After reviewing one of the craziest time machines existing on planet earth some time ago (I am talking about the Urwerk UR-1001 Titan), something almost as crazy as its owner, who asked the maker to design a frame to help him to wrap a huge pocket watch around his wrist, time has come to review yet another beautiful and "human" Urwerk time-machine in my personal column called "Today I'm wearing". On here I get to "quickly" review some of the most beautiful timepieces available on the market and this time I have decided to talk about the Urwerk UR-210S, perhaps the best example (and with “best” I mean “neatest”) of the brand's satellite hour visualization concept and, possibly, the most wearable timepiece of the Urwerk's collection also (as long as you can afford spending at least 140,000CHF to get one).
The Urwerk UR-210S is the classiest and maybe the dressiest version of a timepiece that encompasses everything about this brand, the hour satellite visualization feature that makes this item a digital-analog reading time wristwatch equipped with a digital wandering hours function and an analog-like minutes retrograde visualization feature achieved via three satellite arms and a scale placed on the lower end side of the dial.
The extremely original time visualization feature comes hand in hand with an impressive technical package in terms of materials and approaches used, something that seems to have drawn inspiration from the world of aerospacing. The plate is made of ARCAP P40, the revolving 3D minute hand that looks as if it were "jumping" over the next satellite at the end of each 60 minute cycle is made of aluminum, the hour satellites are made of aluminum too and the central carousel and the screws are made of Titanium Grade 5.
Another cool feature of this watch is that some of the complications that we are used to see in standard watches have been thoroughly re-designed and brought to the next level up here. The Urwerk UR-210S is not only equipped with a common power reserve (that does indeed exists and can be found on the upper right side of the dial) but with a Winding Efficiency Indicator too that can be found on the upper left hand side of the dial. This indicator calculates the difference between the energy level that has been used up over the last two hours and the energy level that has been replenished in the same time frame, a mechanism that has been patented by Urwerk.
Last but not least, the lucky owner of this timepiece can actually decide whether they want to either charge the movement in full or partially (or even if they want to avoid charging it at all) by simply rotating a tiny knob that can be found on the case back. This is a time-machine for the very few, not just in terms of its cost but mainly because it is exclusively geared towards those who are looking into buying an item which already belongs to the future of watchmaking.
(Photo credit: courtesy of Urwerk; Horbiter®'s proprietary photo-shooting)
Gaetano C. @Horbiter®
@Gaetano Cimmino
