Did Somebody Say SMARTWATCH? Introducing the VCXO Magic Button

After last week’s veiled love letter to the mechanical watch something came to our attention that sounds VERY smart indeed! Just when we were about to abandon hope in the progress of horological civilization, someone decided to go and prove us wrong.

What a difference a week makes? Last week we had to take up arms in defense of our beloved mechanical watches for fear of ANOTHER brutal and disruptive technological innovation. This week we got an unsolicited piece of mail from a Geneva based company called VCXO-Watches who produces a watch that actually sounds pretty smart.

The premise behind the company and their designs is quite simple: they view the mechanical movement as “Marvelous” and aren’t trying to replace it with technology or surround it with a load of distracting features. Instead they are trying to use new technology to enhance the mechanical wristwatch experience.

Smart as an Ox:

The VCXO Magic Button Ox is a 46mm stainless steel, 30-meter water-resistant manual winding watch that displays hours, minutes, seconds, day/night and date with a 120 hour power-reserve and satellite technology. By integrating a GPS technology in to a mechanical watch, VCXO has built a system whereby at the push of a button the exact local time and date are obtained from GPS satellites and automatically adjusted within seconds. Voila! A seamless integration of new-tech and old-tech that makes perfect sense.

VCXO hasn’t come out and tried to replace the mechanical movement with something bio-chemical or anything like that. They have tried, and in our minds succeeded, to add something to the mechanical movement that makes the overall experience better. The VCXO becomes an easy watch to travel with. It also becomes an ‘smartwatch’ for folks who are sticklers for accuracy (as it can be synched as often as you’d like).

Putting the cart before the Ox:

Looking at the VCXO Magic Button Ox as one possible stopping off point for the ancient mechanical wristwatch on the information super-highway, it is easy to envision possible enhancements to this unique mix of technologies. By using GPS to synchronize time to the second in any location, VCXO has eliminated half of the need for a crown on a watch. That is also to say that they can build future generations of the Magic Button watches that might incorporate Bluetooth technology to eliminate the buttons entirely! That will result in cases that can be sealed to greater depths of water resistance.

We don’t want to say too much more (if the minds at VCXO would like more ideas they can contact us again, we are NOT shy about our ideas!). Our point, for now, is that last week we lamented at how everyone saw technology as a means of disparaging and/or replacing mechanical timepieces. Now, we’re back in the game with a mechanical timepiece that has the benefits of new technology. That sounds like music to our ears!

To get YOUR Magic Button Ox, visit vcxo-watches.com