The band on my wrist knows more about me than my doctor. It has counted every heartbeat, graded last night's sleep, and concluded I am under-recovered, advising I take it easy today. This implacable observer lacks a face for me to read. It cannot tell time. It also does not see the future. For all its ability to measure, one statistic it does not know is how many days it has left.
Such devices dominated wrist space for a decade. First the smartwatch, buzzing relentlessly, exhorting us to stand, breathe, close a ring. The pure trackers that followed dispensed with the pretence of talking back at all. A monitor clasped to a patch of skin previously reserved for something else entirely.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIMEPIECES
Historically, time lived in the town square, atop a hall or a church tower, tolling the hour for everyone in earshot. Time became personal when the mainspring shrank and watches were hung on a chain around the neck, worn over the heart like a locket. The rising popularity of waistcoats in the 1670s triggered the move to the pocket. Time was drawn out at the owner's discretion. A wrist watch was considered an effeminate adornment. That changed in the trenches of the First World War, where infantry couldn't fumble for a fob while going over the top, and orders from officers to advance came down to watches synchronised to the second. Soldiers returning to civilian life kept the watch on the wrist, and they became a symbol to respect.
With every shift, time crept closer to the body and further into fashion. From something looked up at, to something adorned, carried, then worn. The tracker might be the last step in that long march. It claimed the wrist by adding functions, then abandoned timekeeping altogether. It lost a face and went from watched to watcher.
Our 24/7 supervisors are migrating once more. Skin, fingers, ears and apparel are all on the cards. The real estate below the hand will likely become vacant. A bare wrist is a strange, light feeling. Something to relish. Prime property rarely stays empty for long, though. We’re advocating for the return of the wristwatch.
THE CLASSIC RETURNS
The tracker made a hundred small decisions and handed them back as instructions. A watch is the other kind of instrument. A watch shows you the hour. What you make of it is your own affair.
Our dive watch takes that autonomy seriously. The Leatherback is made from Grade 5 titanium, waterproof to 300 metres, featuring a GMT hand showing a second time zone. It's self-winding, powered by the motion of your own wrist. No cable to lose, no account to log into. It will continue to work long after you cease to.
It's a link in a chain going back to 1914, when Gowings commissioned the Austral Fob, a gift to staff who volunteered to serve in the First World War. A pocket watch given in recognition and gratitude to men walking into a conflict that consigned the design to history. A century on, the Leatherback is its descendant: designed in Australia and built around a Swiss movement.
Each of the five hundred is individually numbered. It’s an object with purpose, lineage and narrative. Qualities the sensor on your finger will never have.
FROM PRESENT TO FUTURE
A tracker is an instrument of the present tense, fixated on optimising a moment that is always, by definition, about to be replaced. A watch made to be cared for, treasured, and handed on is a very different statement of intent. It embraces a longer horizon. The time frame shifts to the future, using a window measured in generations rather than heartbeats. The wrist is available. What you fasten to it, if anything, is a choice about which of those two you're thinking about.