Image via Hodinkee
This is one of the first watches I’ve ever seen that made me almost want to wear a watch. Well, until I saw the price tag. Yet despite that, it has some great design principles we love, including using solar and perpetual motion to keep the battery charged as well as being crafted for quality and longevity. This is the kind of heirloom design we love to see.
Wristwatch Review points us to Hodinkee, which writes of the Sol Invictus, “This timepiece has taken the now iconic chain and fusée, drums and vertical tourbillon from the WTV and combined them with a revolutionary new technique for producting and treating silicium crystals that can be used to produce highly efficient solar cells that are especially suitable for small surfaces and low luminosity. Sol Invictus will have the honour of being the world’s first commercial utilisation of this groundbreaking technology.”
It’s certainly crafted for the fancier – and richer – among us. The watch is priced at $595,000 and will be made on demand to customer specifications. The technology behind it, though, results in an heirloom item powered entirely by renewable energy.
According to Hodinkee, the micromotors and rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are positioned to be discretely visible underneath the solar cells, and the case has a lovely curved shape, a single curved crystal, a lateral window at 9 o’clock and a sapphire case back all designed to increase the visibility of the incredible mechanism inside. It’s a little on the overly fancy side, but… wow.
While costing a pretty penny, this is certainly an item intended to emphasize quality and longevity.
July 31st, 2010 
AaY-zeE 
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