It feels almost quaint in this era of the smartphone (aka the new pocket watch) to see a company producing a wristwatch that's nothing more (or less) than a wristwatch.
Companies including Sony are producing smart watches, adding texts, tweets, e-mails, and the like to the information you can wear on your wrist. And with products like the Pebble appearing, it may be only a matter of time before the smart watch truly takes hold.
But there is something classic and clean about the simple wristwatch. It tells the time and that's it. That's a lot, however. The wristwatch provides us with a little ritual -- however quick and commonplace -- in which we pay our respects to the passing of time, with no other distractions.
It's kind of nice, then, to see a company still whacking away at producing new and classy takes on the humble wristwatch. Biegart and Funk is an example.
It's adapted its prize-winning Qlocktwo wall clock for the wrist, creating the Qlocktwo W. The classy-looking wristwatch quite literally spells out the time, rather than giving it to you with hands and/or digits. As the company says on its Web site:"In a square, there is a grid of 110 letters. When the stainless steel button is pressed, words light up in unexpected places which describe the time. Whenever you look at your Qlocktwo W, it's a new experience."
Recently on display at the Baselworld watch and jewelry show, the Qlocktwo W is due to hit the market in the fall and will be available in black or in brushed stainless steel, with two strap styles to choose from: leather or natural rubber. The price is about $725, and you can sign up to be notified when it's available for purchase.
But, hey, if you're an unapologetic user of an iPhone iPocketwatch, that's OK. You can always consider downloading the Qlocktwo iPhone app, which would cost you only 99 cents. Time, after all, is money, and money is time.