The Next Chapter

Two flaws sadly bring this watch down to earth

One star off for each point: 1. The minutes are really hard to read unless you're in a well-lit location. They needed to be a little bit bigger. And forget about reading them in a darker location. 2. The real disappointment: The brightness of the lume shown in the watch's listing is exaggerated. I can't get the watch lume to brighten up like the ad image that really sold me on the watch, no matter how long I hit it with a blacklight torch. With better lume, the minutes size issue would be forgiven because it would probably be bright enough despite the size. With that all said, it's not all bad news. The gas giant's position clearly denotes the hour. That's a non-issue, IMO. And when you really bake it for a while, you do get a fleeting moment where you get a hint of what could've been the most amazing watch lume - before it quickly fades away. And the overall design is still great. It's unique and cool. In summary: With better lume, this would be my coolest "fun watch" to wear by a good margin. Instead, it may not get much wear time for me (especially at night when it should be at its coolest).

Absolutely gorgeous, wish there was a little more visibility for the hours.

So I want to lead with the good here, because this watch has quickly become a daily wear for me: It's gorgeous. The art is awesome, the atmosphere is awesome, even the jeweler who swapped out the band for a long one was awed by that. And frankly, that's why I wanted this watch, so on the stuff that made me buy the watch, it meets all the marks and I'd absolutely get another one. Nothing is perfect, and I think there is one drawback to this watch that's worth calling out: It is _really_ hard to read the hours. They're marked at the center of the planet, but there's no discoloration or anything there to guide your eyes towards the middle when either setting it or reading it. And, as fun as the astronaut is, they obstruct the planet, so anything from 5 to 7 becomes even harder to read. A small tweak here (add a red spot on the planet! It's the 6 hour when that's behind the astronaut.) would have completely fixed this usability challenge without affecting the atmosphere or quality of the art, which is why it's got one star off for readability. My wrists are quite large, so I do want to at least mention that the straps are standard length, but very narrow, it was a bit challenging to replace the strap with a longer one. But that's not a problem with the watch, that's just my wrists being unusually, uh, orbital. I'm just mentioning it as a heads up for anyone else who may similarly need a longer strap -- the narrow size doesn't have a lot of longer strap options out there.

Beautiful but

Recently received this watch, the craftsmanship is great and I love how nice it looks in person and have gotten many compliments. I think it's easy to read too. The only downside for me is that the glow in the dark aspect doesn't last very long. It comes with a mini uv flashlight so you can charge it up quickly but even using that the glow only lasts like 10 minutes. It's dissapponting because the main reason I got this one over other designs is for the glow in the dark as I get up before sunrise.