H. Moser is a Swiss watchmaker with a deeply strange sense of humor.
In 2015, when the Apple Watch first appeared, Moser released the “Endeavor Perpetual Calendar Funky Blue”, a traditional, mechanical automatic watch – which he promoted with a brutal video mocking the idea of smartwatches, including various bends of the ergonomics of the old wristwatch. (“CLEAN INTERFACE”, the video boasts: “No finger zoom to check the date”). It sold for about $ 60,000 when it was released.
Moser continued to make watches that are fun to watch on the Apple Watch, including this new one: the “Swiss Alp Watch Final Upgrade”. It has a watch face with a Vantablack cover and a swivel mechanism that mimics the look of a “charging” animation from Apple.
As they describe it on their website:
The final edition of H. Moser & Cie. ‘S paradoxical, satirical and whimsical Swiss Alp Watch, a watch that mimics the look of a ‘smart watch’ with the proven ingenuity of a traditional, mechanical watch movement. The Swiss Alp Watch final upgrade is manufactured in a DLC steel case and is attached to a Vantablack® chip. Instead of a second hand, a running indicator that reminds of the “load” symbol rotates continuously at 6 o’clock.
Technically speaking, the joke is impressive. It is not easy to repeat the digital animation with pure analog, and it turns the whole clock into an interesting illusion. From a distance, it looks horribly like an ordinary, computerized Apple Watch that happens to carry an outdated set of digitized watch hands. But if you look at the bottom, you see the busy mechanical watch gut sliding away.
But man, I can not imagine Spend $ 30,800 on what, as the Verge puts it, is a “next level” troll from Apple. Maybe there are people with money to burn, what these kinds of things are aimed at?