19 ms·
Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch
- AndrianV 4y agoI have to be honest and say that I don't know a lot about watches. But when I see things like this, I really want to figure out how to make them.
- suprjami 4y agohttps://youtu.be/d_pV8TGKfMc https://youtu.be/d_pV8TGKfMc Enjoy. This whole channel is great.
- rsynnott 4y agoRight, who let Jony Ive into the watch factory?
- barrysteve 4y agoWho flattened Braun's grey designs? Ive's are a bit more organic and white.
- PaulHoule 4y agoThat’s a pretty ugly watch if you ask me.
- hulitu 4y agoLooks like it is designed by a modern UI engineer: gray on gray, black on gray, difficult to see relevant information and a lot space wasted.
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y agoThe Ferrari logo is very clear.
- moolcool 4y agoWell it _is_ a Richard Mille
- sbf501 4y agoWatches that cost more than US$2,000,000 are typically ugly a/f because the point is to draw attention to it. When you're worth hundreds of millions or billions, you need to invent more ways to show it off.
- The_suffocated 4y agoThe concept is interesting, but the watch looks ugly and the dial is too small to be useful.
- moolcool 4y agoRichard Mille's whole deal is technically interesting but very ugly watches
- ksaj 4y agoWatch collectors, especially if they are Ferrari owners, will probably want this. It's clear some people don't like the tininess of the actual watch face, but this is a side effect of having everything laid out so flatly. It is a technical marvel, and surely will have competitors in the future. The winding and setting mechanism is a really unique solution.
- rowanG077 4y agoOne of the best looking watches I have ever seen. Truly a mechanical pearl. Also looks quite unique in contrast to basically every other watch looking almost the same.
- HarHarVeryFunny 4y agoMechanical pearl: yes Unique look: yes Best looking watch: hell, no. it looks like utter crap. like a $2 scratch-off lotto ticket
- rowanG077 4y agoI disagree. But I guess I find most things ugly that are generally well received. I find almost all cars ugly, almost all watches, almost all laptops etc.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y agoCan you say why you think the design is good? That logo is unnecessary and takes up more room than the watch face. I don’t think this is even for telling the time. I can’t imagine this distinctive look is merely to signal that you have 1.8m on your wrist. This to me is like Louis Vuitton. I always thought plastering their logo everywhere was ugly.
- rowanG077 4y agoI really like the thinness. These large watches thick watches with rims I dislike greatly. I also really like the flat metal look. I agree that the logo and other details are not so good. I would have preferred just plain unmarked brushed metal. Even better have a completely transparent face which allows one to see the insides functioning.
- Beltiras 4y agoI've never seen an ad for a timepiece feature cars almost to the exclusion of the watch.
- ThePadawan 4y agoI believe a few of the James Bond movies meet those criteria /j.
- whartung 4y agoI guess you've never seen a Breitling ad. As far as I can tell, they sell flying stunt teams.
- NoPicklez 4y agoAt this level, they're just selling the experience and the type of person that wears them. As opposed to the item itself.
- symlinkk 4y agoYou must be new to watches, all luxury watches sell a story along with the watch. Look at the webpage for the Omega Speedmaster. They will beat it over your head that the Speedmaster was worn by astronauts on the moon. Look at the webpage for the Rolex Submariner. They will describe, in great detail, how effective the watch is at deep sea diving, despite the fact that almost no one that buys one will even wear it in the shower.
- ukoki 4y agoWhat is this, a dial for ants?
- MarkMarine 4y agoThey don’t care. I have one watch, a 2008 model from a watchmaker that no one cares about, that tells perfect time and has a mechanical alarm. It gets no love and that’s fine with me. This quote about watches from a tastemaker blew my mind: “… the Italian-born Davide Parmegiani. I met Parmegiani, who is in his mid-50s, at his new boutique in Monte Carlo, where he sells both vintage watches and cars. He arrived 30 minutes late. I asked him what drives the passion for watches, if not their ability to tell time. “Sometimes I don’t even set the time on the watches,” he said. “If I want to look at what time is it, I can look at my iPhone.” He held up his smartphone: “This is the only exact time we’re gonna have,” he added.” https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/03/inside-the-frenzied-world-of-rare-watches/amp https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/03/inside-the-frenzied...
