The kickstarter adventures of Sólás - solaswatches.com

Doxa has a cool no-deco time limit (the limit you can spend at the bottom of a dive before requiring decompression safety stops (something that all amateur/recreational divers are told to avoid)) - i.e. the bends (potentially fatal bubbles of nitrogen in the blood):

Here it is in feet and at 20mins they mark the depth as 110 feet (I'm more conservative and go for 100ft/30m).

The orange accents are there to give people a reminder about the actual depths... and instead of Doxa doing a full no-deco scale I've opted for the two key ones - one at the max of the PADI open water max depth (18m) and the other at advanced open water max depth (and general recommendation as max depth for recreational divers anyway - 30m). It means if you go down to 30 metres underwater (so your 3ATM watch should still be fine since it's tested to overpressure of 5ATM anyway...) you can only safely stay there for max 20 minutes before needing to ascend (or use nitrogen clearing safety stops - recreational divers are told never to be in a position to need that).

The 20min and 55min minute markers are lumed with C3 X1 - two horizontal bars for the deeper depth and one horizontal bar the the higher depth - C3 X1 as it glows brighter than BGW9 - you can see that the timing pip and no-deco indicators are in C3 X1 while the rest is in BGW9 - priority is always given over to C3 for the key safety/dive critical components.

Then minute hand (most important hand for a dive watch) will be lumed by C3 also - so basically on a dive you are referring mainly to the minute hand, dive pip and potentially those no-deco time indicators. It's a touch that I think divers will appreciate (if not at least recognise that this is a real dive feature designed by a real diver.

People like lots of lume for fun aesthetic reasons - and yes our indices will have lots of BGW9 lume generally - but for the key dive components I'm using use C3 X1.

As for dial material - two options (I learnt from the Starlight and some people loving the microrotor but hating aventurine):

1. The "less flashy" option for those who want a subdued (some may say boring) dial - I'm determined to still give them some quality mineral dials - black onyx:

2. What I consider the default dial option (and what the watch is built around) - malachite:

You can see why I've chosen the black and green motif - one dial option is a bit more "black and green" than the other - but both fit into this general colour scheme.

For the black dial could have gone with a cheaper material "it's just glossy black" (could have gone with glossy black paint for some savings) - but I want Sólás to be known for its interesting dials and even "simple" black shouldn't be simple in my eyes. Sólás Eclipse will have a spectacular dial (not mineral but made MsThirdfox go "wow" which is some feat for someone not particularly into watches).

I am cognisant that I need to make a watch that sells (not just something for my own whims) so I wouldn't be surprised if the onyx dial turns out to be more popular than the malachite one. The Pieta version is actually made with an onyx dial 1: to appeal (or at least not unappeal) to the general audience and 2: "darkness into light" - well having a dark dial seemed more appropriate there.

Similar to aventurine - I want to show people that it's not just high-end Swiss that use "luxury" mineral dial materials - if you like the actual material you can get them in reasonably priced watches too. I realise that goes back to the issue of "affordable crystalware" - and the absolutely dreaded phrase of "affordable luxury" - if it's affordable, by definition it's not luxury. I don't see Sólás as necessarily "luxurious" - but hopefully the watch will be a desirable one - though going into the 1000+ price range perhaps any such watch should be considered luxurious in a world when a 15 euro Casio F91W does a better timekeeping job at least. But in that light - even the Starlight would be a "luxury" piece :D

I could have pretty easily gotten "Swiss Made" put on the dial (just get the final assembly done in Switzerland and tack on another X00 to the price to factor that in) - but for me it was much more fulfilling (though commerically unwise?) to stick with "deartha in Éirinn".

As I couldn't quite wait for the official pantone colour correct version to come from my supplier here is a hand coloured version I coloured in myself (so forgive me going outside the lines somewhat 🤣）- the green should be slightly darker than what is rendered here (for those with a pantone colour wheel it is 5606c)

49mm lug to lug

Ha! You haven't even mentioned that the design and campaign has the strength of a runaway freight train yet...

Though I was reminded by a Starlight backer that I should let people know about the pre-KS pre-order soon enough - the final pricing will be determined very soon (need to price in the box).

