In 2014, Eone launched the Bradley on Kickstarter, introducing a new concept in timekeeping. Designed for both the blind and the sighted, the watch used magnetic “hands” to pull ball bearings through exposed minute and hour tracks, allowing the watch to be read with a touch. It was a revolutionary system that proved to be a runaway success. Since then, Eone has evolved the concept, producing a variety of different sizes, finishes, and faces. They even made one with a user-swappable dial. Today, I have the Eone Apex Salas Element, a new sports model featuring fixed lugs, a ceramic dial, and a novel elastic strap.
The Apex Salas celebrates Justin Salas, a blind climber who is the subject of a short film produced by the brand. With that connection in mind, the watch is more of a field piece than previous iterations, sporting fixed lugs, a scratch-resistant ceramic dial, and a special elastic strap. Water resistance is still only nominal at 30M. The Apex may be built for adventure, but dry adventures, to be sure.
The case measures 40mm and 47mm long. On a tabletop, it looks weirdly tall, perched like a coffee table atop those long, steep lugs. It’s not an illusion; the watch measures 18mm from the lug tip to the tallest peaks on its dial. That height evaporates the minute you strap it on, and the lugs do their job of meeting the curvature of your wrist. That is when you realize the case is just 11.5mm thick (just over 13mm from the case back to the tip of the peaked hour markers). Despite its spidery appearance in your hand, it wears like any other watch, even on my smallish 6.75″ wrist.
The layout is the same as all other Eone watches. A modified Ronda quartz movement runs a pair of magnets inside the Apex’s distinctive case. A ball in the upper surface channel marks the minutes while the hour ball travels through the case’s outer edge. The ball bearings tend to move out of position when jostled, but this is not a problem. A quick flick of the wrist and the magnetic field snaps them right into place.
I was surprised at how quickly I grew accustomed to telling the time by touch. It is a remarkably intuitive system, even for a sighted user like myself who does not generally rely on his fingertips for this kind of data. Peaked hour markers on the dial provide easy reference points for both visual and tactile time-telling. With my eyes off the watch, it took little effort to read it with a quick touch. It’s a brilliant system.
My biggest challenge came when trying to read the watch by sight. The hour ball is often out of your field of view, and I could not get past the idea that the top ball was for minutes, not hours. Having been trained by decades of reading analog clocks, I can’t get past the idea that the indicator closest to the center should be the hours, and the farthest is for minutes, which would be the reverse of this layout. After discussing it with Eone, I learned that this was a decision made after feedback from the initial design focus groups. Those users reported that most people generally have an idea of the hour of the day but not the minute. Therefore, it was more useful for non-sighted users if the minute ball was right on top, where it was easier to monitor. Once I learned this and applied a “minutes first” approach to reading, it became much easier.
Customer feedback also inspired the Apex Salas Element’s strap. Owners asked for something that could be slipped on and off, so Eone worked with Nick Mankey Designs, who supplied a special edition of his popular hook strap. It is a 20mm elastic pass-through that has sewn-in steel hardware on either end, one loop, and one hook. Attachment and adjustment are not immediately obvious, at least not to me. I found this video quite helpful. You might find it ironic that instructions for the vision-impaired are on a video, but every step is talked through in detail, and the strap has a raised pattern that makes it easy to find the top and bottom sides simply by touch.
You need to stuff a doubled-over section of the hook side fabric through the loop, pull to adjust the length, then fasten it with the hook. It takes some fiddling to get it right, but once you do, you can pull the watch on and off without detaching and with the assurance that the watch is secure on your wrist. Three available sizes ensure you can get the proper fit.
It is a clever solution that fits the outdoorsy nature of the watch, and it looks pretty cool, especially with its funky black-and-silver reflective pattern. That said, it was not for me. I know lots of people who love elastic straps. They own an assortment in the Marine Nationale style and rave about Erika’s Originals. I’ve tried them and discovered I just don’t like the feel of elastic on my wrist. What can I say? It’s one of my many quirks. If you are in this camp as well, you will be pleased to know that you can use just about any pass-through strap on the Apex. I grabbed a soft leather one from my collection, opting for 22mm to completely fill the lug gap. It looked great; the military-style leather gave this tactile watch a tactical look. Tactile-tical, if you will.
I enjoyed my time with the Apex Solas Element. There are really only so many ways to reinterpret the layout of a two-hand analog watch, and most attempts are merely novelties. Eone’s proprietary design is perhaps the only one I’ve encountered that actually improves the experience — at least for those users who cannot check the time by sight. This group includes sighted users who are routinely in situations that require focus and eye contact. If you are an old-timer like me, you might recall President George H.W. Bush’s disastrous watch-check during the 1992 Presidential town hall debate (see 0:17 and 2:53). An Eone might not have saved his campaign, but it would have spared him this image.
Photo: Ron Edmonds, Associated Press
The Eone Apex Solas Element is available for $395, $50 of which will be donated to NewView Oklahoma, an organization providing comprehensive vision services to blind and low-vision individuals. If you enjoy innovative solutions, cutting-edge design, or if you need to read your watch without looking at it — be that by choice or necessity, you would do well to try an Eone.
For more information or to order yours, visit eone-time.com.
