What Did You Vote For?
The SUPERSEDE votes keep rolling in and we have been monitoring things very closely.
Today I decided to tabulate the results to provide an update to you all on where things stand.
Watches are very personal items and that means any of us purchasing a watch hope to be able to customize our most desired spec. The reality is that the more spec's on offer the more costly production becomes both in reaching minimums and managing sku's. However, offering more than expected is something we have always loved to do regardless of the additional work or cost involved and since we don't have a crystal ball we reached out to you, our community to vote on what you like most.
As we relayed earlier on we would produce those items that would be most highly voted upon so lets see where things are at and just what will get produced, what is still up in the air and what surprises we have in-store for those taking part in the first SUPERSEDE pre-order round. I will also have some questions at the end of this post that I would love your feedback on in the comments.
Chronometer Certification
Why do it and does anyone really care?
We ask ourselves this quite often because at our facility we regulate our movements within COSC chronometer standards regardless of them going in for certification or not. As a newer movement maker we have noticed that it is easier to convey our accuracy through COSC, but as we grow we have often stopped to wonder if it is still relevant at this time in our company.
It seems the demand for independent certification continues to strengthen and we feel this is a good thing as it forces movement makers to reach industry recognized precision benchmarks. If a movement is precise, one can only assume the components driving that precision have been highly industrialized to continue delivering long term stability.
79% Voted yes and 21% voted no to chronometer certification.
Based on the result we will move forward with the plan to individually certify each and every K2 movement with COSC.
Colour Vote
Dial colours are a hard one to pin down. We all have our favourites and it seems brands could never produce enough variations to meet everyones interest.
With Supersede we set out to create six different dial colours and to have you vote to see which would be the top three that go into production. Honestly we were taken aback by just how the vote went and could not have anticipated the results.
From lowest to highest, here are the results:
11.1% - 24:00 Black
11.1% - Jet Stream
11.3% - Boreal Green
17.8% - Transatlantic Blue
20.1% - 12:00 White
28.6% - Atoll Blue
Bracelet Vote
SUPERSEDE is impeccably finished and it is one of the most complex case and bracelets our production partners have ever worked on, more on just why its so complicated in a future post 😉.
When we started the project we aimed to keep our life simple and only produce a polished centre link version of the bracelet, however upon speaking with a few insiders we noticed a desire for bracelet centre links to be brushed.
Brushed Centre Links
Polished Centre Links
Industry insiders don't always guess right and neither do we and that is again why we took the "Polished or Brushed Centre Links" to a vote. I had expected things to be close, but difference in the result is quite surprising.
66.5% brushed centre links
33.5% polished centre links
Did you think there would be such a vast difference?
Rubber Strap Vote
For nearly 5 months we have been working on a new rubber strap as it seems fitting that a sports watch be offered with both bracelet and strap options.
Such developments are very costly as we look to engineer new rather than take something off the shelf from an OEM supplier. Therefore we again reached out to you to find out just how important a rubber strap is and if there were any interested in having one if it meant a small upgrade fee. To our surprise it was a landslide vote in favour of shipping with both bracelet and rubber strap.
84.9% Yes 15.1% No
Rotor Vote
Gold Plated Tungsten, 22K Solid Gold or Mystery Material
Voting on rotor material is easy, finding out what is the best material for the movement is the hard part. One of the major engineering challenges with a micro-rotor is finding ways to maximize it's oscillating weight. A high weight is achieved through a materials density and this results in greater rewinding efficiency which means a movement can recharge its power reserve much quicker and easily. A lower oscillating weight and a movement is hampered in its ability to rewind the mainspring.
Ultimately the material should be voted on by weight/density rather than finish, we are after all a performance watchmaker and optimizing our movements is the number 1 job at hand, but we also want things to look and feel good.
The vote was formulated to find out how important material composition is to you. Are precious metals important to you such as solid 22K gold or are gold plated, non-precious tungsten fine as well?
53.1% 22K Gold
20.9% Gold Plated Tungsten
From an engineering perspective tungsten has a slight weight advantage over solid gold and therefore it is from a performance perspective the better choice, but then again, there is something special about solid gold. The look of gold is fitting to the black gold bridges of the K2 movement and therefore having a solid slice of this precious metal oscillating on your wrist would be the icing on the cake, or would it.
Let's not forget the 28% vote for the "Mystery Material"...
There could just be another metal out there that meets the aesthetic requirements of K2, exceeds the density of both tungsten and solid gold and is one of the most coveted materials in watchmaking.
Whats Next?
It's time for you to give me a little more feedback.
1. Do you think we should try to offer all dial colours if it means they are limited to a pre-order round or in quantity?
2. Should we offer both brushed and polished bracelets?
3. Would you purchase a second bracelet in a different finish if given the option?
4. Should we offer additional rubber strap colours and if so would you grab a few colours?
5. Should we explore this mystery material in more detail?
The SUPERSEDE pre-order is planned to kickoff later on in November and the next forum post will focus on the format and preparation for pre-order.
Until next time...
Landon Stirling
Since you guys at Horage always seem busy with new stuff... @landonstirling for some time I have this crazy watch idea: https://omegaforums.net/threads/the-pomodoro-watch-a-new-complication.141127/ If there would be one watchmaker crazy enough to make this kind of complication I would think it would be Horage ;-)