It's March! Where has the time gone?
The good news is that today we announce our second pre-order date!
In the past few weeks, myself including the rest of the Horage staff have all been in quarantine. I have been nearly 500 kilometres socially distanced from the team, but just happened to catch Covid at the same time, all from the confines of my home office. Needless to say, we have been down and out, but our Covid symptoms have been overshadowed by the recent, tragic news of the invasion on Ukraine and the many innocent people displaced or worse - those injured or who have lost their lives. Finding the spirit to remain positive and continue on with "business as usual" has been challenging, so we took a much needed rest.
Today we are back, feeling aligned and blessed to work in an industry that brings so much joy to a community of unique and diversified enthusiasts. With time, we know that together with you, we will find the means through this incredible hobby to help bring light and support to those who need it most. In order to achieve this, we realize rather than sit on the sidelines, we need to be back communicating with you and sharing more on what is in the works. There is a lot.
Pre-order starts April 12th, 2022
A forum post has been long overdue, but don't fret we have many lined up over the next month as we head into the second pre-order. That means we are indeed about a month out till the next pre-order and have tentatively scheduled it for Tuesday, April 12th at 14:00CET.
The pre-order round will run for the same duration of time as the November round which was 72 hours only ending on Friday April 15th at 14:00CET.
What is the difference between the first & second round?
4,900CHF
First and foremost, the price is what most take note of and it has increased by 400 Swiss francs from 4,500CHF to 4,900CHF. We have a global price which means all tax, duty, and shipping regardless of where you are in the world is included in the price. With each pre-order round we will increase the price of the watch with final retail pricing sitting at 6,500CHF. The goal is to reward those that support the earlier rounds with the best prices as there are still details of the watch being ironed out.
We will also offer the full payment option of 4,900 CHF, which includes a FKM rubber strap of your choice in the purchase.
For those who wish to split the payment, you can pay in two separate payments of 2,450, however this option does not include the rubber strap. Rubber straps will be available for 130CHF each.
Technical Prototypes
With this round, we have managed to iron out a lot of the details pertaining to the case construction, hands, dial and of course movement functionality. This prototype round is actually a "Technical Prototype" which means it must meet the basic production quality finish and details. A technical prototype is expected to not just look close to finished, but function like a production model. To achieve this level of finish, we are currently awaiting new cases to arrive from production. In unison, Horage engineers Jonas and Pascal have been overseeing revisions that have been made to the K2 calibre to ensure we can show full movement functionality. By the time or within the week of the second pre-order, we aim to have twenty technical prototypes complete.
The above is from the first prototype round. Photo by Kevin Lo
Micro-Adjustment Clasp
Along with the above updates, the full 10 x 1mm micro-adjustment deployant clasp will also be finished as a technical prototype. We are keen to see how it will look finished in 904L stainless steel. Although deemed a technical prototype, we believe there will still be another prototype round for the clasp after testing is complete to ensure it performs as expected. Photos and video to follow as soon as we have this in hand.
Colours & Options for Pre-order
Four colours and five samples of each will be ready in time for pre-order. As communicated earlier and based on your voting, we would offer the three top colours voted by you in the second pre-order, those being 12:00 White, Transatlantic Blue and Atoll Blue. Our team all really like the Boreal Green and therefore we decided to include it again for this second pre-order round and therefore on our site you will find all four colours that will be available for pre-order.
12:00 White
Transatlantic Blue
Atoll Blue
Boreal Green
As well all five FKM rubber strap colours of black, grey, blue, red and purple will be offered.
The option of brushed or polished bracelet centre links will also move forward as this is highly discretional and it seems everyone likes the flexibility to choose what they like. Additionally, all bracelets are still tentatively planned to ship with the new micro-adjustment deployant clasp.
Do you think we should offer the bracelet separately for sale?
What about rotor material and Water Resistance?
These two topics are at the top of our technical development list.
Tungsten, Gold, Mystery Material...
Changing rotor materials is far more than just changing materials there is much re-engineering needed as each rotor material has a different density. The density of the material impacts how well the watch generates power reserve and gearing must be manipulated to accommodate these fluctuations. Pascal has been simulating with various materials and we will be sharing more on this development between the second and third pre-order round (May-August). The mystery materials are proving to be the best performing, however they greatly exceed the price of gold so there is some work still to be done.
Regardless of the material, there will be no additional charges to anyone that takes part in the Supersede pre-order.
