While I hardly view myself as any sort of fashion icon – and 10x during this working at home phase during the ‘rona – I do get men’s fashion and lifestyle companies reaching out to see if I’d like to check out their gear. Always much appreciated and what guy can’t up their fashion game, even if just a little bit? So when the site Trendhim invited me to find something in their catalog, I immediately settled on a watch. You definitely can’t have too many watches and most of my watches are more rugged chronometers rather than slim, fashionable styles.
After a pleasant half hour exploring their online catalog I settled on the really interesting and unusual Shaun Ambitio watch from Seizmont. It’s a complete rethink of how a watch conveys the time, a sort of tail-wagging-dog approach:
Instead of the hands moving across various dials, the dials themselves rotate so that the horizontal line at the “3 o’clock” position always denotes the current time. Which is incredibly cool and a great opportunity to stretch your brain and rethink how you recognize time displayed on a watch. There are some issues with this design – likely a reason it’s not more popular – but I’ll get back to that. For now, just notice the bright, easy to read numbers, the sleek black design and the beautiful metal band.
Note that it’s not a smartwatch, there’s no bluetooth, no charging pad, no sync with your phone. It’s… a watch. And that’s as it should be on your wrist if you ask me: I have lots of watches I rotate between but my Android smartwatch, my Apple Watch and my other notification watches generally sit and collect dust. Sometimes too many notifications is a distraction from thinking and being present in the moment, not a benefit to help you stay up to date with your digital life. I know, I know, a debatable point!
The stainless steel band and hasp are pretty interesting too, as you can see:
It’s surprisingly easy to thread the band into the clasp and a solid push click locks it and the watch stays on all day. I don’t know if it’s waterproof, however, so best to remove it before early morning surfing, evening hot tubbing with the fam or even a shower, just to be safe.
With a dial diameter of only 1.5 inches, it proved a bit small for my wrist:
Unfortunately there’s not a larger dial size option. Then again, as a fashion watch it’s more jewelry than functionality, which is really good because one of the biggest challenges with this watch design is that it’s hard to read what time it is! For example, in the above photo, is it 7:52:02 (remember, read from the outer dial inward) or is it 8:52:02? This style is highly legible for 15-20 minutes after the hour, a completely logical presentation of the dial positions, but when it’s 5-10 minutes before the hour things definitely get confusing.
I also missed it having even the slightest bit of luminescence: When you can’t have full illumination on the dial forget about seeing what time it is. This means that it’s not going to let you glance down and check the time during the boring passage at the opera or while plotting your escape from the CEO’s dinner party.
Then again, it is a fashion watch so it might be the case that it doesn’t really matter what time it is. It’s about looking good and being distinctive, and there’s no question that this is a conversation starter, a watch that will have people crowding around and talking about how it works. They might even be debating what time it shows. Either way, it’s sleek, slim, and definitely attractive, so if that’s your thing, this is a solid option worth checking out!
DETAILS: That’s a stainless steel strap and the watch itself has a stainless steel back and zinc alloy case. The face diameter is 4cm, thickness is 0.7cm and the strap width is 2cm. The Ambitio is designed in Denmark and made with a Japanese quartz movement. You can check it out at the Trendhim site. $99 with free shipping.
Disclosure: Trendhim sent me this watch in return for my writeup. Thanks, Trendhim. Always nice to get new gear!
Cool watch! I wish the dial printing was left to right (the way we read) rather than right to left.