Horage Autark T5 Review

Finally, let me write the review of my current favorite, which I have been planning for months ;). Horage is gearing up to launch a new, excessively beautiful tourbillon (WITH ENAMEL!!!!). So I want to vouch for them so people can support this awesome brand :-)

Horage Brand

Let's start with this: Horage the company.

Look, I have never met anyone from that company. However, the way they present themselves and design their watches really endear me to them.

Horage is an independent watchmaking brand (as opposed to a microbrand). In other words, they engineer their own watches and caliber, rather than merely sourcing and arranging for the production and encasing of watches under their names from off-the-shelf parts. In fact, the company started not to make watches (per se), but to make movements. They started around the time ETA was throwing tantrum about shutting down movement supply to non-Swatch brands (it was an exciting time for would-be movement producers). Different from, says, Sellita, they didn't just want to clone ETA calibers, but to create a modern movements.

K1 (in this very watch) was the end result.

In any way, there are a few things that really endear me to the brand.

First, they are so... technically oriented that it's cute. For example, look at their watch face.

The biggest description of the watch is "Silicon Escapement Technology." Yep, they are really really exciting about and proud of that. The website mentions silicon tech everywhere. I find it really nerdy and cute (personal story: I actually once used the 1st Android phone, the G1; you know how my buddy and college best friend got me to try it? "you have to try, it runs Emacs;" yep, not the "magical" stuffs Steve Jobs wowing people with, but a text editor that no one excepts rather nerdy engineers knows of; the whole screaming about silicon tech reminds me of that dearly; it's like "we don't really care about the usage; but look how cool this tech is!").

Furthermore, the things exciting and outstanding for them are also... not quite customer face. For example, big date. In a regular brand (and this includes anyone from Frederique Constant to Lange), big date is a Big Deal(TM). It's the focus of the watch, the piece-de-resistance. Horage? It took me 3rd look to realize it's a freaking big date. It was mentioned like once in the description. It's tucked right in the regular date location, with regular date style (you know, black on white). Frankly, the entire Big Deal(TM) feature feels like the result of this: designer: yo, the small second is too big; we need something to balance it out; watchmaker: hmm, can't we like reduce it?; designer: no, it would look too small; watchmaker: ok, tell you what, I will tuck a big date there to be a bit bigger, sounds good?; designer: sure, remember to tell the marketing guy; watchmaker (like, before launch): oh, I forgot to mention, there's a big date; marketing: you tell me now? but my webpage is done; watchmaker: whatever, just mention it somewhere. Frankly, I feel like there are more discussion over the hour indices (they are cute and innovate, for sure) than the complication...

And finally, there are many little touches that makes me smile. Instead of "Swiss made," it's "Biel Bienne" because of reasons. The hour indices are very clever (and clearly the entire company was super excited).

Horage feels like a fun little company, too busy doing and tech-ing to think about marketing. Which, again, to me, really cute.

Watch Design

Alright, let's talk about the watch.

The design of the face of thee watch is surprisingly pleasant. I said "surprisingly" because a lot of stuffs normally disliked by me are present, but somehow they work together.

For example, if you look, the date is rather close to the center. The date also doesn't blend (it's a light background under a usually-dark dial). The face has virtually no negative space. There was a wall of text at 12 o'clock, talking about silicon escapement.

Individually, each of these would be a no-no. Like, I would go out of my way to avoid these. But somehow, when I look at this watch, I like it. And when I received it and wear it, it looks really pleasant.

I feel that the watch face is actually well thought out and well balanced. The 2 cutouts (small second and big date) are symmetric, plus the entire ring of hour indices are present; this avoids calling undue attention from your eyes (something that I really dislike about Nomos). Similarly, the wall of text is balanced by another printed element (the power reserve).

Overall, the watch feels very happening (given how busy it is), very active (worth calling out that the color is green, which is also louder than blue, white, off-white, or black), without being burnt out or overwhelming. Something I really like.

