A watch with a "pace clock" interface - Quite cute and would remind of the pace clocks at the pool.

Introducing the Void V03.

It was designed by David Ericsson, a Hong Kong designer, and it most likely has a quartz movement. The specifications don't say which is really lame and quite insulting in my opinion.

A quartz movement is basically a electronic movement powered by a battery that measures time via a vibrating quartz crystal. I have a penchant for automatics; (An automatic watch will self wind via the motion of your body), but I do appreciate quartz driven watches when exact timing or math functions are needed. As for this watch, I just adore the interface.

For what this watch is, it is rather expensive. Very expensive for a quartz watch which is priced near $300 USA or £185 in British currency. (Thank you USA Government for adopting a weak dollar policy. Let's hope the treasury realizes that no great nation devalued it's currency as a way of becoming a prosperous world power.)

The Void V03 has a 2-year warranty but it would cost so little to replace a quartz movement that sending it back to Great Britain to get fixed might not even be worth it.  Quartz movements are extraordinarily cheap to produce usually assembled by robots in China. A quality Swiss quartz movement can sell for as low as $9.00 so if your movement goes bad it won't cost much to replace.

Description:

This version of the VOID V03 timepiece by Hong Kong designer David Ericsson comes with a leather strap plus an alarm and date function. Ericsson focussed the design of the watch on the details of the face, which has five functions: hours, minutes, seconds, date and alarm. There are four hands. The two grey ones with luminescent strips are used as traditional hour and minute hands. A long red ticker counts the seconds and the final short red arrow hand indicates where the alarm is set. The alarm is adjusted by a button at the two o’clock position on the outer watch case. 

On the face itself there are two sets of numbers: one that counts the hours and one that counts the minutes. VOID V03 alarm comes in two colourways: black and white. 

[Link]

I may purchase this watch and put it in my rotation. The dial and the second hand remind me so much about the pool that I may succumb to it's high price and cheap movement. One could put a two toned NATO strap on it to make it look it fresh; (a Watch Snob tip), but I probably won't.

I like watches; I like them a lot and it is my opinion that yesterday's technology is today's art. Thus, the "industrial age" components contained within a vintage watch that can keep near perfect time in a digital age is beautiful distraction when I look down to see how long a meeting is running.

But what about the watch below the the photo of Void V03 above?

I was please to find out this weekend that the Watch Snob; (an anonymous writer of wealth and taste who the timepiece industry both fears and respects), along with the character known as "Don Draper" of TV drama Mad Men wear the same watch that I do. (A vintage Omega Seamaster De Ville Automatic.)

Omega is a brand that swimmers should appreciate. They have been there for us in the pool and at every Olympic games that I can remember. They offer one of the best swim results pages on the web and they maintain it pro bono.  Omega sponsors swimmers such as Michael Phelps, Ian Thorpe and Natalie Coughlin and if you can win multiple gold medals in the Olympics they would probably sponsor you too.

I plan to put another Omega in my rotation and it will be another vintage piece: the Omega Speedmaster Professional Automatic from 1969 or the same watch that Buzz Aldrin wore on the "freaking" moon, a timepiece that still bugs Rolex to this day for they wanted to be the original "moon watch" but Omega scored higher in the qualifications tests .