Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/05/09/sub-500-dollar-inverted.html
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The design looks cool, and I can certainly appreciate the engineering, but I still do not understand the appeal of wearing a huge chunk of metal and glass on your wrist, whose sole purpose is to tell the time. Oh, wait, you also get to impress people who care about material wealth. So, two purposes. What a bargain.
I think you’ve excluded the third purpose: the continuous aesthetic pleasure you can derive from being in close proximity to a really ingenious, beautiful mechanism.
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Clever. I also love exposed movements, just seeing the elements move in choreographed precision. I’m not sure if the look of this one is for me, but I’m tempted none-the-less…
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Speaking as someone who’s been wearing a watch daily for twenty years or so, it’s incredibly convenient. 99% of the time, it’s more convenient to just look at your wrist (and maybe shrug your sleeve aside) than dig your cellphone out of your pocket.
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I’m a fan of their Xeric line of watches, they’ve all have really great designs. I have this one myself and love it:
The inverter one is just beyond my price range but i really appreciate that they’re doing creative stuff like this 
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I very rarely wear watches but i certainly like seeing people wearing them, they don’t even have to be luxury watches. A cool watch is a cool watch, they’re good conversation pieces, and they often have sentimental value attached to them.
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I get the appeal of the mechanism, but that looks like one gigantic, expensive blister…
Unbuttoning your shirt cuff to check the time and then re-buttoning it again afterwards seems like a waste of time. Remember when the best watch to have was the thinnest watch?
Some of my antique pocket watches are thinner than this, and would probably still be more practical.
My $20 fitness tracker does the same thing. Different strokes.
If it’s on your wrist and shows time, then it’s a watch as far as I’m concerned! 
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At least do some finishing on that thing. Geneva stripes, blueing, black polish etc. I think they make that caliber in skeleton…
I own a few watches and it’s exactly what @doctorow and @LurksNoMore said. By a twist of my arm I can check the time and don’t need to fumble around with my cellphone (if I can find it at all). I like the tradition and skills that went into it. Perhaps it’s a weird kind of nostalgia to appreciate an old piece of technology still useful today.
I disagree about the “super-luxe item for $20K” statement though. A well regulated Miyota 9000 (there are several different calibers in this series btw) is definitely not a bad caliber but it’s a standard watch movement - good, but not exactly “super-luxe”. The usual price range for watches with a standard calibers like ETA, Valjoux or Miyota is between $500 and $3000. A “problem” with the standard unmodified Miyota 9000 series is its rather high standard deviation of -10~30seconds per day.
My daily “beater” has an in-house caliber based on the Valjoux 7750 movement with a deviation of ±6 seconds per day.
34mm is a rather small watch by contemporary standards. 34mm watches are usually sold as small watches for women. I recommend 38mm+ for most men.
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The overall look of the watch does disappoint me to be honest. All the other Xeric watches they’ve done have very interesting looks, i’d own all of them if i had the money but this newest one looks too plain for my liking. I definitely appreciate the mechanism but would like juuust a bit more style to it.
Oh, I wore watches for years, before I decided they were unnecessary. I am immune to nostalgia, and as stated, I don’t need a fancy piece of metal and glass to tell the time. My small bit of plastic and rubber can do that. It also doesn’t snag on cuffs, pockets, door frames, and anything else my hands come close to, because it’s not the size of a roll of Scotch tape. It isn’t as impressive, for sure, but I’m not looking to impress anybody. I drive a Kia and rent an apartment.
Again, I can appreciate the design and craftsmanship of a beautiful object. There are plenty of things in the world that are intricate, and beautiful, and also laughably impractical. I do not feel a compulsion to obtain things like that.
You got the wrong watch. 
Watches don’t have to be flashy or clunky.
What about a Nomos Orion for example? It’s unpretentious, very flat (just 8,7mm), slender, and automatic. I like most Nomos watches exactly because they’re not flashy but very modest.
I own watches because I like them, not because I want to impress someone. Most people don’t notice what kind of watch you wear.
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With a custom module that makes the watch run backwards
But does it? The face looks right way round. I’d like it more if it did run backwards. I have a wall clock like that.
If you like eyeing the movement of your automatic watch for less than $500, I would recommend the LIP Himalaya
Precise, robust and made in France. (I’m totally biased as I have one on my wrist as I’m typing this…)
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I own a Disney Goofy character wristwatch that runs counter clockwise and I love that.
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Miyota 82S5 caliber btw
Have a look at Junghans watches: affordable Bauhaus-style
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Mine is a wall clock from Ripley’s Believe It or Not in Fla.
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