These are some really interesting color combos and an attractive chrono. I'm considering one having seen them.
I'm finding this Swatch x Omega craze to be highly ridiculous. The new watches look like cheap fakes. At least with the weird plastic (sorry, bioceramic) and funky colors nobody will try to pass them off as the real thing. Still, it cheapens the brand and the mark of quality the Omega logo used to represent when these plastic / quartz / velcro pieces flood the market and perform like a Swatch and not an Omega.
People like Omega because it's the watch that first went to the moon, it's the watch of James Bond's wrist, and it's the watch that times the olympics. That's the classiness people want to be associated with. Not with the urban appeal of a bunch of people trying to scalp these like they're Supreme hats.
I agree that this cheapens the brand.
Fun fact: Bulova is the "other" moon watch, after an unfortunate mishap with David Scott's Speedmaster.
https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/style-beauty/omega-...
The craziest thing is that this is not a limited edition, since the planned production run is hundreds of thousands, and probably more now given the hype.
unpopular opinion but crossing over these brands only makes sense if you think youre capable of targeting a lower income customer without risk of damaging your existing luxury brand, or if your existing luxury brand is floundering.
I suspect its the latter, and i suspect its confirmation that the last decade of rennaisance for Rolex is starting to impact the bottom line at Swatch. younger customers are going to gravitate to a smart watch, older customers are going to look for the pedigree of the movement and its lineage so where does this even fit?
Bioceramics and bioglasses are ceramic materials that are biocompatible, full stop. throwing this in is just a buzzword Swatch hopes its customer wont take the time to investigate too thoroughly. theres no real reason to have it on a timepiece.
call me a cynic, but mark my words...in 10 years time youll see the same phenomenon with these watches as you saw with Timex. repair shops wont touch them, and they exist as a valueless testament to disposable faux luxury.
You've actually got it precisely backwards here. Omega, like most other Swiss luxury watch brands, has been absolutely killing it these past two years. Profits are up substantially. Omega is doing fantastic*. What isn't doing fantastic is Swatch -- their numbers are down substantially over the past decade. Smart watches are really killing them. An Apple Watch is not a replacement good for a $6k mechanical work of art, but it absolutely is a replacement good for a similarly priced quartz watch with fewer features, which is exactly what Swatch makes.
So I view this as a successful attempt at leveraging the brand value of Omega to prop up their lower-end brand.
> call me a cynic, but mark my words...in 10 years time youll see the same phenomenon with these watches as you saw with Timex. repair shops wont touch them, and they exist as a valueless testament to disposable faux luxury.
You're being over-dramatic here. And you don't generally repair cheap quartz watches like a Swatch anyway; you replace the battery as needed, and eventually in some number of decades they stop working entirely and that's that. You could do a movement swap at that point if you really wanted.
* See https://watchesbysjx.com/2022/03/morgan-stanley-watch-indust...
Not even close, Swatch Group is the largest part manufacturer and was previously required by Swiss Anti-trust authorities to supply their own competitors with parts. It’s only in the last decade Swatch Group has been able to begin terminating contracts to supply competitors with the goal of not supplying any brands outside Swatch Group. These changes have hurt everyone but Swatch.
Pretty much in the last 2 years every luxury Swiss watch has set their own sales records, and Omega is no different, they can’t meet demand.
The bioceramic (i.e. plastic) MoonSwatch is about meeting the demand for Omega while being able to sell it under the Swatch brand. Rolex has the same problem not being able to meet demand, but they don’t have the luxury of being able to print and sell plastic watches.
Nope. Rolex produces significantly more watches than Omega. Rolex is in a class of its own year -- no other manufacturer commanding such a high price is making remotely as many watches.
Besides, the whole point of the replica market is to have an omega on your wrist, not a Swatch.
In fact the first thing I did when I got an Android Wear watch was create a custom face which looked like a Moonwatch (Omega is twitchy about it, so you can't just buy one, apparently.)
Am I converting the price correctly? Are these less than $300!?! [Edit, Yep, $260] Wow. It sorta makes my watch - now owned by my son who has never worn a watch in his life - a little less special, but hey. If more people can own one, I'm all for it.
