Tag Archives: Watches

Atari’s 1980 Arcade Classic Just Became a Limited Edition Automatic Watch

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Gaming and watchmaking have been circling each other for years, trading collaborations that usually land somewhere between cynical and forgettable. The Hamilton x Call of Duty watch exists. The G-Shock x Street Fighter collection exists. Casio has licensed more IP than most studios at this point. Nubeo looked at all of that and apparently decided the only interesting move was to go deeper, not louder.

The Ventana Automatic Missile Command takes the full visual grammar of Atari’s 1980 arcade classic and builds it into a 50mm mechanical watch limited to 100 individually numbered pieces per colorway. The dial layers pixelated missile trails, fighter jet sprites, and a concentric radar system over a multi-disc mechanical assembly, with the “0120” score display anchoring 12 o’clock and the “Atari ©1980” copyright stamp sitting at 6. The exhibition caseback frames the Miyota 8215 automatic movement inside the original arcade cabinet artwork, giving the watch a second face as compelling as the first. Kill the lights and the Super-LumiNova does something unexpected: the full-color scene collapses into monochrome green, the exact phosphor glow of a 1980 CRT screen, and suddenly the whole design logic becomes obvious. Nubeo built five colorways at $500 each, Assault Yellow, Strike Green, Vector Red, Command Black, and the Impact Blue exclusive to Atari.com, and every one of them rewards that kind of attention.
Designer: Nubeo x Atari

Designer: Nubeo

Missile Command arrived in arcades in 1980 carrying a psychological weight that most games of its era never attempted. Designer Dave Theurer has spoken about the nightmares the project gave him during development, because the premise was deliberately unwinnable: nuclear warheads are falling on your cities, you can slow the assault but never stop it, and eventually the screen fills with fire. That Cold War dread, rendered in chunky pixels and trackball physics, made it one of the most culturally loaded games ever put into a cabinet. It migrated to the Atari 2600 and into living rooms across America, and an entire generation grew up memorizing its visual language: the radar rings, the missile trails, the pixelated cityscape at the bottom of the screen waiting to be vaporized. Nubeo clearly grew up with it too, and the Ventana is the design evidence.

A multi-layered disc system gives the scene genuine physical depth rather than the flat printed look that sinks most licensed watches. The concentric radar rings at center sit on a separate disc plane, catching light differently from the pixelated imagery surrounding them and creating a parallax effect that shifts as you move the watch. The central turret hub anchors the second hand and reads exactly as the game’s targeting reticle, while the minute hand carries an X crosshair and the hour hand a red sun symbol. These are not decorative flourishes bolted onto a standard layout. They are the timekeeping system rebuilt around the game’s iconography from the ground up, which is a fundamentally different design brief than most collaborations ever attempt.

Super-LumiNova was applied across the full dial surface, which means in daylight you are reading a full-color Missile Command scene in vivid greens, yellows, reds, and blues, and in darkness all of that color information drops away into a pure monochrome green glow that is a dead ringer for the phosphor output of a 1980 CRT monitor. The design team understood that the game existed in two visual registers, the color of the arcade cabinet screen and the green-tinted memory of everyone who played it in a darkened room, and encoded both into a single material decision. Every pixel, every missile trail, every sprite glows with the same uniform intensity, uniform in the way that analog phosphor was uniform, which is to say warm and slightly imprecise at the edges. That quality is almost impossible to fake with modern lume application and the fact that Nubeo pulled it off suggests this collaboration went well beyond a licensing agreement into something closer to genuine obsession.

Through the exhibition window you can watch the Miyota 8215 automatic rotor spin, but the real draw is the original Missile Command arcade cabinet artwork surrounding it, complete with the bold red and yellow logo treatment, the rocket imagery, and the Atari mark printed onto the inner caseback disc. The outer ring is engraved with the model reference NB-6138, the water resistance rating, the limited edition designation, and the individual piece number. Wearing this watch means carrying two museum-quality presentations simultaneously, one facing the world and one facing your wrist, which is an unusually generous design decision for a $500 release.