Dial Color

Alright, in person, the 1st thing jumps out at me was the color of the dial. As in, it jumps at you.

Officially, the color is Swiss green, meant to invoke the forest around Bienne. I have never been to Switzerland, so I will take their words for it.

In practice, the watch dial color plays with light aggressively.

As you see, depends on the light, the dial goes from neon green to deep dark green. It normally settles in what would regularly be called "forest green," so maybe the whole shebang about Swiss forest is real. Either way, it's really fun.

In addition to this, the small-second subdial also interacts with light well, but in a peculiar manner. If you look at the photos above closely, you will see that when the main color goes bright, the small second sub-dial goes dark; and when the main color goes dark, the small sub-dial goes bright. The main exception would be when there is very little light, then everything is dark. In most cases, though, this provides a contrast between the 2 greens on the face of the watch.

The Rest of the Face

Beside the background, the rest of watch face has their own fun.

First up is the hour indices. The hour indices are cut/polished (I think they are only cut) as outward facing wedges. The fun part here is that each index has a slightly different slope, and thus reflects light as a separate angle.

This is really fun when you are walking on a trail shaded by trees. As you know, the trees' shades are not uniform, but light would shine down in consistently. As you walk, your body also sways (because of biology; no, I don't cat walk, I think). As the light and angles varies, the dial color shifts, while the hour indices take turn blinking. It's really fun and pretty.

Luckily, I haven't run down anyone while admiring the watch ;)

The 2 main hands have odd shape. They are skeletons, with lume tips. This allows you to see the dial underneath. Unfortunately, their lume is weak.

In fact, lume is an overall weakness.

Beside the hands, each hour index also has a lume dot. Unfortunately, lume lasts for no more than perhaps 5 weak minutes (and you need like direct sunlight to get those minutes). I had to run from the yard to the closet to get that shot for you T_T.

Movement and Its Usage

The movement of Horage Autark is about 60% of the reason why one buys it.

Horage K1 (and other, in fact) movement is what they (read: us enthusiasts) mean when they say "in-house" movement. Now, true, it is produced by THE Plus SA in Biel, partner of Horage. However, it is designed and engineered by Horage. You get this movement from nowhere else. It's a specifically created for Horage (i.e. for me <3).

The spec for K1, in my opinion, is very sensible: 3.5Hz (i.e. 25,200 vph) and 65h power reserve. Unfortunately, I cannot find the info on accuracy spec for this watch itself (the movement can be regulate to COSC), but I find the watch accuracy to be satisfactory (i.e. I haven't needed to adjust time time). The movement hacks, hand-winds, and has small second, power reserve, and big date.

As you see, the movement has only ok decoration. The plates have bezel and polished edge, with some sort of square-ish decor. The screw heads are polished (but not blued).

Operation wise, there is some oddity. Generally, when you hand-wind a watch, the winding has the click-click-click feel to it. The winding of K1 is smooth. On one hand, it's a clear indication that this is bespoke; something endearing to me initially. On the other, it's not quite as interactive as normal. So... break even? It's an oddity, not a big deal. With 65h power reserve, the watch survives my weekend, so I tend not need to wind it.

Case and Wearability

How often do you have a watch to actually alter your expectation of how watches wear? Well, this one is one for me.

The watch case and bracelet are titanium. The bezel is well polished:

The side profile of the case is interesting. It has 2 polished guard with an indented mid-case that's brushed:

My guess is that they are trying to mimic the polished-edge-with-brushed-body in other watch, but titanium is a bit hard to polish. In any event, it looks nice! Interestingly, it hasn't caught my hair or dust so far, but it's only a few months, so time will tell.

The watch wears beautifully. It sits relatively low on the wrist (thanks to the down curving of the case). It's also quite sporty (100M WR, which is acceptable for GADA; not the best, but not too bad either). However, it wears very light. In a good way. There is just enough weight to feel the watch on my wrist, but not enough to inconvenient.