Here's an article in Wired: https://www.wired.com/story/omega-and-swatch-moonswatch/
If anything, I think this makes your real moonwatch more special. This was the biggest watch release in many years, and its success redounds to the reputation of the real deal moonwatch. The two aren't remotely comparable. You have a hand-crafted luxury mechanical chronograph (which is a few steps up from your basic mechanical 3-hander). The Swatch is a plastic, quartz, mass-produced disposable consumer good. The only thing they have in common is they look similar. Even functionally, they aren't the same; the Omega beats at 6 ticks per second and can time up to 12 hours, whereas the Swatch only beats at 1 tick per second (thus making it look like a cheap quartz) and can only time up to 60 minutes.
The only way I can see how this might've reduced the reputation of the real deal would've been if it had flopped.
So to get a hybrid, combining one of my favorite watch style/designs with one of my favorite watch brands at a price point that I can afford on my current salary? Count me the heck in. I can buy one of each of this set and still not have spent as much as I would on a new Speedmaster.
You know who this probably hurts the most? Corgeut, Phylidae, Pagani Design. I'll bet their Speedmaster homages are going to be far less popular now that we can get a legitimate watch with Omega Speedmaster on the dial.
Don't worry, I just went to check, and it's still a good watch.
You are paying a substantial premium for the name Omega on the front of the watch.
Here is one website that can give you an idea of how much a watch should cost built out of premium materials, but not with a luxury brand name. Steinhart watches being a great example of quality from a non luxury brand. [1]
No one really believes the parts that make up a Rolex Submariner are worth $12000. It's worth that much because it's a Rolex. You can actually buy quality forgeries for under $1000 that you'd likely need to take apart the entire watch to prove it's a fake.
1. It has generated significant attention- which has value.
2. Like a BMW 1-series, I imagine the idea is that once people have the "beginner" version, they'll aspire to upgrade to the real thing. It gets people "on the boat".
3. Rolex sells a cheaper version of their flagship watch under the Tudor brand- it's virtually identical and hasn't diluted Rolex's brand value.
4. The funky colors is probably less to do with style and more a guarantee it'll never be confused for the "real" version.
That all said, I would definitely still be salty if I owned a Speedmaster. But I applaud Swatch for making bold and interesting moves- which doesn't exactly happen much in the luxury industry.
Cheaper in this case means starting at around 3-5k$ not 300$. Also you have to be pretty into watches to know that Tudor is a Rolex brand. It's not really something they advertise.
Omega specifically can’t meet demand and while that might sound like a good problem to have, they can print these moonSwatches, I’m sure the upside to this is significantly greater than any perceived knock on their luxury brand.
The industry is talking about this as a marketing tactic to get new watch buyers in the market, but I think that is a bigger unknown than any potential perceived dilution of the brand only if because retail has prepurchased Omega’s future production for the foreseeable future.
This is the same strategy used by single malt whiskey brands. They have bottles that defined them as company, but they also sell tons of un-aged whiskey to the mass audience. They gobble it up because it's got the brand name. Most of their revenue comes from these lower end, higher margin whiskeys.
But even beyond that, many people who're into watches really don't care what other people think about them.
An official quartz version of one of the most iconic watches of all time and super cheap comparatively. Though some serious collectors would still say overpriced for what it is (quartz/plastic).
For reference, there’s a very popular variant of the Speedmaster Professional that uses a sapphire crystal rather than a hesalite (basically plastic) crystal. Despite never having been used in space (since the shattering crystal is a risk) the sapphire model is still considered a “professional” edition and highly sought after. People who wear it enjoy the aesthetic of the spacefaring version with the earthly practicality of scratch-proof sapphire. The Swatch version’s desirability is just the same logic a taken a few more steps. It’s made by Omega, has the same basic design, and evokes the imagery of the space race.
Alternatively, consider the popularity of the Tesla toy car for kids. It’s not anything like the real Tesla in terms of functionality but is still a cool electric vehicle, especially if you already have a Tesla.
I never wanted a particular watch, just a nice mechanical one. I finally got one of my grandmother's inheritance money, an entry level TAG Heuer. It got refurbished twice in the last 14 odd years, I wear it daily. And it is basically my only piece of jewelry. It is also absolutely impractical when compared to a modern Garmin smart watch, the combined refurbishment costs so far could have financed a top-of-the-line Garmin. Which I'd assume is a lot more robust than the fragile mechanics. I'll never get one of those Garmins then, because a good mechanical watch is piece of art.