The hardware specifications match the ambition of the concept without overreaching. The 50mm stainless steel case runs 16mm thick, the Miyota 8215 is a Japanese automatic workhorse that stays reliably out of the way of the dial story, sapphire crystal with AR coating protects the scene, and the screwdown crown at 4:30 delivers 200M water resistance. The chunky segmented rubber straps in each colorway add a tactile sportiness that ties the whole package back to the arcade cabinet’s joystick-era aesthetic, and at 179 grams the watch has the kind of presence on the wrist that reminds you it is there. At $500 for a sapphire-crystalled, 200M-rated, individually numbered automatic with this level of dial craft, Nubeo found the third path that the gaming collaboration space rarely bothers looking for: mid-tier pricing with upper-tier design intent. All five colorways are available now at nubeowatches.com, with Impact Blue held exclusively at atari.com, and with production capped at 500 pieces total across all variants, the cities on your dial may be perpetually under attack but the watch defending them is built to outlast every arcade cabinet that ever ran the original game.

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The $429 PhantomX Watch Has Four Rotating Arms That Tell Time Like a $50,000 URWERK

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URWERK builds watches that cost as much as a compact car. The Geneva-based studio has spent decades engineering satellite hour complications, where orbiting arms carry hour numerals into position around a central axis, revealing the current hour as they complete their circuit. It is horological theater at its most sophisticated, with collectors typically paying between $30,000 and $100,000 depending on the configuration. The wandering hour concept itself dates to 17th-century pocket watches, but URWERK transformed it into an entire brand identity that has spent the better part of three decades sitting behind a velvet rope. The visual language of satellite hours has remained firmly in luxury territory for nearly all of that time.

Mitico, a Hong Kong-based brand, just launched the PhantomX on Kickstarter at $399. It runs a four-arm satellite wandering hour system over a Miyota 9039 automatic, wrapped in a stainless tonneau case with a 3D star wheel mechanism that reveals only the current hour at any given moment. The campaign cleared 1,400% of its funding goal within days of going live. Something is clearly happening in independent horology right now, and the PhantomX is one of the most direct examples yet of the satellite hour complication finally escaping the velvet ropes. The gap between ambition and accessibility, in this category, is narrowing fast.

Designer: Mitico

Click Here to Buy Now: $429 $750 (43% off) Hurry! Only 12 days left.

The wandering hour format has existed in some form since the 17th century, and Mitico’s interpretation adds a structural layer that separates the PhantomX from the current wave of indie satellite designs. Four arms orbit continuously around a central axis, each carrying three hour numerals on a sculpted 3D star wheel, with only the current hour numeral vertically aligned and fully visible at the dial center. Mitico calls this the “Only the Present Hour Revealed” concept, meaning the adjacent numerals stay tucked along the curved sides of the wheel, keeping the face uncluttered despite the mechanical complexity underneath. Time is read by finding the arm that has rotated into the central display position, then cross-referencing it against the clockwise 0-to-60 minute track. The result is a reading experience that demands a moment of engagement rather than a reflex glance.

A red triangular seconds hand sweeps steadily across the dial, acting as both a navigational beacon and a metronome for the entire orbital system. It gives the eye something to follow inside a display that is otherwise in constant, multidirectional motion, and the contrast between its singular sweep and the orbiting arms creates a layering effect that rewards watching rather than just checking. The dial center is sculpted with layered textures rather than left flat, adding mechanical depth that reveals itself at close range. Mitico applies high-intensity Swiss Super-LumiNova to the central time display, covering the rotating seconds, minute track, and hour indicators, for clear legibility in the dark. The upper inner dial ring gets standard-grade lume, providing a faint structural outline at night without competing with the primary display.

The tonneau-shaped stainless steel case measures 50.64mm wide by 43.32mm tall, with a case thickness of 15mm, dimensions that put this squarely in bold-statement territory. The skeletonized side architecture is machined to reduce visual bulk and overall weight while preserving structural rigidity, with every cutout doing double duty as both aesthetic element and structural support. Crown placement at 12 o’clock reduces wrist pressure during wear and allows more natural operation, one of those ergonomic decisions that sounds minor until you actually live with a conventionally crowned watch all day. A double anti-reflective sapphire crystal with a Mohs hardness of 9 sits over the dial, ensuring clarity from any angle. Water resistance is rated at 5 ATM.

