Most watches point at the time. This one carries it across the dial. DWISS built the S1 with no hour hand at all. The current hour is a numeral that rides along a minute scale printed across the top of the dial, and where the numeral sits on that scale gives you the minutes. When the 10 sits on the 15, it’s 10:15. Swiss made, automatic, $2,696, and limited to 50 pieces per color.
Price: $2,696
Where to buy: DWISS
How you read it
Two satellite discs share the work. One carries the odd hours, the other the even ones, and a central carrier turns once every two hours to bring each numeral up in turn. The rest stay hidden under the dial. Seconds run on a small disc at the center, marked by a single white dot.
Give it about a day on the wrist. After that, the numeral’s position registers the way a hand’s position does. What you give up is the split-second glance. A conventional dial reads at a distance and in poor light. This one asks you to actually look at it.
Two discs where three used to be
Wandering hours usually run on three discs with four numerals each. Audemars Piguet’s Starwheel set that pattern in 1991, and most makers since have followed it. DWISS cut the layout to two discs with six numerals apiece. Fewer discs mean a simpler module to build and service, and the dial stays focused on the one numeral crossing the scale.
The display is older than the wristwatch by centuries. The Campani brothers built a silent night clock for Pope Alexander VII in 1656, lit by a lamp so he could read the hour in the dark without a ticking clock keeping him awake. Designer Rafael Simoes Miranda shaped the S1’s arc after a different orbit, the Moon circling the Earth, and the hour travels the dial the way the Moon crosses the sky.
The case follows the display
A wandering hours dial needs width, so the S1 wears a cushion case, 40 mm across with rounded corners that soften the outline. It measures 44 mm lug to lug and 13.8 mm thick, and it’s rated to 100 meters, so the complication doesn’t need babying around water.
Finishes do practical work here. The case body is sandblasted and the lugs are brushed, two matte finishes that hide the small scuffs a polished case shows off. A polished bezel rings the double-domed sapphire crystal. The strap is FKM rubber, cut to size, on a steel butterfly clasp. FKM shrugs off the sweat and skin oils that age leather and cheaper rubbers.
A modern movement under the discs
Power comes from a La Joux-Perret G100 Soigné, modified by DWISS with the module that drives the two discs. The G100 runs at 4 Hz with 24 jewels and a 68-hour power reserve. Take the watch off Friday night and it’s still running Monday morning. The ETA and Sellita workhorses it competes with carry roughly 38 to 42 hours.
The Soigné grade shows through the exhibition caseback: Geneva stripes, perlage and blued screws. The edition number is printed on the back, out of 50 for each color.
Price, colors and a hard cap
Four colors run at $2,696: blue, green, salmon and black. Two 15th-anniversary editions in silver and orange cost $2,818. Every color stops at 50 pieces, 300 watches in all, and DWISS doesn’t reissue a color once it closes. Orders ship free worldwide with a 24-month warranty.
At the watch’s Geneva debut in April, DWISS auctioned piece number 01 and it sold for 30 percent above retail. Wandering hours usually live at Urwerk and Audemars Piguet prices, so a Swiss made one under $3,000 is a short list.
The cheaper way into the same display
CIGA Design’s Time Cipher runs the same wandering hour idea in a 45 mm steel case for $899 on Amazon. It’s bigger on the wrist and the finishing is a step down from the DWISS, and in exchange it costs about a third as much. If the display is what you’re after and the budget stops at three figures, that’s the one.
| Watch | Price | Case | Movement |
|---|---|---|---|
| DWISS S1 | $2,696 | 40 mm steel cushion | La Joux-Perret G100 Soigné, 68-hour reserve |
| CIGA Design Time Cipher | $899 | 45 mm steel | Automatic |
Price: $899
Where to buy: Amazon
Hands are faster. That’s the trade, and DWISS doesn’t hide it. What the money buys is the display, and a design where the case, the layout and the strap all follow from it. Fifty pieces per color, and a color that sells through is gone for good.
Price: $2,696
Where to buy: DWISS
