Earth’s tilt and position to the sun changes this throughout the year. This, the amount of day versus night is constantly changing, and thus so do the indicators. On the Everywhere watch, Krayon uses a few stacked discs which move slightly each day. Krayon calls the system “USS” or “Universal Sunrise Sunset.”
Everything is adjusted using the crown, which can be set to adjust various settings with a crown setting indicator being located adjacent to it on the dial. The setting is changed via the pusher on the opposite side of the watch case. Thus, the crown can be switched in order to set the date, latitude, longitude, and UTC (GMT) time. The date is represented by both the date and the month. The watch even has a feature to help take into consideration daylight saving time.
There are three principle indicators on the dial aside from the calendar functions. First, like I said, is the central 24 hour time. Here it sort of serves like a gauge that passes along the entirety of the day showing when day passes into night and vice versa. Then you have a small “floating” arrow that serves as a minute hand. I find it interesting that the hour and minute hand are so visually separated. Finally, you have the “sunlight duration” indicator, which when used in conjunction with the central 24 hour hand allows you to know the relative amount of light to dark in a day, but how much you have remaining of each.
In fact, the way to read the actual sunrise or sunset time is to look at where the colors intersect on the sunlight duration ring, and then find the corresponding time on the hour indicator ring. What I like most about this system is that it gives a visual representation of how much light or dark you have left in the day, when you view the 24 hour hand along with it that is.
Offered in 18 white gold, the Krayon Everywhere is 42mm wide and just 11.7mm thick. Krayon is proud of the fact that the movement is just 6.5mm thick. It also happens to be an automatic using a solid gold micro rotor. According to Krayon all 595 parts inside of the (nameless) movement are made especially for them. A key element is the wide use of differential gears. These are less common in watch movements and I wonder if their use will become more common in the coming years. The movement operates at 3Hz (21,600 bph) and has a power reserve of 72 hours. The Krayon Everywhere watch has the movement visible through a sapphire crystal window on the rear of the watch. The movement is lovely, but not as elegant as say a Breguet or an MB&F Legacy Machine. It is rather industrial overall, but with a healthy coating of luxury finishing.
The case of the Everywhere itself is fine, nothing special, but acceptably conservative. It just looks too much like Vacheron Constantin or A. Lange & Sohne to me. The globe motif on the crown looks cliché and a bit too cheesy in my opinion. Globe motifs on watches in general aren’t to be advocated for. It is really hard to get that look to be both attractive and distinctive.
In order to initially set the Krayon Everywhere watch you are going to need to spend a few minutes on Google getting some information such as the longitude and latitude of your location. And then it will take a few minutes to enter the data into the watch. Once you have it set, then you should have a pretty lovely horological nerd-approved mechanical watch that mimics the behavior of something electronic.
The ultimate success of Krayon is going to be mostly about design and the sex appeal of the sunrise/sunset complication. I think with the right marketing twist the brand can do it. Price will of course be important, but it should be manageable assuming the brand prices fairly from the beginning. The risk of course is in becoming another Breva. There you had a brand which introduced the first (or among the few) mechanical watch with various weather and altitude-determining functions. This was all more easily handled by an electronic device, but the brand banked on the romance of doing it mechanically.
Breva was bogged down due to modest organization, high-prices, and let’s face it, the overall poor state of the watch industry for brands without big marketing budgets (or slick techniques). Krayon cannot simply depend on the willing curiosity of watch collectors to both discover and desire the brand. If they are to have any success (after they clean up the product itself), it will be because they skillfully navigate the often treacherous waters of today’s luxury watch world. That means creating demand, which is really about sharing their story properly. Price for the Krayon Everywhere watch will depend on the particular configuration (decoration, diamonds, materials, etc.) with prices starting at 600,000 CHF and up. krayon.ch