The Miyota 9039 is a self-winding caliber running at 28,800 vibrations per hour with a 36-hour power reserve, and it is the right movement for a project at this price point. Miyota calibers in this family carry an established track record across the microbrand world, offering day-to-day reliability that lets a complex display module run on top without stress-testing the foundation. The 9039 carries no date complication, which is the correct call, because a date window would introduce visual noise into a dial already managing considerable simultaneous motion. Choosing a proven base over an untested proprietary caliber is the pragmatic engineering decision that separates a deliverable product from a concept. That the four-arm satellite module delivers stable, legible display on top of this foundation is the understated technical achievement at the center of the PhantomX.

The PhantomX arrives in ten colorways: Phantom Black, Arctic White, Solar Yellow, Stellar Blue, Nebula Green, Mars Orange, Flare Red, Abyss Blue, Orbital Brown, and Nova Purple, each carrying matching strap stitching and crown accent treatment across the same stainless case and movement platform. The strap is a nylon and genuine leather hybrid fitted with quick-release spring bars, so swapping requires no tools. Mitico estimates shipping to backers in August 2026, with the campaign running through June 13. At $399, the PhantomX is making the satellite hour complication accessible at a price point that no established watchmaker has approached at this level of mechanical ambition.

Click Here to Buy Now: $429 $750 (43% off) Hurry! Only 12 days left.

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$95 Lambertus strap will turn the Audemars Piguet × Swatch Royal POP pocket watch into a wristwatch

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High-end collaborations, at times, give us meaningful outcomes that no matter how hard you try, you cannot sidestep. In my recent memory, Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop – a mindboggling amalgamation of the Royal Oak and the Swatch Pop – is definitely one such example. While everything is a Pop of color and high-end horology, what remains missing is the fact that this collaborative model is not meant to be worn on the wrist; it’s designed as a pocket watch, but one you’d definitely fall for even in 2026.

However, there is a school of thought comprising watch enthusiasts that believes the Royal Pop deserves to rest on the wrist. While the creators themselves don’t believe it, Lambertus, an independent maison, is a firm advocate that it should, and is therefore creating case-straps for the Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop, now going on pre-order, in whole, for $95 through the Royal Pop Wrist Bands website.

Designer: Lambertus

That amount will reserve a case-strap for you, but there’s a caveat. The creation of these straps has not kicked off the blocks at the time of writing. For the reservation price of $95, therefore, you are banking on Lambertus to carry out all the phases of development i.e., the roadmap from R&D, prototyping, final design, to manufacturing, with no clear deadline for assurance.

The Lambertus creation is called Chapter I. It’s now in the R&D, and should present, on development, as an excellent accessory to the AP × Swatch Royal Pop. The cult timepiece comes in eight different colorways and two design iterations: the Lépine and the Savonnette. The Lépine pocket watch is designed with hour and minute hands and a crown at 12 o’clock. It comes in six color options. Available in two colorways, the Savonnette Royal Pop, features a crown at 3 o’clock and along with the hour and minutes, also has a small second hand at 6 o’clock.

Since Lambertus has a vision to match everything in the Royal Pop portfolio to the T. It will also tailor the straps to match the eight colors of your pocket watch. Even commendable – or you may say requisite – is that the case-straps will be split in two models, like the AP x Swatch collaborative pocket watch itself. The Strap I of the Chapter I will come in six Lépine-style models and the Strap II in two options for the Savonnette-style watches.

Of course, from how it appears as of now, the machined, octagonal watch holder straps from Lambertus will let you snap in the AP x Swatch Royal Pop and flaunt it with passion. But how well the strap material (which remains unclear as I write), of the eight luxury designs in two crown orientations, complements the Bioceramic case of the actual watch is anybody’s guess. And if that’s not as premium as you would like to trust with your AP, we know where the $95 you put in is headed. To ensure the backers have little legal ground to confront, the Royal Pop Wrist Bands website puts out “Our Royal POP compatible straps and wristbands are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Audemars Piguet or Swatch Group,” in fine print.

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The colorful Audemars Piguet x Swatch Bioceramic Royal Pop watch can be worn in multiple ways

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Since 1875, Audemars Piguet has been at the core of Swiss watchmaking, relentlessly blending luxury with bold designs in the Royal Oak. The avant-garde craftsmanship is now shared with Swatch to deliver a collaboration first Royal Pop in eight different models. The watch, designed to be worn in multiple ways, is not a traditional wristwatch, but a vision of an Instagram-worthy pocket watch. Don’t miss the pop of colors and the innovative audacity that underlie the ethos of this new collaborative timepiece when sharing a picture of it on your profile.

