
That is more fun that commissioning a 20000$ watch from a Swiss watchmaker.
I could see how one could create a simple mechanism for that (the expression is basically 30+(m+(m&8)&1)-(m==2)* 2, a sort of odd-even sequence with a discontinuity), but staring at the diagram it doesn't seem to make sense - the month disk rotates a little bit each hour, and the date ring is driven off the month disk?
- The base movement turns the date wheel every day at (or, typically, just before) midnight via the 31 teeth on that wheel.
- The single tooth on the date wheel drives the five-pointed cog. I gather that this must turn the month wheel two teeth—probably one tooth when changing from 30th to 31st and a second tooth when changing from 31st to 1st, though I do not see exactly how this works. (It looks like the date wheel finger would only turn the small cog one tooth per month, and the small teeth on that cog look like they would only interact with the longer teeth on the month cog.) On short months the long teeth on the month wheel are in turn are nudged by the second, shorter finger on the hour collar at about 3am on the 1st (while the date wheel is still showing 31), which causes the month wheel to advance the second tooth almost a day early, and this must cause the five-pointed cog to nudge the date wheel to advance from the 31st to the 1st (though again I am not sure exactly how that works).
- The long finger on the hour collar turns the day-of-week disk 1/14th turn at 6am and 6pm, resulting in that wheel making a complete turn every 7 days. Thanks to the long dash of colour on this wheel, one dot is shown 6am–6pm while two dots are shown 6pm–6am.
Watchfinder made a pretty good video about it, though slightly hampered by the owner of this particular watch having chosen just about the lowest-possible contrast colours for the indicator dots: https://youtu.be/28LYcZJ6hHE
But it's a really cool piece of art and I thought the depth of the dial was especially interesting. From afar or in pictures, a watch looks like a 2D display, and since we mostly only see them in pictures, it's easy to forget that a lot of analog tech was subtlety 3D.
With most natural objects, when you see a picture it's obvious it's just a picture and there's a third dimension, but with mechanical devices it sort of feels like you're looking at a picture of an old fashioned screen, and you never notice that there's depth you don't see.
Highlighting that aspect is a really cool design choice.
You're more likely to have your phone stolen. Thieves are all about risk/reward: they want your Rolex Sub or your (gaudy, ugly, huge) Royal Oak, which they know they can flip for a huge profit.
This is exactly true: the watch offers a kind of "security by obscurity" most better known watches lack.
It is a "if you known you know" thing. At the same time it is a very hard sell (for any potential thief looking for quick money) as the watch is unique in its configuration and mostly "meaningless" for other people (rather than me).
You can get comparatively affordable mechanical watches that are sufficiently shock, magnetism, and water resistant to do anything normal people will do in their lives. If you're an underwater welder, astronaut, EE professor, or other career with esoteric risks, obviously do your own research and maybe just buy a GShock.
"Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."
My interpretation of this was that digital watches are such simple technology that the fact we like them means we are easily impressed.
His thesis was much deeper though and I have since found multiple accounts of his explaining that, at the same time as everyone was excited about the fact that pie charts could be produced to easily visualise data on a personal computer, we were also removing what is essentially a pie chart from our wrists and replacing it with something numerical. Here it is straight from the horses mouth:
Like Technology Connections says, the minute hand is a progress bar, but I found I got confused about the hour hand. It points at, apparently, 5 o'clock, but it's actually 4:55, because the hand just doesn't line up so precisely in the visual field. A watch with just the hour hand would be less accurate, but less confusing.
I since found out about jump hour watches, that display the current hour as a digit (in a little window like you see for the date) and have a minute hand. That makes more sense to me.
Not that I agree: "pie charts" for tracking time (and otherwise) are useful when you need to roughly and quickly compare how much time is left in a day.
But we have since moved to it being important if something happens in 14:37 or 14:42, which is hard and slow to decipher on a pie chart.
