Review: Swatch Sistem51 Hodinkee Generation 1990
How accurate could a $170 disposable Swiss mechanical watch be?
Long before I became a serious (or should I say crazy) watch collector, I used to own a Swatch quartz watch in the 1990s. It was a skeleton watch with a transparent dial showing off the electronic components, a very cool and cutting-edge gadget for a graduate student working towards a degree in Electrical Engineering in a college town called Isla Vista in California.
When I read about the Swatch mechanical watches at unbelievable prices a while back, I knew that I wanted to get one to try out. A month ago, I was browsing the Hodinkee limited edition goodies to kill some time. Most of the items had been sold out, including the $58,000 Gronefeld 1941 Remontoire which is a grail watch for me and the $5,900 travel clock that was the talk of town at its launch. There were five Swatch/Hodinkee collaboration models, the mechanical Sistem51 watches that I had read about - all gone, wait, except for one. Could it be real? The model is Swatch Sistem51 Hodinkee Generation 1990 (reference SUTZ408) in green case and green strap, a very trendy color for this year. The list price is $170 and it is indeed a Swiss made mechanical watch as clearly stated. I went to Chrono24 to do a quick search and there were 3 exact same watches for sale at around $300. Aren’t we in a bubble? Everything go up in the secondary market even for a watch still readily available and people count themselves lucky when paying the MSRP. Anyhow, before this limited edition model is sold out, I clicked on the buy button.
Swatch is a volume leader among all Swiss watch brands who sold 3.1M watches in 2020. While starting out with quartz watches in 1983 as a response to the “quartz crisis”, Swatch launched Sistem51, a family of automatic mechanical watches, with great fanfare in 2013. The Sistem51 movement is entirely made by machines, with only 51 parts (thus the name). The movement is permanently sealed in its case with structural adhesive securing both the acrylic crystal over the dial and the caseback, making it invulnerable to environmental conditions including moisture, dust or foreign objects – and also making it maintenance free – i.e. impossible to service. This also means that the watch cannot be regulated by hands after leaving the factory. The robots would regulate it in the factory once and for all. It has a transparent caseback so the movement is visible. The other amazing thing is that it comes with a peripheral rotor, sort of, made possible by a transparent disc. The power reserve is rated at 90 hours, an astonishing specification that is close to 4 days!
How about the timing accuracy for Sistem51 then, an immediate question coming to mind. As a watch nerd, doing timing measurement is a fun exercise for me for all new watches in my collection. I would wear the watch and keep track of the timing under normal use. I’m using an iOS app called “Watch Tracker” which I would not hesitate to recommend. For each measurement, the deviation from the true time is recorded, by pressing a button in the app when the watch reaches specified time. The app would fit a curve and figure out the timing error per day on average. The longer the measurements are collected with more data, the more accurate the results will be. I would usually go for at least one week to gauge the watch timing in a realistic daily wearing condition.
I was expecting an error of at least 10 seconds per day, with this robot made movement. Once I started doing the measurement with the app, I was totally blown away at the results. Drum rolls, please. The average timing error measured over 8 days of normal use on the wrist was +0.21 seconds per day. A screenshot of the data and fitted curve is shown in the figure below. It is of course only for a single watch that is in my possession, and it may not be representative of all other Sistem51 pieces. Swatch reported precision of −5/+5 seconds per day in this article around the initial launch. It was an incredible feat to nail the timing accuracy together with other impressive features in this super affordable watch.
This Hodinkee Generation 1990 is based on a “California dial” of Stirling Rush GX407 that was launched by Swatch in 1990. The unique design pairs Roman numerals on the top portion of the dial with Arabic numerals on the lower half, creating visual interest and easy readability. The second hand and the lume on the hour hand and minute hand are light green, matching the darker green of the case and strap. There is a date window at 6 o’clock and the hour markers are in purple. Turning over, the “peripheral” rotor is decorated with “H” signifying Hodinkee. The rubber strap especially the clap was very well designed and made, offering a comfortable wear. Water resistance was rated at 30 meters. Finally, the Swiss has produced a watch that is impossible to counterfeit at a lower price.
For any watch enthusiasts like me fascinated by watchmaking endeavours, the Swatch Sistem51 automatic mechanical watch is a fun watch to check out. While on the opposite end of the watchmaking spectrum far away from the high-end, handmade timepieces, It is nevertheless another impressive demonstration of human creativity and resourcefulness to produce such a capable time keeping device with automation and mass production. The price of this watch is even lower than most Kickstarter watch projects. Yet, it is the collaboration of a big name Swiss watch brand and a leading watch media/community/e-commerce site. It is in blue dial and green case/strap, two of the most popular colors enjoyed by watch fans in recent years.
I probably lost the Swatch quartz watch I used to own in the 1990s during tone of the moves. It was trendy, good-looking, keeping very good time, yet quite affordable. I somehow got it back in this new, modern-looking mechanical Swatch watch named Hodinkee Generation 1990.