The eight colorful pocket watches by Audemars Piguet and Swatch are inspired by the former’s Royal Oak and the latter’s POP watches from the 1980s. This may be Swatch’s first partnership with AP, but the watchmaker has a history of making exciting collaborative models such as the Omega x Swatch MoonSwatch. While the new watches share the same Bioceramic case as the MoonSwatch, there are many differences, lets learn them in detail below.

Designer: Audemars Piguet  x Swatch

The joyful collaborative Royal Pop makes a statement with its bold colorways and the intent to give a new vision to the traditional way of wearing a watch. The watch features Swatch’s patented Bioceramic (a composite material) case, but the larger distinction – or similarity, if you may – is its Royal Oak inspiration. It has an octagonal bezel slapped with eight hexagonal screws, ‘Petite Tapisserie’ pattern on the dial, and comes with three lanyard lengths to wear it in different ways.

The colorful Bioceramic Royal Pop pocket watch with Royal Oak pedigree measures 40mm in diameter, and it is only 8.4mm thick. The hour and minute hands under the sapphire crystal feature Super-LumiNova for readability in the dark. Other interesting aspects of the Royal Pop are its see-through caseback and its innovative SISTEM51 movement, designed by Swatch.

As noted, the Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop comes in eight different models. These are further divided into two distinct configurations: Lépine and Savonnette. The six Lépine-style pocket watches feature hour and minute hands and a crown at 12 o’clock. Two Savonnette-style watches, on the other hand, have a crown placed at a more recognizable 3 o’clock position, and in addition to the hour and minutes, also have a small second hand at 6 o’clock.

Bioceramic Royal Pop pocket watch, as mentioned, is powered by Swatch’s hand-wound SISTEM51 movement, which is reportedly the only mechanical movement with a “100% automated assembly.” The movement features an anti-magnetic Nivachron balance spring along with laser-based precision adjustment set directly at the factory. It will provide the pocket watch with up to 90 hours of power reserve. The Bioceramic Royal Pop Collection is now available for purchase through selected Swatch stores, starting at $400 for the hour-and-minute versions. The model with a small second hand will cost you $420 before taxes.

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G-Shock Just Dropped a Coca-Cola Watch for Its 140th Anniversary

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There are some things that you know are fundamentally bad for you, but you can’t resist consuming them. Coke (the soft drink) is one such commodity, and especially during the summer season, it has become more of a necessity than an indulgence. The brand itself has been around for 140 years and has built itself into something that virtually everyone recognizes, from its logos and visual cues to its timeless ad campaigns. It has become a cultural artifact for well over a century, transcending beverage culture to become one of the most iconic brands in history.

To celebrate this milestone, Coca-Cola has partnered with another recognizable global brand, G-Shock, to create a limited-edition collaboration. The GA-2100CC-3A is the first-ever Coca-Cola watch built on the analog-digital GA-2100 base, which has its own massive cult following in the watch community. Enthusiasts affectionately nicknamed the GA-2100 the “CasiOak,” a nod to its resemblance to the luxury Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, making it one of the most talked-about G-Shock models of the modern era.

Designer: G-Shock x Coca-Cola

You would think that a Coca-Cola collaboration would have red and white splashed all over, but G-Shock took a more refined, classic approach. Instead of leaning into the brand’s signature bold palette, the design focuses on a translucent green bio-based resin that is directly reminiscent of Coca-Cola’s iconic vintage contour glass bottle. You do get minimalist splashes of red throughout the design, as it is of course the color most associated with the brand, but it’s tasteful rather than overwhelming. Instead of just slapping the logo on this wearable, you get smart design easter eggs that will delight the most die-hard of Coke fans.

Both the bezel and band come in the aforementioned translucent green, with the dial receiving Coca-Cola-toned hues as well as printed graphics evoking the iconic bubbles from the soft drink’s fizz. At the 9 o’clock position, the date indicator hand is shaped like the brand’s beloved fluted glass bottle. That same bottle motif is carried over into the band loop as well, keeping the design cohesive and intentional. Flip the watch over and you’ll find the case back engraved with a bottle cap-inspired design, a subtle but brilliant finishing touch. The entire watch also arrives in exclusive special-edition packaging specifically created to commemorate the brand’s 140th anniversary, making it a complete collector’s package from the moment you open the box.