A lot of lessons learnt - and important connections made - GPHG academy members, watch factory sources, watch publication contacts etc. - I won't be starting from zero with the Equinox, but the challenge has grown too in terms of the Equinox being a quite more expensive piece and MOQ requirements. The KS environment continues to deteriorate in my opinion due to the scammers out there (Hamtun just went kaput a few weeks' back - I know other posters have their Kraken watches too - successfully getting the H2 was what prompted me to believe I could successfully deliver the Starlight - who knows how things would have turned out if I never got the watch I backed from Hamtun 2 years ago).

Here's something that isn't going up on our other public facing outlets:

This would have been the "easy" road to take to get some triquetras of sorts onto the Equinox - much cheaper and "gets the job done" - either cut out (cheap) or lasered on (cheaper) - it's still technically a custom rotor but will it be "desirable"? And make no mistake - even with the custom rotor design I have currently there are still compromises made since I had to balance building something that may rival the Blancpains of the world, and being able to charge the price needed for those features.

And @banie01 by 2xAR do you mean outer and inner coated AR? I am a personal believer that inner coated AR is superior over double coated from a mechanical point of view - with an outer coated AR layer you lose "scratch resistance" of the sapphire crystal of sorts as AR can always be scratched - hesalite mod for the Starlight might be more fun actually. For the Starlight it wasn't that having outer/inner coated sapphire was difficult or much more expensive - it was a design decision based on seeing reports of people scratching their Omegas' top AR coating. Having said that - as a dress watch you probably won't be scuba diving with it (though you probably could :P ) so maybe the risk of scratches is reduced and the benefit of clearer crystals is worth it. Something that doesn't work for an Omega Seamaster necessarily may work for an Omega Constellation etc.

This is one of the areas where mineral crystals have an advantage over sapphire - they are much more transparent and less prone to reflections. Maybe Seiko was right to go the "Hardlex" route? :D

Yeah I didn't go with a NDL table - just the two key markers that divers may need (and lumed too) - not as comprehensive as Doxa's full outer ring but should be more useful and useable - the diver can glance down and see how close they are to hitting the double line (30m) or single line (18m) limit (if their computer has failed).

And heh - those endlinks were indeed made - it's going to be a special reveal after we get the physical units in - for others who don't know this is a feature suggested by NJB and after researching into it something I incorporated as an extra nod to actual divers - instead of the microadjust bracelet which is fine for recreational wetsuit diving - there will be a dedicated "pro" diving attachment that uses bungee cords - it means that:

1. As we are using dual cords - if one cord breaks, the watch will still remain attached to the suit/wrist;
2. Bungee is elastic by its nature and so as divers dive deeper the watch will still remain snug against wet/drysuits - btw this is why the Tudor Pelagos has that spring loaded clasp (auto tightening the bracelet as deeper depths entered into) - this solution however is cheaper, more durable and less finicky to use for actual diving in my opinion;
3. Works just as well for drysuits as wetsuits;
4. It's meant for actual dive use - so aesthetics are less important - the attachments are in steel for strength, I don't think divers would care about getting some scratches on an actual tool piece.

Again - while simple, I don't think any watch brand has made something like this ever before - so it'll be another one to add on to our watch world "firsts" along with a tungsten microadjust clasp.

Oh and to prevent normal users using the attachments incorrectly - I'm not including bungee cord in the package - people who dive and use bungee cords for their other equipment will know how to tie the correct knots to allow adjustability and security - here's a good video of someone showing you a way to attach a dive computer via bungee cord:

Simple and effective - the definition of "tool" - I was impressed by Pelagos technical prowess on that bracelet...but I think real divers (like NJB) would find the bungee solution more useful especially as I understand he prefers wearing the drysuit ;)

Oh and as for pricing - still have the last few things to work out - it is 87% likely that first KS tier will be below 900 euro (inclusive of 23% VAT so take that off if you're ordering from the US/UK) - retail is tentatively set at 1399 euro but need to balance between the people who see that final price and don't think it's enough of a "discount" to KS and having a realistic retail price too - again the profits from this are being rolled on into the 3rd model - the Sólás Eclipse which I hope to be able to self-fund so that's the "boring" business side of things vs the trying to be innovative in watchmaking side of things.