- stevekemp 4y agoI have a couple of Poljot Signal watches, which contain a built in (analog) alarm, complete with a second crown to wind the mechanism. They're surprisingly useful, especially when camping or going to places where you don't want to take a phone with you.
- MarkMarine 4y agoI know! I Love mine, I especially use it when traveling, somehow my Apple Watch is never charged enough to trust the alarm.
- geoduck14 4y agoIt is a watch for people who are really really good looking, and want to tell time and do other stuff, too
- EB-Barrington 4y agoPrice: $1,888,000 US dollars.
- W-Stool 4y agoLimited run of only 150 units! Sheesh ...
- leeoniya 4y agoone of the few watch brands (the only one?) that makes a ferrari look cheaper than a clearance item at a dollar store.
- formerly_proven 4y agoIs there are meaning behind this number (apart from nazism, obviously)? Otherwise it seems kinda odd.
- chris11 4y agoIn China 8 is considered to be a really lucky number, signifying wealth. https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/it-s-in-the-numbers-luck-and-superstition-sell-luxury-real-estate-42303 https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/it-s-in-the-numbers-l...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- exabrial 4y agohijacking the scroll wheel is still not cool in 2022
- deergomoo 4y agoArguably the least cool it’s ever been considering how many devices have inertial scrolling these days.
- marklubi 4y agoI don't think it's that they're hijacking the scroll wheel, but that there are parts of the page that just don't respond to it. Mildly infuriating to say the least.
- drewm1980 4y agoLol, you should see how they hacked the watch's winding wheel!
- sriram_malhar 4y agoAwful looking, terrible typography, form chases away function .... Hugely impressive piece of machinery though.
- tyleo 4y agoI hope they follow up with an excellent V2. The tech is down, now if they can only take care of those aesthetics.
- itronitron 4y agoAlthough much better typography than the other watches on that site.
- caconym_ 4y agoThe typography really threw me off. Obviously this is subjective, but it gives me a really cheap vibe, like something you'd find in one of those travel gadget stores at the airport. It looks like they just didn't give a shit. I don't mind the form so much. Obviously it's not a very practical piece, but very expensive limited-run watches rarely are.
- pwillia7 4y agoIs that not just their logo's font?
- caconym_ 4y agoIt's consistent with the other branding I saw on their website, but that doesn't mean it's good. It makes me think of laser tag and go-karts. If it works for the people who actually buy their products, or those people don't care what their $1.9M fashion accessories look like, then I would suggest they keep doing exactly what they're doing. But I still think it looks cheap.
- chmod775 4y agoWouldn't wear that even if you paid me and took me out for dinner. Maybe they should be marketing this watch to rich nerds instead of playboy LARPers - to people who will appreciate it for the technology.
- curiousgal 4y agoThe only appeal to me is the prospect of me tearing it apart and (trying to) put it back together!
- daneel_w 4y agoThe watch can be seen about 2 minutes into the video, just at the end, after all the cars and other unrelated stuff. Fantastic directing...
- ninefathom 4y agoBetween the minuscule face and the fact that winding A) is overly complex, and B) keeps time for less than two days, this seems like more of an expensive toy than a practical timepiece. As an engineering feat, it is admittedly impressive... but impressive and useful are not synonyms.
- piperswe 4y agoIn my opinion mechanical timepieces are novelties in the modern era, so I don't think the practicality of a mechanical watch is very important. If you want practicality, a quartz watch will run continuously without intervention far longer than a mechanical one and will keep better time. Better yet, a smartwatch can tell you more than just the time! If you want to make a statement or own a neat piece of engineering though, mechanical watches are the way to go. Again this is my opinion, but I don't see any reason to be worrying about the practicality of something like this.
- iasay 4y agoI think a smart watch is a more impressive piece of engineering!
- layer8 4y agoA much too thick one, unfortunately.
- iasay 4y agoI think that's subjective. I have no problems with mine!
- turdit 4y agothanks for sharing
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
- dylan604 4y agoDidn't realize Johny Ive found his way to Ferrari ;-)
- throwaway5752 4y agoAny historians able to provide color on the social context behind "The Emperor's New Clothes" and their contemporary relevance?
