Micro Tournament Round 1 Day 8: Orion Vs. Horage

Horage. Difficult to compare pretty generic watch with Miyota movement with much more distinct designs inspired by photo camera, very cool in-house movements, tourbillons, micro rotors, high customization, integrated bracelets, etc.

But again - voting in first two rounds is essentially to eliminate brands with more expensive offer as budget is generally the sole decisive factor. Unfortunately

What good is a microbrand where most of their watches are in the $5000 to $13000 price range, and selling straps and bracelets for $700 to over $2000, lol. Probably fine for a few, but the vast majority of enthusiasts will set their sights on something more affordable.

What are we really looking for in a microbrand? I think that's where any discontent in this tournament emanates. Look at the really popular microbrands here at WC and what they charge for their watches. They're affordable.

I understand Horage has in-house movements but you can't call their designs "distinct" in a blanket statement when their offerings include these:

In fairness, they do have a couple of distinct designs, like these:

And they have a tourbillon, if that's your thing, but they're not cheap:

And I'd like to point out that the Chinese are making tourbillons at 1/20th of the price ($250) of Horage's least expensive model.

I'm not here to disparage Horage because they are very respectable and I'm sure they put out a beautiful product. And to have your own in-house movement? That's hard to beat. That's big time.

And of course I like ORION because I have one, and appreciate the quality of the finishing every time I put it on (and I like the 9000-series Miyota movement), and the owner, Nick, is a member here and a true watch enthusiast.

What this tournament needs is a price cap, or to separate the brands based on price tiers, so we can better compare them.

In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy my Hellcat.

Thanks for the feedback. They didn’t start out as a brand making $20k watches and they still offer a lot of variety under $5k, more than many others in the field, which is the theoretical cap.

While affordability tends to win the tournament, it isn’t a requirement, outside of the cap. We equally want to recognize those doing something different in the space. Creating a new, Swiss made and well finished, micro-rotor and selling them under $5k at product launch is no easy feat. Yes, the tourbillion is well out of range, but they’re the most affordable Swiss tourbillion on the market. The fact they launched, essentially, a new movement manufacture is Switzerland in this day, is also cool.

Again, I hear what you’re saying and appreciate it. You’re also right in that community on WC tends to lean heavily on price and those closer to the $1k price will likely win, but if we didn’t keep a seat at the table for the innovative it would be a pretty boring meal.

Everyone can sit at a tournament table, and having a few different tables would not exclude the innovators. 😉

Orion - great looking and creative designs. But Chinese case, Miyota movement. Like 99% of micros. I like Nick, the guy who runs it, as well.

So 2 great choices. Crazy me, I’m going..

Horage! I’m going with the loser! 🤪

In house case, in house movement (design&build!), in house everything. Micro pricing (ok, pricey micro!)

They've got to be the only watchmaker that doesn’t cost over $50k that is 100% Swiss in components and build. (They COULD qualify for that ‘made in USA’ stamp if they were made in the US, because to them “made in…” means 100%!)

What good is a microbrand where most of their watches are in the $5000 to $13000 price range, and selling straps and bracelets for $700 to over $2000, lol. Probably fine for a few, but the vast majority of enthusiasts will set their sights on something more affordable.

What are we really looking for in a microbrand? I think that's where any discontent in this tournament emanates. Look at the really popular microbrands here at WC and what they charge for their watches. They're affordable.

I understand Horage has in-house movements but you can't call their designs "distinct" in a blanket statement when their offerings include these:

In fairness, they do have a couple of distinct designs, like these:

And they have a tourbillon, if that's your thing, but they're not cheap:

And I'd like to point out that the Chinese are making tourbillons at 1/20th of the price ($250) of Horage's least expensive model.

I'm not here to disparage Horage because they are very respectable and I'm sure they put out a beautiful product. And to have your own in-house movement? That's hard to beat. That's big time.

And of course I like ORION because I have one, and appreciate the quality of the finishing every time I put it on (and I like the 9000-series Miyota movement), and the owner, Nick, is a member here and a true watch enthusiast.

What this tournament needs is a price cap, or to separate the brands based on price tiers, so we can better compare them.

In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy my Hellcat.

Frankly I’m really surprised at how this poll is trending.

I don’t see anything Orion doing anything outside any other micro (outsource parts and assemble), while Horage developed their own movements including a tourb! Price point aside, the in-house production and R&D is seriously impressive.

