The New Sci-Fi-Inspired Argon SpaceOne Watch Gets Launched on Kickstarter

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, with May 4th already gone, “May the Force/Fourth Be with You”. This familiar refrain in Star Wars is exactly what comes to mind when we look at the new Argon SpaceOne watch. The sci-fi-inspired timepiece comes in five case variants — the brushed titanium variants are limited to 100 pieces and the forged carbon ones to 100 pieces while the brushed stainless steel, polished stainless steel and blue titanium models are all available for pre-order over 30 days. The watch project has been launched on Kickstarter.

The name, Argon, of course, honours the noble gas with atomic number 18 in the periodic table. A cursory glance at the watch will make you think that it's about to take off! The design of the Argon SpaceOne watch seems to be inspired by any Star Wars spaceship or by any spacecraft from other sci-fi films for that matter. Therefore, it looks unconventional and futuristic.Each of the latest Argon SpaceOne models has a case size of 42 mm. So, the watch may look chunky on your wrist. Furthermore, the watch has a curved sapphire lens on the right side, which again has a window to view the time. The left side sports the cone-shaped crown, designed like a jet engine’s nozzle. The watch doesn’t have any traditional dial or hour markers — this is because it has a jumping hour movement with a digital display. 

The window offers a view on three discs. The centre semicircle disc is for the seconds; the hours are displayed on the middle disc while the minutes are on the periphery. The first two discs are made of brass with super-luminous coating while the minutes disc, which sits on top of the hour disc, is made of sapphire with super-luminous coating. The jumping hour, developed by renowned watchmaker Theo Auffret (Argon Watches is the brainchild of Auffret and Guillaume Laidet), is made of nine parts. Unlike minutes and seconds, the hours are not rotating, but jumping. 

There is a plate that connects the calibre supporting the spring and the intermediate wheel. Here, the minute disc has been fixed to an axis that includes the driving finger for the jump. Powering the watch is the self-winding, Soprod calibre P024, which is a Swiss-made automatic movement, based on the ETA calibre 2824-2, without the date window, lending the watch 38 hours of power reserve. Turning the watch over reveals the titanium caseback (which is a default option for all models), with a sapphire cockpit, along with a raised logo and four screws. The watch is finished on a black or orange FKM rubber strap.

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