It’s also worth noting that the use of bio-based resin is not just a stylistic choice. It reflects a growing commitment to more sustainable materials in watchmaking. The GA-2100 series adopted bio-based resin in 2024, and it carries forward seamlessly into this collaboration, giving the watch a modern, eco-conscious edge that feels right at home in 2026.

In terms of technical specifications, you still get all the great hallmarks of the GA-2100 base, which has made it one of the more popular G-Shock models. It is shock resistant as well as water resistant for up to 200 meters. It comes equipped with the usual functions including a timer, stopwatch, and Double LED light, with an approximate battery life of 3 years. The case measures 48.5 × 45.4 × 11.8 mm and weighs in at 51g, slim and lightweight for a G-Shock, which has always been a big part of the GA-2100’s appeal.

The GA-2100CC-3A is priced at ¥27,500 JPY (approximately $175 USD) and is set to release in May 2026 via the Casio webstore. Given that this is a limited-edition piece tied to a once-in-a-generation anniversary, it’s the kind of watch that won’t sit on shelves for long.

Whether you’re a G-Shock collector, a Coca-Cola memorabilia enthusiast, or simply someone who appreciates thoughtful design collaborations, the GA-2100CC-3A checks every box. It’s nostalgic yet modern, playful yet polished, and honestly, much like the drink it celebrates, it’s the kind of thing you didn’t know you needed until it’s right in front of you.

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Piaget Just Moved the Watch From Your Wrist to Your Neck

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The watch industry has a well-earned reputation for doing the same thing over and over again, just with slightly thinner cases and flashier complications each year. So when a brand genuinely surprises you, it feels worth talking about. Piaget’s Swinging Pebbles, unveiled at Watches and Wonders 2026, did exactly that for me.

These are not watches you wear on your wrist. They’re pendant watches, sculpted entirely from a single slice of semiprecious stone and hung from sinuous twisted gold chains. The stone isn’t just decorative trim or a dial insert. The case itself is stone. The whole object is stone, hollowed out just enough to house a manufacture movement, then sealed back into a smooth, organic pebble shape. You clasp it, but you don’t strap it. It lives at your collarbone, not your pulse point.

Designer: Piaget

That shift alone deserves attention. The industry has spent decades debating millimeters of case diameter and whether 40mm is too big or too small for a modern watch. Piaget essentially said: what if none of that matters and the watch just hangs from your neck like a very beautiful rock? It’s a deeply different kind of confidence.

The collection comes in three stone varieties: golden tiger’s eye, grass-green verdite, and pietersite, each with its own mood and temperature. Tiger’s eye has that warm, chatoyant shimmer that catches light differently depending on your angle. Verdite is earthy and lush, the color of an old botanical illustration. Pietersite is the most dramatic of the three, with its stormy, swirling blues and golds that look like a weather system captured in mineral form. Choosing between them feels less like selecting a product variant and more like choosing a personal talisman.

The design draws from two specific moments in Piaget’s archive. The first is the Swinging Sautoirs of the 1970s, a collection born in an era when watches were fused into coins, envelopes, and dice, and wearing one was a full sensory experience. The second is a lesser-known reference: Piaget’s asymmetrical kimono pocket watches from 1974, crafted in malachite and designed to rest in the palm like a smooth river stone. The Swinging Pebbles are clearly carrying those ideas forward, but they don’t feel like a costume. The connection to the archive is felt rather than announced.

Yves Piaget once said, “A watch is first and foremost a piece of jewellery.” The Swinging Pebbles are probably the most literal interpretation of that philosophy the maison has ever produced. The movement is almost beside the point, which is a strange thing to say about a Swiss luxury watch. But the pieces use a quartz caliber (the 355P), and I actually think that’s the right call here. Piaget didn’t let a mechanical complication turn these into something bulky or precious in the wrong way. They stayed committed to the object’s identity as jewelry, and the quartz movement quietly agrees to stay out of the way.