I would say that there will be around 100 €850 (691 ex VAT) spots, 150 €950 (772 exV) spots and 150 €1050 (853 exV) spots with the last 100 at retail pricing €1399 (1137 exV). *fingers crossed - if this is something that gets nominated for a GPHG then people should have gotten themselves a bargain at any of the price points...* I'm not sure if I've done enough networking with academy members for a nomination but there are people who are interested in the watch in the background definitely.

Ha - I'm sure out there somewhere someone will be saying "but it doesn't have 1000m water resistance, can it even be dipped in water?" :D

Sure you can take the Ferrari out to the Autobahn (or Isle of Man I believe) and take it off the leash... I guess the equivalent would be going out to Tenerife/Egypt/Turkey/Cyprus and doing a scuba tour. Irish cold water coral reefs are very cool too to be fair - I dive occasionally off Kerry (maybe one day I'll get to see basking sharks).

Very provisionally the launch date is spring equinox 2022 (March 20) - it's a reflection of the amount of marketing that needs to be done once the actual watches are done (that is the easy part for me as I know watches... the marketing part is much tougher) - tens of thousands will be spent on marketing (evil necessity) so people on boards really are getting a very very insider look at everything before we start the proper pre-launch campaign. Of course if I can see that I have 400 people lined up to put an order down I can begin sooner - but for people who saw the first Starlight campaign, I absolutely cannot have a failed launch and am aiming for a "funded in X hours" scenario.

Oh and my inbox got sent quite a few messages yesterday on account of the 2nd microbrand (Baltic) to launch with a HZ5000A:

Their "MR01" movement - I think it's great that another microbrand has also adopted the movement.

Retailing for 666.25 euro which is a fair price I think - hopefully the people who got a KS Starlight for 329 euro are chuffed. Seems to be sold out now.

You can see Baltic got Worn & Wound, Monochrome coverage etc. - that's the type of coverage I will be looking for once Equinox is ready to go (in addition to all existing reviewers who looked at the Starlight).

At least one part of what I wanted to do (have microbrands make more interesting watches) seems to have occurred - Sólás gets to forge a new path, others may follow but you only get to be first once 😋

A watch is more than the sum of its parts of course - and with Baltic I'm sure they have much larger overheads, I had a look at WatchCrunch and apparently they are in private beta - I'd certainly be interested in knowing who is actually behind that.

In any case - it's good that Sólás is getting recognised... and as I see it Baltic is helping Sólás with advertising too - we'll be able to say Sólás lead before and with the Equinox it's going to new places where microbrands never tread.

Still it would have been nice if Hodinkee had responded to my query about looking at a $380 microrotor microbrand watch 2 years ago :P - maybe with the Equinox they may have a look (the review/hands-on world can be nebulous as to who gets chosen to be seen).

Goes back to the cost of the watch needing to build in substantial marketing, overhead costs etc. - people will see that at €329 (that was just the first 50 of course) I was sailing very close to cost price in the greater scheme of things. €549 is still a good price for getting double sapphire, salmon skin leather, aventurine etc. - just not a "bonkers" price.

Of course people can get a Lobinni too - but then you can get Aliexpress watches with NH35a for much less than what micros need to charge too :)

Double nerd fact - Lange calls their dial goldstone - which is aventurine glass just like the Omegas and Bovets of the world 😁:

Goldstone/aventurine is the same thing unless you're talking about natural aventurine stone (much more expensive and very rarely used in watch dials per my understanding).

From the Lange site:

Family

SAXONIA

Timepiece

SAXONIA THIN

Reference

205.086

Calibre

L093.1

Case

white gold

Dial

solid silver, faced with goldstone, copper blue

Hands

white gold

Case Measurements

Diameter: 39 mm; height: 6.2 mm

Finally had a chance to run my numbers on the Equinox and...the additional costs have ballooned (mission creep is on me) - at a proposed €850 the margin vs a €329 Starlight is both proportionally smaller and numerically smaller (which I understand is very bad business practice as "normal" practice is that as a good gets more expensive the margins should be increasing due to the additional risk per unit).