Now, one could argue we are primitive if we have moved in that direction instead of being more lax with time instead.
low power LCD watches were popularised in the early 80s
Hmm, I don't see any feature on the watch that would help OP tell whether it's 7 am or 7 pm under a cloudy sky. Am I missing a subtle 24-hour indicator, or is he just referring to the super-luminova on the hands and dial?
My requirements are simple: eink/epaper display, a splash of color (red would be fine), circular display, light/visible at night, programmable watch face.
Closest thing I've seen is watchy, wearPico, bangle.js, but they all seem slightly wrong somehow.
You can make your own watch face in a half of weekend, which will include, as a bonus, learning their own dialect of C :)
It's nice that you can shake off any water from them and they are instantly dry and also that you can thoroughly clean them.
(The brand: https://www.ming.watch)
It's less of a problem, but the low contrast between the hands and the face is also not that great for readability.
Here is my wishlist for my ideal watch:
1. Automatically adjusts to the timezone I'm in, including accounting for daylight saving time
2. Analog watch face with zero visible electronic displays
3. Connects to google calendar and has a haptic signal when something is about to start or end on my calendar
4. 2 hours of charging lasts for 1 year
5. Precise enough to act as a PTP grandmaster source.
The self-designed watch camouflages its functionality with minimalism, and the day and month displays proceed in mathematically positive direction. I like it.
But watches are pretty personal, and it's okay to have different tastes. I like that the author knew what was important to them - for me I avoid Roman Numerals, and subdials as both look too busy. I try to avoid date-complications for the same reason, and if I must have them I abhor the cyclops.
My watches range from the casio terrorist, through mass-produced soviet pieces that were made before I was born, all the way to high end Swiss pieces. I still wake up and change my watch based on what kinda mood I'm in, or what I'm doing.
I felt very smart when I wrote my watchface for my galaxy s2 tizen/vue watch with 24 hour display years ago.
I also managed to build in timer/stopwatch functions to save battery (webworker) and it has a cucumber counter (I ate over 400 cucumbers a year back then).
After some tizen update on the watch, the certificates didn't work anymore and I couldn't install it on my watch. I gave the watch away straight away.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SeikoMods/
https://www.reddit.com/r/SeikoMods/comments/11w3c22/nh35_cus...
Ok, there is a philosophy behind the choices, but aesthetic is about risk and about making choices. If you need to remind yourself why something is nice, it isn't.
Thanks! A watch (like any apparel) indeed functions as a communication piece (other than its function of time keeping).
Over the years of wearing it I have had only some folks inquiring about what it exactly is I am wearing. People ask out of honest curiosity, not because they suspect some value (because of a shiny logo or precious metal).
For what it is worth, in addition to the having the actual watch it is also nice to know the people who created it. It is a very small brand, you really have a chance of getting to know the "artists behind the creation". I like that as it adds to the (personal satisfaction) of the story of my watch.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/303755/number-of-swiss-w...
Sales in the most expensive category have grown, in the second most expensive category is fairly flat. It's only the cheaper price brackets that have seen large declines.
But even then, I'm not so sure how much smart watches have hurt the overall market. I prefer to wear an inexpensive analog watch and recently purchased a new one (for just the 3rd time in about 30 years). The available variety was absolutely huge; companies like Casio are releasing lots of vintage-inspired watches in the sub-$100 price point.
Ben: Hey kid, I wanna give you something. Your grand-pap gave me this before your dad was born.
Hank: Is it more dumb news? You gonna tell me who my mom isn't?
Ben: Nah. Just a watch. GMT Master. Venture Blue Dial. Tells the time in two time zones.
Hank: It's heavy.
Ben: That fourth hand there, the little date window, those are called complications. Complications make a watch special. More complications the more valuable. Read the engraving Jonas put on there.
Hank: [reads] "Elige Tua."
Ben: Eh. Close enough. It's latin for "Choose your family." Blood doesn't make a family. Love does. Your grandpap knew that. Choose your family, and remember, the complications make it special.