In fact, as said above, the watch changed my regular expectation of sport watches. I do have other dive watches. I don't like overly heavy watches to begin with (I don't buy the opinion of weight being mark of quality), so my sport and dive watches ain't those bricks. But after a few weeks of wearing the Autark, I re-donned my Citizen A-T, and dear goodness it felt heavy. All my other dive watches felt heavy, too! One reason why I have been wearing this watch so much :-)

Strap

I put strap in a separate section for 2 reasons. First, this is the part of the watch I like the least. Second, the strap arrived faulty.

First, the strap itself. This watch is one of those with integrated bracelet. You can see the points of contact here:

This, of course, means I can't swap straps. For which I am annoyed.

Furthermore, the strap scratched relatively easily.

The worst part is the resizing of the bracelet. Look, it's not my 1st watch with a bracelet. I generally resized bracelets myself. But this thing. It's just... impossible. I could remove the pins, but putting the pins back was mission impossible. I ended up going to a local watchmaker to resize it for me. It was really annoying. That said, there seem to be micro adjustment on the buckle, if that's your concern:

My final complain (before the bad experience story) about this strap is that it's quite sharp. Now, normally, sharpness is a plus. But in this case, occasionally, the buckle pokes my wrist, which isn't fun.

Alright, beside all that, the strap is the subject of the single most annoying thing about this watch: it arrived faulty. My wife, in particular, was angry over the fact that their QC let it thru. The original buckle would pop open with the lightest of hand movement. The watch almost fell into a urinal once due to this.

There is a silver lining to this sad story. Horage customer service was very responsive. All my email inquiries were responded within around 12h (given that they are in a separate timezone, this was quite good). Upon confirming my receipt and problem, they sent replacement, which arrived within 3 days from Switzerland. Yet-another-trip-to-the-watchmaker was required, unfortunately, but afterward, the watch wears like a charm. Read the wearability section above.

Buying Experience

Besides the faulty bracelet, a few things stood out (not flatteringly, unfortunately) about Horage experience.

First, their return period was only 2 weeks. And I had a lot of difficulty parsing when the time started. When I asked, Horage rep sent me a T&C that looked more like for online content than physical goods. To this day, I still am not sure if 2 weeks are from package arrival or shipment, and whether it includes time to return (i.e. does the watch need to arrive in Biel within 2 weeks?). Also, I think I would bear the return cost.

Second, they have preciously few retail outlets. Which would have been ok if the above point wasn't there. I was going to buy this online, so I needed some clear return policy (and free return).

In the end, I bought the watch from The Limited Edition. I do want to give a shout out to them. They, too, have 2 weeks return policy, but it was clear: starting from arrival of the package at my door step, counting till I hand off the return package, and free return for 3000+ GBP. Luckily, the way that the conversion works out, the watch was 3008GBP ;). Beside Horage, they have some really interesting watches! I do wish they have a longer return period :-(. I feel like we need at least 1 month (provided, of course, that the watch isn't scratched or anything).

In any event, I didn't return, but I would have appreciated a longer return period from either Horage or the retail.

Prices and Value

The watch cost CHF3,500. Which is not a small amount, to me at least. Is it a good deal?

I think the closest comparison to this would be Frederique Constant Big Date Manufacture. You get roughly the same thing: in-house movement, big date, independent brand. Frederique Constant watch is around $4,995, which is slightly more expensive than Horage. It has moonphase (and is much more dressy), but shorter power reserve and in stainless steel only.

For larger picture, under $5K (CHF3.5K works out just under $4K) watches generally don't have in-house movement (except some very special cases). They also tend to not have very special complication (which big date would qualify).

Thus, for a big date in titanium with in-house movement, CHF3,500 is a very decent price. Add in a pretty face, many cute details, and an independent brand, and you can see the value.

Personally, I am very happy with the watch.