- jgerrish 4y agoSmooth folding phones, foxy ultraflat watches, I honestly don't know what radiant beauty is next. The future isn't limping along in the fog, is it? My blind eyes already paid the price for that video, nobody else has to. So, anyways, what's the topic today? Italian design? Arduino and Wiring? Arduino is an inspiring beginner electronics kit, and one of the first. Innovative design. Maybe open the user immediately into a tutorial project when they open the IDE? It's that Apple unboxing experience, right? You want to reduce the friction, reduce the time between when they open it, and their eyes light up at the blinking lights. Arduino online stores with code-signed projects? The newer Arduinos have WiFi, but I don't know how the browsing experience is in the IDE lately. I'm stuck in the CLI, trying to enjoy it again, hoping I don't cause too much pain to users. Which is a messed up mindset in some ways.
- pppq 4y ago> I honestly don't know what radiant beauty is next. > The future isn't limping along in the fog, is it? > My blind eyes already paid the price for that video, nobody else has to. I enjoyed these words. Felt somewhat like lyrics to a Cardiacs song. Thank you.
- samatman 4y agoI'm disappointed to see this merger of art and engineering received so poorly here. This pushes the envelope of the possible, something I consider beautiful. It's roughly as impractical, expensive, and awkward looking, as a human-propelled airplane. I don't think any of the many commenters here who panned this watch would have anything bad to say about a human-propelled airplane. It's a pity that they can't appreciate this object in that spirit.
- sedatk 4y agoIf we'd started to replace airplanes with affordable $200 flying saucers, and somebody came up with a $1.8M human-propelled airplane as "innovation", I bet it wouldn't have been liked as much.
- samatman 4y agoWhy compare with flying saucers, why not bikes? It's the bike industry existing which makes enormous gossamer human-powered craft possible, after all. Most art has little reason to exist, kind of by definition, and is seriously expensive at the high end. This is engineering art, where most expensive wristwatches are just art, specifically jewelry. I wouldn't expect the latest Hublot limited to end up on the front page of HN, but a 1.75mm mechanical wristwatch? Gratified my intellectual curiousity!
- sedatk 4y agoBecause that's just a lightweight version of an old technology. No new value is being added here. Had this watch provided, say, some smartwatch features mechanically (such as an analog heart monitor, or an analog altimeter etc) I might have found it interesting despite the technology still being old. This feels like just a flex on contemporary manufacturing capabilities. They just spent more money than everyone else.
- adhesive_wombat 4y agoIndeed, it's a bit like finding it hard to get all that hyped up about the latest Intel i9 whatever-K. Sure it's objectively a monstrous amount of processing on a sliver of matter (just like the one before it), but it's "just" throwing more transistors and fab at the same thing as the [whatever-1]-K. And then this is basically just an "if you know, you know" flex for a rich person. At least the incremental CPU "tick" or "tock" was somewhat useful, even if the -K variant is not especially useful in the general case.
- xwdv 4y agoBulgari made a much better looking flat watch IMO but unfortunately it was fatter than this one.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- staplung 4y agoWilliam Gibson wrote a piece for Wired back in the day about his obsession with mechanical watches.[1] He puts it thus: ``` Mechanical watches are so brilliantly unnecessary. Any Swatch or Casio keeps better time, and high-end contemporary Swiss watches are priced like small cars. But mechanical watches partake of what my friend John Clute calls the Tamagotchi Gesture. They're pointless in a peculiarly needful way; they're comforting precisely because they require tending. And vintage mechanical watches are among the very finest fossils of the pre-digital age. Each one is a miniature world unto itself, a tiny functioning mechanism, a congeries of minute and mysterious moving parts. Moving parts! And consequently these watches are, in a sense, alive. They have heartbeats. They seem to respond, Tamagotchi-like, to "love," in the form, usually, of the expensive ministrations of specialist technicians. Like ancient steam-tractors or Vincent motorcycles, they can be painstakingly restored from virtually any stage of ruin. ``` (1): Seems to be pay-walled now but you can find the whole thing in Distrust that Particular Flavor
- jhgb 4y agoTo me they're the timekeeping equivalent of pole vaulting yourself onto the second floor. A normal person would use stairs, but it's impressive and even cheered on by a bunch of onlookers when someone can do it just by jumping on a long stick.
- polio 4y agoThey're beautiful and impressive, but I find the amount of money that flows into "high horology" to be an sum with an egregious opportunity cost to society, made even worse by the fact that all that complexity goes towards a movement that is worse at keeping time than a rudimentary quartz. If people want Tamagotchis, they can get a Tamagotchi. I wish people would flex their donations to effective charities instead and find simpler luxuries.