If a Baltic or some other commercial micro was making this - put it this way, it would likely cost more than 2k at retail (nevermind the Omegas and Tags of the world).

So, there's a quandary - the pricing needs to be rejigged - getting 691 is absolutely not a sustainable level - no-one likes to pay more I'm sure and the higher the price goes the harder the decision will be to buy or not. The lower the margins the more units will have to be pre-ordered/sold before I can take the risk of going ahead with production. The unit cost of the Equinox bracelet is close to the unit cost of the Starlight itself to give a general idea of what costs are like for me this time round.

So - I think the retail price will definitely be set at a true retail price (equivalent to Starlight) - which is 1699 (VAT inclusive) (upped from 1399 previously). The new super early bird "bonkers" limited tier will be 899 euro I can't afford to give a false impression of "how bonkers" a 899 tier price is for a watch like the Equinox and what it costs to make. I'll just need to trust that people who saw the Starlight actually retailing for 549 will understand that the Equinox will also retail at 1699 and I expect people who want a fully tungsten watch will be inclined to purchase it. 899 is genuinely almost 50% off...you can imagine how squeezed those margins are.

But this isn't a woe is me post - just setting out expectations of the quality of the Equinox and the requisite cost. At 1699 people have great diver options like Sinn, Tag, 2nd hand Omegas - but if someone wants a tungsten diver the Equinox will be unique in the world 😊.

As some others have advised me too - setting a price too low can make some people suspicious - "how come it's so cheap?" - I guess the true retail price will help people understand what a 899 tier price actually means (and how little Sólás is getting from that after production costs). Previously I was happy to "work for free" as a passion when it was just between my day job and Sólás, now that Eoghan is here I can't spend as much free time on the brand as that's unfairly taking time away from my wife without actually bringing anything into the household except self satisfaction on seeing people enjoying their watches on the wrist.

This ties into the Equinox project - in that if it did get funded at the 850/950/1050 tiers it would have been enormous pressure to deliver a product that may have been at a loss to me (never mind my time spent on it) - now with 899/1019/1199/1359 (still 20% off retail) that's a bit more breathing space.

...a lot written above just to say that I think for the Eclipse I'll be pulling back and controlling production costs so that I don't have to sell something at 1699, I'd much rather sell at close to 1000ish levels until the minute repeater.

The main question actually now being - does the 899 tier just poison the expectations of people in the 1000+ tiers? "Oh 899 was the "good/normal" price so I am getting a terrible price at 1199 or 1359" - going by equivalent Starlight options the equivalent 329 tier is actually 1000+ already for the Equinox. I'm still not here to actually get rich from Sólás - but I can't afford to run it like a non-profit organisation either (and even non-profits pay their staff a salary ha!)

A lot of this probably shouldn't even be posted publicly since it's rather sensitive financial information and making a price public and then saying you have to increase it is never a good commercial practice - I hope people here appreciate the honesty in how my thoughts are laid out in relation to the Equinox. Anyway - I intend to have plenty of high end reviewers looking at the Equinox - so people can then judge if it is a 1.7k watch being crowdfunded for 1k+ or not. Live thoughts on this - the first tier shouldn't be 899/850 - it's just a strange outlier that affects the rest of the tiers disproportionately without bringing in any significant actual funds to help production costs. The people who were interested in such a watch at 850 euro may still be interested at 1,199 and that extra breathing space will be so key to Sólás.

The worst case would be something like a Hamtun I think - something gets successfully funded but it causes more problems with success because pricing was set incorrectly rather than it not actually getting funded.

I'll definitely try my best to squeeze a price that's as low as feasible - a steel bracelet that's catalogue (and lots of lovely Omega/Rolex style bracelets are mass produced by the Chinese factories) would be magnitudes cheaper than a tungsten, custom made bracelet (around 4-5x cheaper) - it's all about whether people see the value of what they're getting (and I realise I've pretty much only put out some hints/pics/renders - the package as a whole is what will either get people onboard or choose one of the multitude of great options available at the 1k+ mark.) The box is an "upgrade" in that it's a travel case - but it's a very cheap travel case, again I rather spend the money on the permanent watch rather than something 50% of people probably toss.