My Orion Hellcat gets more wrist time than any of my watches. One helluva watch!

I figure this is a good opportunity to represent myself a little.

I'm Nick, in 2016 I started Orion, I had gotten into watchmaking as a hobby and it turned into a passion that I loved. I was at a bit of a crossroads with what I wanted to do as my career and decided I would give watchmaking school a shot and start a watch brand. I was hoping I could start Orion and it would sustain me through watchmaking school and also pay tuition. So, I spent every dollar I had (nearly literally) on having prototypes of my first model made and promised everyone else helping me with relevant work that I'd pay them once I made some money (their faith in me was crucial to my success).

Watchmaking school was a success and so were the first few watches! My goals after watchmaking school was to start my own shop up and do a hybrid approach to watch production. I didn't want to fall prey to making only a couple watches a year like many independents and artisans, I wanted my designs to be more accessible to people. This would mean tiers of watches and utilizing global supply chains, which, I use and have used American, Swiss, Chinese, Japanese (and more) artisans and factories to run Orion. I saw a comment here saying Horage is 100% Swiss made, which unless this factory I was speaking to had a 1:1 copy of their clasp, I can attest that this statement of Horage being 100% Swiss is not true. But you know what? That doesn't make their work any less impressive. In fact, what I learned is that such a large segment of the watch industry is contingent on Chinese labor. Which again, it doesn't make anything less impressive, it's just strange for me to see some brands get proverbial points against them and other brands get praised for using Chinese labor but with a facade of marketing to cover it up. I wouldn't want to make a USA made watch if it had poor quality, it would not be a great testament to the "Made in USA" label if I could provide a higher quality watch for less cost.

Anywho, I digress. As my second year of watchmaking school started wrapping up I was having more and more health issues. I attributed these to stress and lack of sleep since between school (40/hrs week) and Orion I was normally doing 60+ hour weeks and getting little sleep. The plan was to go home, get the shop started, sort out my health, and continue the fight. What happened was not exactly what I had planned. My health continued to spiral and doctors had me on a wild goose chase with (incorrect) diagnoses and a never ending list of different specialists to see. Half way through 2019, my health worsened again and I spent most of that year bedbound or close to it, unable to work. I had outfitted a shop right as I got out of school in 2018 and early 2019 before things got bad and also fortunately completed the design work for the Orion II and Hellcat before this. The money I had saved to build out my shop and get started with manufacturing got diverted to my healthcare (which is exploitative and insanely expensive in America and for chronically ill people, I also have had diabetes since I was 6 and that is the equivalent of a luxury car payment or additional rent each month). I soon ran out of stock of the Calamity and all my prior models - at this point I was sick, experiencing daily migraines among other things we wont get into, and unable to live my life. My money was gone, I had no inventory and I thought it was over. In 2019 I had over 65 doctors appointments, countless tests and interventions - my passion, which was watches and bringing people joy through watches had been replaced by pain and sheer desperation to get any amount of my health and life back.

My priority shifted from watches to my health, it is still my priority and while my life has improved tremendously since 2019 I am still far from the person I was before then. Running Orion has meant adapting, asking other people for more help, being okay with changing my goals, making compromises I don't always want to make, and just learning how to navigate my life, health and a business in an entirely new way. I wish I had my shop up and running. I wish I was machining stuff out of my house, but sometimes life happens in unpredictable ways. Now, to be clear, I don't want any pity, full stop, but compared to me, Horage is a juggernaut. Good health, a whole team, a multimillion dollar machine shop, a wife that's a movement designer, 30 years of industry experience, a dad that was a watchmaker and encouraged him (my dad told me I was crazy and I should become a cashier before spending my money making watches - I can assure you his perspective has since changed). Horage is everything I wish I had but don't have - though, I seem to have something that they don't and that's a lot of support from people on here. I've never really opened up about this, because it's hard to and there's always a person that makes you feel shitty or invalidates you for opening up.

But thanks to everyone voting for Orion so far, it means a lot to me - and for the people who buy my watches and specifically bought a Hellcat in 2019/2020 you saved my life in a way you may not have realized.

Currently, I'm looking to get back into the saddle and expand to the shop I always wanted, thankfully now there are even more options for small footprint machines and "in house" manufacturing. Here's our Tesseract with its made in America dial.

But yeah, carry on folks. I will make a promise that the more support I get, the cooler the stuff I'll do.