My personal take: this is the kind of design that makes you rethink what a watch category even is. Pendant watches exist at a rare intersection of horology, sculpture, and wearable art, and most brands either treat that intersection as a novelty or ignore it entirely. Piaget has always been the exception. They’ve been dressing dials in lapis lazuli, turquoise, and tiger’s eye since 1963, and this new collection feels like a natural exhale from six decades of accumulated stone fluency.

Whether or not you’d actually wear one is a separate conversation, and probably a deeply personal one tied to your relationship with jewelry, self-expression, and how much you enjoy being the most interesting person in the room. But as an object, as a design statement, as a piece of thinking about what a watch can be, the Swinging Pebbles are quietly radical. They’re not trying to modernize a classic. They’re trying to remind you that some classics were already ahead of their time.

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adidas Originals’ Two Ring watch shrinks digital timekeeping into a minimalist retro-modern timepiece

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Smartphones have shrunk to the size of a wrist, and now smartwatches are beginning to appear on the fingers. Some of the better names in the industry have already tried ring watches. Casio did so with the Ring Watch CRW-001-1JR, and Timex collaborated with Beams on the Beams Boy x Timex Original Camper Ring Watch. Now it’s adidas Originals, which is expanding its athletic heritage to the jewelry and fashion industry with the new Digital Two Ring.

The timepiece is created under the Timex license, so in many ways, this miniature watch sits at the intersection of both brands’ identities. That partnership isn’t new, as Timex has long produced adidas timepieces, translating the sportswear giant’s aesthetic into accessible watches that balance function and street-ready styling.

Designer: adidas

What defines the Digital Two Ring is its intentional minimalism, which is to be worn on the ring. The interface strips away everything non-essential, focusing entirely on a highly legible digital display, punctuated only by the iconic Trefoil logo. There are no extra graphics or complications: just time, presented clearly. This clarity is amplified by the display layout, which is deliberately large and easy to read despite the compact form.

The design itself leans into a bold, industrial aesthetic. Built around a 20mm stainless steel case, the ring emphasizes a clean yet edgy metal texture that feels both contemporary and slightly retro. Despite its miniature proportions, it carries a surprising visual weight, giving it a strong sense of individuality. The absence of decorative elements further enhances its understated, almost architectural presence.

Functionally, the watch keeps things straightforward. It runs on a digital quartz movement and offers 3 ATM water resistance, enough for daily wear and light exposure, reinforcing its role as a practical yet style-forward accessory. The construction includes a stainless steel expansion band, designed to flex like a spring. This allows it to fit multiple fingers comfortably, starting from approximately size 11, while maintaining a secure, stress-free fit.

The Digital Two Ring arrives on April 17 in two metallic finishes that further position it as jewelry as much as a timepiece. The gold variant leans into statement styling, adding a subtle sense of luxury that pairs easily with other accessories. The silver version, on the other hand, offers a calmer, more understated tone, making it versatile enough for everyday wear across different outfits and occasions. The ring watch is expected to retail around the $125, placing it firmly in the accessible fashion accessory category rather than the high-end watch segment.

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This Luxury Italian Watch Has a Triple-Axis Tourbillon and Looks Like a Ferrari Dashboard

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Old sports cars had analog instrument clusters that told you everything through three or four circular gauges mounted in brushed metal housings, each dial showing a different slice of what the engine was doing at any given moment. The information was direct, mechanical, and laid out with the kind of functional clarity that only made sense if you understood how the car worked. Tachometers sat next to oil pressure gauges, fuel levels next to coolant temps, all of it visible through a steering wheel while you were doing 140 km/h on a mountain pass. Desder’s D001 takes that exact visual language and translates it into a wristwatch with a triple-axis tourbillon spinning where the tachometer used to be.

The watch displays time on two separate cylinders, one for jumping hours and one for continuous minutes, flanked by a GMT indicator on the right and a power reserve gauge on the left. Luca Soprana, the master watchmaker who cofounded the Ateliers 7h38 workshop that builds complications for Jacob & Co, designed the caliber with the same obsessive attention to architectural clarity that defined mid-century dashboard design. Mo Coppoletta, the tattoo artist and designer behind collaborations with Bulgari and Montblanc, shaped the case to follow the teardrop aerodynamics of 1920s and 1930s race cars. The watch debuted in April 2026 from Modena, in the heart of Italy’s Motor Valley, limited to six unique pieces. The case wraps around the movement like a coachbuilt body over a chassis, every surface flowing from the mechanical geometry underneath.