So yes it has been about getting most of what would make a brilliant dive watch, in tungsten, with a much more expensive Swiss movement produced - at a price that makes sense for Sólás, myself, potential customers - things may still be tweaked coming up to the KS campaign which isn't for a while yet.

As I have a MOQ of 500 - I think variation is actually what will give the watch a greater chance of successfully funding - since some people will want date, some no-date, some want malachite, some want more subdued onyx/"black dial" - so the campaign will try to appeal to as many people as possible to try and cover the production costs of the 500 MOQ. If it's limited to say onyx date Equinox - I'd be cutting off the other 75% for not much more savings (MOQ of dials are lower than for the tungsten case/bracelet) - really if I wanted to make a diver with a safe and healthy margin I'd just do a steel or titanium diver with a NH35, sell at $300-400 with some Irish writing on it and "make money" - I want to contribute to people's watch collections with a valuable piece, quite unique but still horologically relevant. High risk and potentially little gain ironically since my production costs are so high.

Oh and for people who have a Starlight - maybe it's time to try flipping it on Chrono24 ;):

Baltic's MR01 retail price is 650 euro ha - and those are some crazy C24 prices - but same happens for Ming, Kurono etc.

Oh and I think it's about time to have a first render shown off here of the Equinox in malachite on the special dive bungee attachment (I think the real thing will look a lot better):

Once it all comes together I think (hope) people will see where the money has been spent - those are custom hands btw - I call them 7 sided "fada style" hands - see the Sólás logo's fadas 😁. Oh and I learnt from Starlight too in that I think a well printed Sólás might work better on this dial compared to the applique logo on the Starlight - good enough for Patek, good enough for Sólás.

Minute hand is marked in C3 X1 as for dive purposes it is the key marker. Second hand has the orange surround to quickly identify if the watch is running or stopped.

Again, I know that dive watches are archonistic - but by golly I tried to design the "best" dive watch possible, while still appealing to the desk divers too (sapphire bezel top, beadblasted bezel ring to give a better "stonework" effect to the ogham). The dive attachment is brushed to contrast with the dressier polished tungsten (key selling point of tungsten is that it retains mirror polish extremely well so brushing that would be a pity in my eyes).

Oh and the bezel click is a chunky 60 click with minimal backplay rather than 120 - I know a well done 60 click is harder technically (tolerances are less) and the positive action from a 60 clicker (say in the Pelagos) to me feels better than many mushier 120 clicks (I'm sure a Submariner feels great with their 120 of course).

Not at all - I didn't think it was coming across harshly at all - genuine question as to why pricing is the way it is and equally genuine answer on why things are the way they are - and yes I totally understand that for many spending this amount on a watch is a very large amount (the same happens for spending 500 or even 300+ on a watch too (to a lesser extent)). Sólás should be about fun and building very cool watches - by model 3 I'm considering revealing why I'm doing all this if not for profit (though it's making myself question the hours put into Sólás when my day job is sometimes ending at 11pm recently 😅) - you need to have a pretty good reason if not for profit. On the other hand while I personally can work for free/fun, suppliers, taxes, VAT, company registrations etc. need to be accounted for - I don't have rent or labour costs and that's why the prices are comparatively low - though objectively for something like the Equinox can be considered a large amount of money... a Ferrari at 50% off is still 50% on and not something I could consider getting unless it was a toy variant... (Sólás would be an Ariel Atom in this comparison I guess!)

The minute hand is different - first, it's already in a bright green colour, second while pretty much all the lume is BGW9 (appearing white and glowing blue) the minute hand is in C3 (green tint in daylight glowing green in lowlight, along with the NDC markers and bezel "pip" in green too) - those 3 elements are the key diving elements you should be looking at when timing your dives and C3 X1 will be brighter than BGW9 (green is brighter than blue to human eyes) and X1 lasts longer than Grade A superluminova (only C3 has X1 paint, BGW9 only has Grade A as the top grade). As things get darker you just need to have regard to the green elements on the watch when you dive, and even when it's in bright clear water you'd still be looking at the green minute hand for dive purposes.