I figure this is a good opportunity to represent myself a little.

I'm Nick, in 2016 I started Orion, I had gotten into watchmaking as a hobby and it turned into a passion that I loved. I was at a bit of a crossroads with what I wanted to do as my career and decided I would give watchmaking school a shot and start a watch brand. I was hoping I could start Orion and it would sustain me through watchmaking school and also pay tuition. So, I spent every dollar I had (nearly literally) on having prototypes of my first model made and promised everyone else helping me with relevant work that I'd pay them once I made some money (their faith in me was crucial to my success).

Watchmaking school was a success and so were the first few watches! My goals after watchmaking school was to start my own shop up and do a hybrid approach to watch production. I didn't want to fall prey to making only a couple watches a year like many independents and artisans, I wanted my designs to be more accessible to people. This would mean tiers of watches and utilizing global supply chains, which, I use and have used American, Swiss, Chinese, Japanese (and more) artisans and factories to run Orion. I saw a comment here saying Horage is 100% Swiss made, which unless this factory I was speaking to had a 1:1 copy of their clasp, I can attest that this statement of Horage being 100% Swiss is not true. But you know what? That doesn't make their work any less impressive. In fact, what I learned is that such a large segment of the watch industry is contingent on Chinese labor. Which again, it doesn't make anything less impressive, it's just strange for me to see some brands get proverbial points against them and other brands get praised for using Chinese labor but with a facade of marketing to cover it up. I wouldn't want to make a USA made watch if it had poor quality, it would not be a great testament to the "Made in USA" label if I could provide a higher quality watch for less cost.

Anywho, I digress. As my second year of watchmaking school started wrapping up I was having more and more health issues. I attributed these to stress and lack of sleep since between school (40/hrs week) and Orion I was normally doing 60+ hour weeks and getting little sleep. The plan was to go home, get the shop started, sort out my health, and continue the fight. What happened was not exactly what I had planned. My health continued to spiral and doctors had me on a wild goose chase with (incorrect) diagnoses and a never ending list of different specialists to see. Half way through 2019, my health worsened again and I spent most of that year bedbound or close to it, unable to work. I had outfitted a shop right as I got out of school in 2018 and early 2019 before things got bad and also fortunately completed the design work for the Orion II and Hellcat before this. The money I had saved to build out my shop and get started with manufacturing got diverted to my healthcare (which is exploitative and insanely expensive in America and for chronically ill people, I also have had diabetes since I was 6 and that is the equivalent of a luxury car payment or additional rent each month). I soon ran out of stock of the Calamity and all my prior models - at this point I was sick, experiencing daily migraines among other things we wont get into, and unable to live my life. My money was gone, I had no inventory and I thought it was over. In 2019 I had over 65 doctors appointments, countless tests and interventions - my passion, which was watches and bringing people joy through watches had been replaced by pain and sheer desperation to get any amount of my health and life back.

My priority shifted from watches to my health, it is still my priority and while my life has improved tremendously since 2019 I am still far from the person I was before then. Running Orion has meant adapting, asking other people for more help, being okay with changing my goals, making compromises I don't always want to make, and just learning how to navigate my life, health and a business in an entirely new way. I wish I had my shop up and running. I wish I was machining stuff out of my house, but sometimes life happens in unpredictable ways. Now, to be clear, I don't want any pity, full stop, but compared to me, Horage is a juggernaut. Good health, a whole team, a multimillion dollar machine shop, a wife that's a movement designer, 30 years of industry experience, a dad that was a watchmaker and encouraged him (my dad told me I was crazy and I should become a cashier before spending my money making watches - I can assure you his perspective has since changed). Horage is everything I wish I had but don't have - though, I seem to have something that they don't and that's a lot of support from people on here. I've never really opened up about this, because it's hard to and there's always a person that makes you feel shitty or invalidates you for opening up.

But thanks to everyone voting for Orion so far, it means a lot to me - and for the people who buy my watches and specifically bought a Hellcat in 2019/2020 you saved my life in a way you may not have realized.

Currently, I'm looking to get back into the saddle and expand to the shop I always wanted, thankfully now there are even more options for small footprint machines and "in house" manufacturing. Here's our Tesseract with its made in America dial.

But yeah, carry on folks. I will make a promise that the more support I get, the cooler the stuff I'll do.

Is that the mother of pearl dial or just a trick of the light?

Love my Hellcat.