Vaer, Topo Designs and Worn & Wound have brought their triple collaboration back for a second run. The formula is the one that sold the first run out: a field watch dial inside a 200-meter dive case, a movement that runs on light, and a strap kit built by an outdoor brand that treats straps as gear rather than packaging. Each partner brings its own audience, and each audience showed up the first time.
This run is 1,200 pieces split across the three brands’ stores, in Navy or Black.
Vaer Solar Hiker V2
39mm steel case rated to 200 meters · Epson VS22 solar movement with a six-month reserve · Three straps and a Topo travel pouch in the box
Price: $379.00
Where to buy: Buy at Topo Designs
A field watch face in a dive watch case
The case measures 39mm across, 46mm lug to lug, and 12.7mm thick, in 316L stainless steel. Those are field watch proportions. The rating under the hands isn’t: 20 ATM, held by a locking screw-down crown.
Big Arabic numerals run the dial, with a smaller 24-hour track inside them for military time. Size does the legibility work here. On a nightstand, across a cockpit, in flat outdoor light, the time reads before the details do.
Case weight is 70.6 grams, before a strap goes on.
Bezel construction splits two ways: ceramic and steel, with a lume pip at the top. It’s a dual-index design, so it can run as a timer or track a second time zone.
Fifteen layers of C3 Super-LumiNova sit on the hands and markers, charged by the same light that feeds the movement. One flat sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating covers the dial, and the face stays readable at the low angles a spec sheet never has to survive.
Six hours of light, six months of running
Inside is Epson’s VS22 solar quartz movement. Six hours of light charges it fully, and a full charge runs the watch for six months in the dark. Accuracy is rated between ten seconds slow and twenty seconds fast a month.
No battery swaps, ever. No winding routine, no rotor to feed, nothing due at a service counter on a schedule. A windowsill now and then covers the maintenance plan in full.
Solar keeps the case slim, too. With no rotor to package, the movement sits flat and the caseback screws down close over it. The sun engraved across that caseback isn’t decoration for its own sake. It’s the fuel gauge, printed on the outside.
Assembly is in Hong Kong, and the warranty runs two years, waterproof.
Three straps and a pouch, because Topo did the soft goods
Every watch ships with three straps. Two are Topo Designs single-pass straps with hook-and-loop closures, in two colors. The third is your pick at checkout: a quick-release strap or a silicone ocean strap. Three straps is range, not redundancy: the velcro pair for water and work, the silicone for heat.
A custom Topo travel pouch comes in the box as well, a $39 piece sold on its own. Most watch boxes never earn their space after day one. This one travels. Two colorways carry the run: Navy pairs the blue dial with a blue bezel insert, Black goes dark on both, and below sit both colorways plus the watch on the silicone strap most buyers will end up living on.
Straps are where collaborations usually cheap out, one NATO in a team color and done. Here the soft goods are a second product: Topo’s closures, Topo’s pouch.
What the second run changes
The first run was 38mm and $349, split 200 pieces in Black and 300 in Green across the same three stores. It went quickly, in the way small watch runs do when the price sits under $400 and the kit feels generous.
This one grows a millimeter and thirty dollars, and more than doubles the count. Navy replaces Green.
| Case | 39mm x 46mm, 12.7mm thick, 316L stainless steel |
| Water resistance | 200 meters (20 ATM), locking screw-down crown |
| Crystal | Flat sapphire, anti-reflective coating |
| Movement | Epson VS22 solar quartz, -10/+20 seconds a month |
| Reserve | Six months on a full charge (six hours of light) |
| Lume | C3 Super-LumiNova, 15 layers |
| In the box | Three straps, custom Topo Designs travel pouch |
| The run | 1,200 pieces, Navy or Black |
| Price | $379.00 |
The Citizen that never sells out
Limited runs aren’t for everyone, and the solar diver with the deepest bench in this class sits at Citizen. Citizen has sold this watch for years, in numbers the collaboration game never reaches, and the support network behind it stretches to any jeweler in any town.
Citizen Promaster Dive BN0150-28E
Eco-Drive solar movement · ISO-certified 200-meter case · Rotating dive bezel
Price: $294.78 $450.00 (save $155.22, 34% off)
Where to buy: Buy on Amazon
Trades run both ways. The Citizen gives up the field watch dial, the three-strap kit, and the collaboration story. It also never sells out over a weekend, never needs a restock note, and never asks a buyer to win a drop. For plenty of wrists that’s the smarter solar watch, and the $84 saved buys a strap collection of its own.
Two colors. Three straps. One movement that never needs a battery.
Vaer Solar Hiker V2
Limited to 1,200 pieces for the second run · Navy or Black
Price: $379.00
Where to buy: Buy at Topo Designs
No battery, no winding, no careful treatment, no service calendar, no app. What it asks for is speed: the first run went at 500 pieces, and one of the three stores is already pointing at December. Miss it and the wait is measured in restocks, not days.