A crown guard was considered at the beginning - but with tungsten it wasn't advisable - tungsten is scratch resistant but more prone to shattering (like ceramic) - so a functional design decision was taken to reduce the likelihood of a customer shattering a crown guard (unless you build a big/thick/(and potentially ugly) guard) - the thinner design I had considered was deemed too easy to shatter when knocking against things - you can see from the lug design we've beefed up the design considerably to maintain strength while carrying over the Starlight design ethos - when making things in tungsten you don't want to leave trailing edges as far as possible.

Don't forget Ball - they have a beautiful green black diver too (GMT for the green/black divide)

Tritium tubes too (if people recall me exploring that before deciding to pull back due to ballooning costs). They even have the blue/green divide on ceramic in the bezel which isn't easy (or cheap).

From people's feedback here I've asked that a second set of hands in reverse colours (green second tip and orange minute hands) be made too - better to get things completely to people's satisfaction (as much as possible of course) than to proceed with some niggles/regrets.

Proplofs etc. come to mind - oh and here's another design tidbit that actually will be an Easter egg for those who don't read this thread - the minute/second hands' orange/green colours are pantone correct for the Irish flag - hence my strong choice to have the green and orange featured (beside them being diving relevant).

Over the weekend have been speaking to my family and come to realise I'm not in any particular rush to get Equinox out of the gates - a lot has been made public now but things are just so busy that I think it would be good to take a step back, get a breather and re-approach Equinox's marketing/KS campaign later on rather than trying to push ahead through year end at work and child's first 6-9 months. So - I think things will be getting a little quiet on the Equinox front for the next while, I don't think the pre-KS will take place this year and the KS launch will be moved back to later 2022 (or even spring Equinox 2023) - the beauty/bane of microbrands - there shouldn't be any pressure on me to release new models, Sólás should remain a joy for me rather than something that will place undue pressures on the family and home. Currently dealing with 4 different suppliers and coordinating manufacturing from 10,000km away (no travel to China is really possible unless you're willing to undergo 3 weeks of quarantine) to try and rush out the Equinox isn't a good idea from a project/health/effective use of time perspective.

So your wallet will be safe for the next while at least @banie01 😋 - I'll continue to work on the Equinox - but without the artificial deadlines I had set in my head now.

Oh and here's another "treat" for people as to what I'm hoping to build Sólás towards - I present testbed model 00 (i.e. the actual model will be nothing like this - this is merely being used for R&D purposes) - Sólás Lir (minute repeater) model:

Just to reemphasise - the actual Lir model will of course be a wristwatch (rather than converted pocketwatch in this case) - and won't be something like 20mm thick and 54mm diameter 😁 - but this was pretty much the cheapest way to get access to a genuine minute repeater movement in a workable state I can send to China for analysis and testing with). Hence being labelled as 00 and not even v0.1

For those who are interested in "noisy lume" like myself - this is a Le Phare minute repeater from around 1893 - so over a century old and still keeping okay time (2min/day) - I'll be posting up some info about where you can get your hands on interesting watches like this one - German Polosin recases vintage pocket watches with some high end complications into large wrist watches - dead beat seconds, split/flyback chrono, chrono quarter repeaters etc.

And oh I can hazard a guess that the tonal quality of the Lir 00 is likely better than many/(most?) Pateks/JLC/ALS/VC wristwatch minute repeaters (and the eventual Sólás wristwatch minute repeater too of course) - size matters for hammers/gongs and even with cathedral gongs (circling twice around the case) - I imagine just having a massive gong in a pocket watch minute repeater will most likely beat out any wristwatch minute repeater, no matter how fancy it is (purely from tonal perspective). The Le Phare MR was the first minute repeater to use the circular spinning regulator for the gongs too - so it was ironically a "quiet" minute repeater - previous minute repeaters used a rack system that had a buzzing sound.

What do people prefer from the two engraving options? I have a personal preference but won't seek to influence people's thoughts.

The supplier is suggesting the opposite of my choice (and MsThirdfox agrees 😁) hence I want to get a few more views from people.