100m to 200m
Markus Lindstedt, the engineer behind the micro-adjustment clasp is overseeing water resistance of Supersede. The next few months have him dedicated to seeing what can be done to take the already impressive 100m base water resistance to 200m. We are not sure if he will make it work, but are just as anxious as you to see what is possible. We do have some fun testing in mind if all goes well and will keep you posted on those developments in future posts.
Whats up next?
Vote Horage!
Our good friends at Anakin Design Studio recently finished our new website and have entered it in the Awwwards website design competition.
How to vote?
It's super easy to vote as you simply need your facebook, google or twitter login.
Click on the link or the image below and away you go. https://www.awwwards.com/sites/horage
A vote helps their agency gain greater recognition so definitely give it a go.
There are four categories to vote from 1-10. The max vote is a 9.9 out of 10 so for the super supportive ones that would like to give us the top mark be sure to keep it to 10,10,10, 9 at a max as 100% vote will not be counted.
Thats A Wrap For Today
There is a lot to look forward to. Andi, Erik and myself will all be working to keep you informed as we move towards the next pre-order. Erik has some forum posts planned and will have about one a week coming out so keep a keen eye on the newsletter updates for those. There should be two newsletters a week by the time we go to pre-order and after the pre-order is complete, we will go back to less updates to keep your email less cluttered.
Andi and myself will be back on YouTube Live again next week at some point and look forward to connecting with you all in the live chat.
I've missed hearing from all of you and look forward to connecting with you in the comments.
Till next time...
Landon Stirling
Wow, you guys are so responsive to feedback! Keep up the great work as the prototype and development continues. Should be an epic launch!
Hi Landon. I love the improvements made to the Horage website since I first started looking into Supercede. However, can you please look into the description of the local vs. home hand on Horage.com? The description for the local hand says the following: Local Hour hand Home Hour - Skeleton hand that is slaved to 12/24 hour day/night indicator. Easily distinguished from local hand. It seems that the title (“Local Hour hand”) should say “Home Hour hand”. The same problem also exists on the Home Hour description.
Just wanted to say that I'm not sure I could be more excited for this watch.
While I have several Rolex, Omega, and Tudor watches - none seem to do what this watch does, check every single box. It's though you reached into my brain and designed this to become one one-watch to rule them all.
Date Complication
Rotating bezel timer
Water rating to allow me to give my kids a bath or jump in the pool without worry
COSC certified
Timezone Jumping!!!
Integrated bracelet
Easy micro adjusted bracelet
CRAZY slim
Under 40mm
Will be backing on Apr-12 -- have multiple alarms prepared.
thanks! A picture is worth a thousand words!
What was the lug width on this? Totally concur with the orange strap!
Great update! for those of us who jumped on with the first round pre-order can you remind us when the first Supersedes will roll off your production benches and be ready to ship?
I agree completely on an orange strap, especially given the orange accents on the hands/dial.
I read in earlier postings on FKM rubber strap that many were asking for orange rubber strap. But in your update, the red rubber strap is on offer instead. Does it meant that there would be no orange rubber strap on offer?
Anyway, if orange is on offer, I would order in this Round 2, a Boreal Green dial, brushed centre link and orange rubber strap.
One thing on the GMT hand: being skeletonized makes it work well on anything with a colored dial, but it blends in too much on the white dial (the only differentiator being the absence of a thin band across it). It also does not appear to have any lume. I suggest considering a different design that has more contrast on the white-dial version and has a lumed tip or something.
Fantastic update and great to hear about the progress. I think you should definitely offer the bracelet for sale as long as it doesn't tie up capital in inventory that was going to be used to fund the anticipated strong reception to Supersede!!
Congrats again on all the progress and amazing project. I can't wait till December :D
Thanks for the update guys ! Love from Poland :)
A customer question that came up that I thought some others might have:
Q: Is if there is a difference in the performance of the watch based on when you pre-order?
A: The watch and all the functions will be the same regardless of when you pre-order. We are simply utilizing the pre-orders to A) reward those that support the project earlier with the best price possible. B) have pre-orders as development milestones to inform you of the improvements we make to the final performance of the watch.
Great summary, thanks for sharing. I do not need another watch, I do not want another watch, but after recently receiving my Tourbillon 1, I will proudly support Horage and the way you do business by pre-ordering a Supersede on April 12th. If it looks as good in-person as it does in the photos (and based on my experience with the Tourbillon 1, it will), it will be money very well-spent. Keep up the good work. Also, maybe consider tantalum for the rotor material? Cool stuff with an aesthetic that would really compliment the movement color. Just sayin'. :-) Feel better!