The brand’s latest cheap replica watches features a unique display based on the speed of light.
Few watchmaking companies are as creative with timekeeping as Urwerk, the brainchild of master watchmaker Felix Baumgartner and his co-founder and artistic director Martin Frei. The small Swiss brand has been at the forefront of haute horlogerie since 1997, creating futuristic timepieces with innovative functionality and aesthetics that are more stunning than Star Wars in Schaffhausen.
Symbolizing its creative spirit, the brand’s UR-100 collection is based on the “Wandering Time” complication, which uses a series of three rotating satellite arms to display the current time in a curved window at the base of the dial. The walking hour display was invented in the 17th century and was originally used in clocks. It entered the world of watches in the early 1990s with Audemars Piguet’s Starwheel collection. Urwerk’s various attempts at wandering hour complications have resulted in a number of striking timepieces, and while the UR-100 series is particularly wild with its funky cases and peripheral indications, there are several based on a concept rarely explored in contemporary watchmaking. Unique models of creative themes.
The UR-100V “Speed of Light” is the latest in the Urwerk range and is based on the concept of light and the time it takes to reach every planet in the solar system. The speed of light is 299,792,458 km/s, represented mathematically by the letter “c”, which forms the basis of mathematical systems (i.e. Einstein’s theory of relativity) and (so far) fictional systems, such as the concept of stellar hyperspace travel Trek and Star Wars fame. To represent the speed of light on a watch, Baumgartner and Frey built a small “planetarium” on the top half of the UR-100V that displayed each planet, and the time it took for light to travel from the sun to said planet.
Particularly useful? Maybe not. Is it poetic? certainly. When combined with the watch’s wandering time display, the result clearly looks like something Commander Spock would be wearing on his wrist while fighting a Klingon (or two). Powering the watch is Urwerk’s UR 12.02 automatic movement, which features advanced materials and a variety of finishes that demonstrate Urwerk’s mastery of the unconventional. Aluminum satellite hour set on beryllium bronze Geneva cross; aluminum turntable; three base plates made of non-magnetic ARCAP alloy; titanium inner case; sun-inspired self-winding rotor visible through the sapphire case back, which It’s a movement that only a group of mad horological scientists could have imagined.
The UR-100V features a 43mm black carbon fiber case with a sandblasted DLC-treated grade 5 titanium caseback. At 14.55mm thick, it’s not small by any means, but its red textured rubber strap and folding clasp will undoubtedly lighten the wrist. Table weight. load and bring a comfortable wearing experience.