Designers: Mo Coppoletta, Luca Soprana (Desder)

Soprana’s caliber is a study in mechanical complexity made legible. The triple-axis tourbillon sits dead center, rotating on three independent axes to counteract gravitational effects on timekeeping accuracy. The movement beats at 3Hz with a 45-hour power reserve, hand-wound through a crown that feels more like a machine interface than a watch component. German silver forms the mainplate and bridges, chosen for its rigidity and traditional finishing properties. Titanium components reduce weight where it matters, while phynox, a high-performance alloy known for extreme strength and corrosion resistance, handles stress points. The entire movement comprises 465 parts, every single one made by hand in Soprana’s Vaumarcus atelier near Neuchâtel. The jumping hour mechanism snaps forward with the kind of mechanical decisiveness that makes you want to watch it cycle through an entire day.

The case construction follows Italian coachbuilding philosophy, where form and function develop together rather than in sequence. Coppoletta designed the case around the movement’s architecture, letting the mechanical volumes dictate the external silhouette. The teardrop shape references 1920s and 1930s aerodynamics, when wind tunnel testing was still a decade away and designers shaped metal based on intuition about airflow. Flowing surfaces connect the cylindrical time displays, each one sitting under domed sapphire crystal that distorts and magnifies depending on viewing angle. The brushed metal finish catches light the way a hand-formed fender does, with subtle variations in surface texture that reveal the construction process. Sculpted lugs integrate directly into the case body without visible seams, continuing the coachbuilt language where every panel flows into the next.

Each of the six pieces carries subtle variations that make it genuinely unique. Coppoletta, whose background in tattooing taught him to treat every commission as an individual artwork, approached each watch as a separate design exercise within the same architectural framework. Different finishing patterns on the case, variations in how the sapphire crystals dome over the displays, minor differences in how the lugs taper into the case body. These aren’t the superficial variations you get when a brand changes dial colors across a limited run. These are structural differences that change how the watch sits on a wrist and how light interacts with the metal surfaces.

The D001 competes with MB&F and Greubel Forsey in the kinetic sculpture category, but carves its own space by grounding the design in automotive heritage rather than abstract futurism. Where MB&F builds machines that look like they belong in science fiction and Greubel Forsey chases chronometric precision with architectural movements, Desder anchors everything in the tangible history of Italian industrial design. The watch references a specific moment when cars were still shaped by hand and instruments were analog by necessity. Pricing is on request, which in this category typically signals seven figures. For collectors who view watches as functional art and value radical design integrated with mechanical innovation, the D001 delivers both. Just don’t expect to wear it through airport security without some explaining.

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The NASA Artemis 2.0 Smartwatch Runs Python And Lets Kids Code Their Own Wearable

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NASA’s Artemis II lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on April 1, 2026, carrying four astronauts on humanity’s first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen are currently aboard the Orion spacecraft, preparing for a lunar flyby that will take them farther from Earth than any humans have traveled since Apollo 13. Space exploration feels immediate again in a way it hasn’t in decades, and CircuitMess timed the NASA Artemis Watch 2.0 perfectly into that cultural moment. This is a $129 programmable smartwatch, fully assembled and ready to use out of the box, inspired by the very mission currently making headlines.

The hardware inside includes a dual-core ESP32 microcontroller, a full-color LCD screen, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a compass, and a temperature sensor. It pairs with iOS and Android devices over Bluetooth for activity tracking and notifications, and the firmware is entirely open-source, reprogrammable in Python, CircuitBlocks, or the Arduino IDE. You can design custom watch faces, build interactive apps, and modify sensor behavior as deep as you want to go. The age recommendation is 9 and up, which reflects the lower barrier to entry compared to CircuitMess’s Perseverance Rover kit we wrote about earlier. No assembly required, no soldering, just charge it and start exploring.

