Metro Starlike

Today is another of the watches from the mysterious Metro brand. I've blogged about this brand before, and what it looks like is that they are a Japanese brand (possibly linked to a furniture store), but with very little firm information around.

This model is called Starlike (deviating from the more common American city naming convention). It is an automatic mechanical watch with a 3 hand mechanism, but only using 2 hands. The seconds hand is replaced by a rotating disc which makes moving patterns with another disc below. There is also a date marker at the 3 o'clock position. 

The strap is a leather strap with a matching geometric pattern, and a Metro branded buckle. 

My best guess is that this is from the late 2000s, and I found an auction article which suggested an original sales price of ¥12600.

Withings Scanwatch 38mm

It's been quite a while since my last post, mainly due to other commitments, but also because I started wearing smart watches.

But, I just saw my blog had hit 1 million total pageviews, and thought it would be nice to get back to blogging sometimes again (and I still have a lot of cool watches to come) .

My first watch back is the Withings Scanwatch which I've been wearing a lot over the last couple of years. This version is the 38mm model in white and silver (model number HWA09). 

The watch is a hybris smartwatch with an electronic 2 hand dial, round oled screen, and small activity dial. The activity dial shows the percentage of your daily target (set through the Withings Health Mate app), while the Oled screen shows the other functions.

The oled screen is triggered by pressing the crown, which displays time and date, and rotating the crown allows you to scroll through the various functions. As you would expect, the watch has pulse rate, step counter, and distance/floors measurement, but this watch goes further with a medical grade ECG and oxygen saturation (SpO2) reading from the sensors on the back. These can be used in conjunction with the sleep tracking to provide estimes of breathing disturbances in the night. 

The watch is charged through a USB adapter, and I usually get around 2 weeks of use before recharging (but this drops if the monitoring features are used very frequently). 

The watch is on the map at the moment with an rrp of around $280

EleeNo Lite ART009 Wheel (variant)

A quick blog post today as the watch I'm wearing is a variant of one which I've blogged before.

The watch is by the 'Handless Time' watch brand called EleeNo which is part of the SeaHope group of watches. I first blogged their 'ART 009 Wheel' watch in 2012, and that post can be found here.

This version has a white disc with red segments showing behind the black face, and comes with a black leather strap.

Storm Salvador

Time for my first post of 2017!

Today's watch I'd another from my selection of watches from the London based brand Storm, and this time it's one of their limited edition watches.

This model is called Salvador, and is a quartz analogue watch with a square case. The front is covered with glass to the edges, except for the right side where there is a sloping strip of metal. The display has one main 3 hand dial, with three smaller dials. The small dials cover date at the top, day on the left, and 24 hr dial on the bottom. Sometimes, I've seen this quoted as being dual time, but I guess that is where they have got confused about the 24hr dial.

I don't know when the watch was released (I'd guess 2000s from the design), but there were only 3000 of this black model released worldwide. The watch was also available in white and blue, and I think those also had a limited number.

The watch has a stainless steel case and strap and is 50m water resistant. The strap has a glass inset in one of the links which has the Storm name behind. There is no mention of the model number on the watch, but one of the sales sites suggested that the model is 4094/BR (with the BR I think referring to the colour).

Nixon - The Iris

Two days running, and I'm blogging!
Today's watch is one of the most bright pink watches I own, and is by the Nixon brand.

This model is called "The Iris" and is sold as a womens watch (although the 39mm case is large enough for it to be unisex).
It has a rounded square design with a tiny window in the centre, where the rotating discs can (just) be seen for the time. There is also a second window at the right side of the face which has a second dial rotating with the seconds, but this only shows different shades of pink as it rotates. This means that inside is a little cramped, with the watch having 2 separate quartz movements, one for each dial! The rest of the face is pink, only broken-up by the mirrored silver Nixon name in the bottom corner, but in the right light you can just about see the two sets of discs through the face. The two movements also makes the placement of the crown a little unusual, with it being on the left side of the watch (so the watch is especially good for people who like to wear their watch on their right arm).

The strap is a clear rubbery design (which seems to have faded to yellow here), and has the Nixon logo cut into the lower half of the strap.

The case is shiny stainless steel, and the watch is 50m water resistant. The back has the Nixon name and the watch name, as well as their usual short catchphrase for the watch, "Eye of the Storm".

From what I can see, it was released in at least 3 different colours, and this one is 'bold pink' with a model number of A106-971

The original retail price was ¥16,000

Happy Halloween - Super Lovers Skull Watch

Hi blog followers.
It's been a while!
As it is Halloween today, and I'm wearing a spooky watch, I thought I'd do a quick blog post while I'm sitting on the bus.

Today's watch is by one of my favourite brands for unusual designs - Super Lovers. The watches are from the Tokyo based company Super Lovers, who seem to release many different watch designs, but only in small quantities.

This particular design uses a watch head designed as a skull, with a small round dial in its forehead. The face also has text around the centre, with phrases "1950-1998 good future for you!", "Tokyo Rock", and "80s New wave ivy punk".

This skull design is coupled with a black leather strap with a presstud type fastening. The strap is also decorated with a skull design, and the words SUPER and LOVERS on the top and bottom sections of the strap.

Inside is a typical Miyota quartz movement, using an AG4 battery.

Metro Design - Omni

Today's watch is another Metro watch, but not the same line of watches I blogged a couple of days ago.

This watch is by a brand called Metro Design, and so far they are a bit of a mystery. I've seen the watches on the Japanese auctions, but when I try to search online, there are too many answers about Metro design relating to city planning for me to find anything about the watches (an when I try to be more specific, I get no results).

The watch is called 'omni' and according to the back of was designed by Romago. It is a large watch, and at a first glance, it appears to just have a blank face with the hour numbers just visible around the edge, and the Metro Design name on the glass. Pressing the button above the crown lights an internal light, and as if by magic, the hands appear behind the glass to show the time. When the light isn't on, you cannot see the hands at all through the glass, no matter what angle you look from. For the time, it has a 3 hand dial design with a quartz movement.

The all black design is followed by the black leather strap, and this has the Metro Design name imprinted into the back of the leather.

The only other information on the watch comes from the back which states it is 3 atm water resistant (suggesting a European market), and that the case and back are stainless steel.

With regards to date, there is no information I've found to be able to definitively determine when it's from, but my hunch is that it is from the 2000s (and maybe 2010s).

UPDATE: It seems like this watch is part of the same Metro brand that I've posted before, but with the name Metro Design rather than Metro Delight. I've seen in an auction that the watch has an instruction manual from the regular Metro brand, and the model number is WW046