- what-imright 4y agoThe solution of giving away your money over buying something is some broken logic. Plenty of corrupt charity officials line their pockets and live it up on donations. The rich don’t owe society, exactly the opposite, hence the money. It represents an unpaid debt so you can’t turn around and ask for it back.
- jansan 4y agoSlightly offtopic: If anyone missed Bartosz Ciechanowski's website explaining how mechanical watsches work, you sold at least look at it once. It is a piece of art. https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/ https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/
- harywilke 4y agoI love that all the diagrams are rotatable in 3d. it's such a great write up of how a mechanical watch works. The Youtube channel linked at the end (https://www.youtube.com/c/WristwatchRevival/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/WristwatchRevival/videos) is a good companion to see the pieces in action.
- technothrasher 4y agoYou can learn a lot about how a watch works by getting a few old inexpensive pocket watch movements off eBay and playing with them. They’re bigger movements than a wrist watch, and thus easier to work with, but most of the concepts are the same. I did just this a couple years ago and got hooked on horology, although I actually moved the other direction and now have a big collection of 18th and 19th century clocks.
- penneyd 4y agoThese guys are gonna be sad, this comes in at 1.8mm https://www.bulgari.com/en-us/watches/mens/octo-finissimo-watch-titanium-grey-103611 https://www.bulgari.com/en-us/watches/mens/octo-finissimo-wa... This guy comes with a heckin NFT though so there's um that!
- __del__ 4y agothe fake region of that qr code bugs me more than that it has a qr code on it
- daughart 4y agoThe RM UP-01 is thinner. "This new ultra-thin timepiece is a mere 1.75mm in thickness beating out Bulgari by a walloping 0.05mm." Source: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/richard-mille-sets-a-new-record-for-the-worlds-thinnest-watch-with-the-rm-up-01-ferrari https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/richard-mille-sets-a-new-r...
- kingludite 4y agopondering flatness I had this idea to paint the small hand onto the dial then get rid of the big hand and replace it with a virtual one using a Moiré pattern painted onto the glass and the dial. very crude demo (running in the wrong direction :P) https://jsfiddle.net/s1cwze3d/ https://jsfiddle.net/s1cwze3d/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern (Designing the correct pattern is left as an exercise for the reader)
- Synaesthesia 4y agoFirst time I have read the word "allusive" as well as "grade 5 titanium"
- s0rce 4y agoYou haven't read grade 5 titanium or in combination with allusive? Gr5 titanium is quite common, many medical implants use this.
- Synaesthesia 4y agoI read up on Gr 5 titanium and yes it's pretty common, probably the most common alloy. The word allusive was just interesting to me since it wasn't elusive or illusive .. had to look it up.
- Ekaros 4y agoAll this marketing and I don't see the most important pieces of information. How well does it keep time? How accurate it is over a year?
- Lt_Riza_Hawkeye 4y agoAlso, am I reading this right, you can only adjust it by hours? Do you just gently tap your special screwdriver and hope to try and adjust it in minutes at a time? And you have to wind it every single day, so have fun doing it all again if you have a busy week
- twobitshifter 4y agoYou think you’d wear the same watch every day if you got to the point of buying this? It’s more likely that you would have someone working for you who could keep all your watches wound and set.
- LightG 4y agoI don't know, as a layperson I love everything about this except it's final appearance.
- motohagiography 4y agoGiven the volatility of crypto, a unique watch like this is a pretty good hedging instrument. As an asset, I'd put ~$2m into a watch like this before an NFT, and Richard Mille watches are sufficiently unique that they can be competitive to a similarly priced piece from one of the other makers. I've commented in depth before on the the political economics of ultra luxury items like these watches, and the only question to me is what their liquidity looks like. It's the same as a Lamborghini. Something you can enjoy, with an acceptable level of depreciation, insurable as collateral on a loan for leverage into other productive assets, with a good and liquid aftermarket. Portability between countries is important as well for other kinds of transactions. The engineering really is pretty cool, and what an amazing job it would be to design products to become alternative assets. Literally, art. What markets are missing now is assets like these to put rapidly deteriorating cash into, and the timing of the release of this watch is impeccable as people rush to get out of cash and look for alternative assets. Engineering like this also cuts out the curators and gatekeepers who appraise art (paintings were the original NFTs, imo), and sets a very high bar for entry for any imitators. One of the problems of wealth after a certain point is finding ways to appreciate and enjoy it instead of the drag of just managing it all. Something like this, you put a couple million into, get some enjoyment out of it, then when you want out, you get more than inflation adjusted remainder out of it, or take a small loss that isn't as bad as what you lost in another asset bubble popping had you put the money there. Realistically, if there is something people love, with some engineering and craft you can make a million dollar+ version of it. They are beautiful examples of what they are, and the business of many of these things is the financial engineering around them.