Designer: CircuitMess

Most smartwatches aimed at kids treat programming as something that happens elsewhere, if it happens at all. You get a companion app with preset themes, maybe a handful of watch face options, and locked-down software that assumes the wearer has no interest in understanding what’s running underneath. The Artemis Watch 2.0 flips that entire model. CircuitMess ships it fully functional, but every layer of the software is accessible and modifiable. The visual block-based CircuitBlocks environment gives beginners a starting point, while Python and Arduino IDE support mean users can graduate to full code without hitting an artificial ceiling. The firmware lives on GitHub as an open-source repository, so there’s no proprietary lock-in and no feature wall you can’t get past.

The dual-core ESP32 processor does real work here. It handles Bluetooth pairing with smartphones, processes sensor data from the accelerometer and gyroscope in real time, and runs whatever custom apps you decide to build on top of the base system. The compass and temperature sensor add environmental awareness, which opens up coding projects beyond simple timekeeping. You could program the watch to log temperature changes throughout the day, trigger alerts based on compass heading, or build a step counter that uses the accelerometer to track movement patterns. The 1.77 x 0.5 x 2.76 inch form factor keeps it wearable for younger users, and the rechargeable Li-Po battery charges via USB-C.

CircuitMess sells the Artemis Watch 2.0 standalone at $129, but it also appears in a Mars Exploration Bundle alongside the Perseverance Rover for $399, a 23% discount over buying both separately. That bundle positions the watch as a companion device for tracking rover missions and staying connected during the 20-hour rover build. CircuitMess also offers a Collector’s Bundle that includes the watch and four official strap designs for $149. The company has sold over 300,000 kits worldwide, and the Artemis branding ties directly into the kind of sustained media coverage that makes space feel culturally relevant again.

The Artemis Watch 2.0 is available now at circuitmess.com. If you followed the actual Artemis II launch this week, if you care about wearable tech that doesn’t condescend to younger users, or if you want a smartwatch that teaches coding by letting you rebuild it from the inside out, this is one of the few products in this category worth the $129 ask.

The post The NASA Artemis 2.0 Smartwatch Runs Python And Lets Kids Code Their Own Wearable first appeared on Yanko Design.

This $4,500 NASA Watch Reads Time Through a Prism and Only 100 Exist

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There are a few driver’s watches as acceptable and undeniably luring as the Amida Digitrend, first launched way back in 1976 (the same year when Apple was born). The fanfare had Amida and watch designer Matthieu Allègre revisit the timepiece in 2024, and now, to commemorate its 50th year since launch, the Digitrend is revived in a NASA Tribute mechanical watch.

The watch lands with a NASA logo slapped right on the doomed top, where you would otherwise find a dial on the other watches. The Digitrend, being a driver’s watch, features the dial placed perpendicular to the wrist for better visibility while driving. “Our inspiration comes from the iconic ceramic tiles covering the space shuttle’s exterior, to protect it against the brutal heat of atmospheric reentry,” the company notes.

Designer: Amida

The new, special edition timepiece is called the Amida Digitrend NASA Tribute and is designed to capture the spirit of the era of the Space Shuttle, “when humanity dared to reach for the stars.” Of course, the watch carries the same spirit and approach of the original Amida Digitrend of 1976, but the new one is now a direct tribute to space travel, which reflects first up on the white retro-futuristic watch face featuring the vibrant red NASA logotype, a nod to an era for the agency from 1975 to 1992.

Ready for takeoff, the Digitrend NASA Tribute features the same jumping hour and trailing minutes aperture on the perpendicular dial, which remains as it has always been on the watch series. The watch features a 40mm black DLC-faceted metallic monobloc case featuring a ceramic top shell. This atypical display and the case shape are both inspired by classic sports cars and modern architecture.

Made to be durable, the watch is powered by a Soprod Newton P092 automatic caliber, which is visible in action through the transparent caseback, and offers a 44-hour power reserve. The movement is connected to Amida’s in-house jumping hour disc comprising nine mechanical components that create a classic digital display. The watch comes paired with a matching strap featuring a black DLC steel buckle and a secure hook-and-loop fastening system. The strap is made of black leather and has quilted white nylon in the center.

The Amida Digitrend NASA Tribute is strictly limited to just 100 examples. A homage to the ingenuity of the space program, it is available at Amida for CHF 3,400 (approximately $4,500). The watch touts 50m water resistance and is actually priced exclusively because it is aimed at collectors and timepiece appreciators.

The post This $4,500 NASA Watch Reads Time Through a Prism and Only 100 Exist first appeared on Yanko Design.