Getting a nice Omega (lovely watches, especially the Moon one) would feel like betrayal of my TAG.
Just like the mechanical/automotive engineering behind petrol/diesel engines fascinate me more compared to electric motors on EVs. I'd still own an EV as that's the future but I'll always appreciate those mechanical gasoline powered engines. I get you analogy! :)
I got hired at the Times Square store as a floor rep. I had this grandiose design in my head that I'd just sell my you-know-what off and rise to the top.
You needed to be bilingual to work there, and I had just moved to the city from a yeehaw nowhere-town, so I just claimed to be, got the job, and started hustling.
I moved watches. Like you wouldn't believe, sometimes 2-3 in an hour!
About six weeks go by, and I'm brought downstairs into the admin office area, several of the managers (there were like 7 levels of mgmt throughout the store) were waiting for me. The head lady at the time looked me dead in the eyes and spoke a whole Spanish paragraph. Of course, I had no idea, so I was speechless.
She said: "That's what I thought, furtivo." I was no longer welcome in the store, and they even made me take off my store shirt and walk to the train in my undershirt.
I didn't walk away thinking "I'll never lie again" but rather, I learned the difference between bs-ing a little, and outright lying. We all bs a little, particularly on the resume and in the interview, but I make a point not to outright lie anymore.
I visited the store nearly a decade later, and only recognized one person there, someone I had never directly interacted with. Nobody stuck around, anyhow. Hope they all moved up somehow.
I have a friend that my wife met in language school. This girl was from New York and she had an insanely good CV, best uni education from Yale, investment bank and hedge fund experience. But do you know what, she kept getting fired on the corporate gigs she took here. The trouble was, she thought lying a little is okay. Which it clearly isn't in my Northern European country. Schmoozing while a great party lubricant very easily becomes lying and that is very heavily frowned upon in most Euro places.
I'll surely heed that lesson should I ever find myself with EU compadres. That makes me wonder how it happened. How America became the lie-on-your-resume place, and how those European countries became the tell-no-lies-you-heathen countries. I wonder how long it's been that way.
I mainly stick to typical resume bs now. At my age, I don't generally have to do that bs-ing, and thankfully, I don't really have to do that much job searching. Still, I've always thought it was okay to exaggerate small things. Sat through a Hadoop workshop? Yeah, you know Hadoop. I once spent a year and a half or so in a cube next to someone who was a Powershell wizard. He'd always try and enchant me with his tricks and wizardry. I took some notes and maintained a mild interest in it. I put Powershell on my resume. As long as I don't claim too much expertise, seems counterproductive to just sniff out liars during the hiring process.
Whenever I get too old to attract good work, I'll probably just retire.
The price for a brand must be high to create value and quality does not affect demand significantly. It's only the appearance and brand image that sells.
The Swatch Group is the world’s largest watch company that owns over 10 brands. They sell mass produced brand where the value is almost 95% immaterial and non-functional (it's all in the mind of people). It's all about marketing.
Does someone remember these Panasonic cameras with Leica's red dot on them (they where slightly more expensive that the native Panasonic models, which were identical except for the red dot)?
You're paying just for the branding.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/OMEGA-x-SWATCH-Moonswatch-Mission-T...
The current aftermarket price of the Moonswatch is as high as it's ever going to be.
I didn't even spend more than 72 euro on my smartwatch (Amazfit GTS 2 Mini).. Together with the open-source gadgetbridge app (preserving privacy) smartwatches are a great option IMO.
https://mothership.sg/2022/03/omega-swatch-carousell-scalper...
This is the link I posted yesterday but somehow it did not pick up any interest [1].
[1] Low-Priced Omega Speedmaster Prompts Global Swatch Store Chaos:
I've got a few bands I rotate on it to make it feel a little more special though.
So I went with a Garmin Instinct Solar watch that lasts nearly a month even with basic tracking. With all those smart features turned off it can theoretically run forever just with solar power. :)
I kinda-sorta want a Hamilton with a day/date complication, but I’m not in a hurry for it.