- ThinkBeat 4y agoThis is seriously impressive engineering. As far as I know a new achievement in watch making. UX is dreadful. The one function a watch is expected to have is unreadable at a distance.
- system2 4y agoThe whole purpose of this watch is to show off and brag to the rich friends how they got it etc. Not for common folk like us.
- ASalazarMX 4y ago"I don't even wind it, being unused preserves collector value".
- mrwh 4y agoI have a 1960s Omega that's honestly one of my favourite possessions. Nothing fancy, steel, handsome face. It's comfortable to wear, because it's a fraction of the size and weight of a modern status watches; and it keeps good time. So I wear it most days. It's not just an affectation: glancing at a watch when I want to know the time is a better experience than pulling out my phone. And it turned out not to be a gateway into more and more expensive mechanical watches. It's being used for what it was made for 60-odd years ago. First thoughts on seeing this were: that looks uncomfortable. Oh, but it's so expensive you'd hardly ever want to wear it so... that cancels out? Finally: the sheer amount of concentrated money in the world where that makes sense as a business proposition still astonishes. To be so rich to go past comfort or function and into a realm of pure envy.
- aidenn0 4y agoMy dad loves his Omega; I'm too much of a klutz to buy something that will last more than 10 years if I'm going to wear it every day though, so I just buy a new Seiko every 5-10 years when I accidentally smash my current one.
- spaetzleesser 4y agoThis seems the same thinking that made MacBooks ever thinner while they were also losing utility. This is kind of cool engineering but why would you want a watch that has a huge Ferrari logo, some winding thingies but the actual clock part is really small?
- nikanj 4y agoBecause it’s really, really, tremendously expensive. Owning one signals that you have the cash to own one. Expect a ton of demand from oligarks and oil sheiks.
- spaetzleesser 4y agoProbably. I am a big fan of mechanical watches but this is just a show-off piece.
- jakzurr 4y ago1st thoughts: soooooooo stupid! 2nd thoughts: really mechanical? - yes; bend? - no, titanium; crystal makes it taller? - no, inset sapphire; cost? - uhhhhh... still want one. more pics: https://monochrome-watches.com/richard-milles-rm-up-01-ferrari-new-worlds-thinnest-mechanical-watch-introducing-specs-price/ https://monochrome-watches.com/richard-milles-rm-up-01-ferra...
- c7DJTLrn 4y agoI have this really thin digital watch in my pocket that lasts multiple days and is more accurate than any mechanical watch. Also it does loads of other stuff. But it doesn't cost $1.8 million so it's not great for money laundering purposes.
- sneak 4y agoMore watches are used as visible status symbols (conspicuous consumption) than for any nefarious purpose. Most explanations for widespread behaviors are mundane, not malicious.
- spoonjim 4y agoWatch douchebags are extremely annoying but I am glad that they bankroll the mechanical wizards who invent shit like this.
- aaron695 4y ago
- shrx 4y agoI much prefer the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept design (even if slightly thicker, at 2 mm): https://www.piaget.com/ww-en/lp/altiplano-ultimate-concept https://www.piaget.com/ww-en/lp/altiplano-ultimate-concept
- jmu1234567890 4y agoWould it actually be possible to make a analogue or digital quartz watch this thin?
- defective 4y agohttps://www.plus9time.com/blog/2020/12/12/worlds-thinnest-movement-seiko-9a85 https://www.plus9time.com/blog/2020/12/12/worlds-thinnest-mo... The thinnest quartz watches have all been made well in the past, as far as I'm aware. They were still made to be practical, however, and have thicker cases. They are about twice as thick as this watch. Could they do better today? Possibly?