I won’t bury the lede: this watch is fantastic. I am reluctant to tell you how to spend your money, but I am confident that if you like the look of the Lorier Hydra Series III from two-dimensional images, you’ll love it that much more in the metal (and plexiglass). While this newest iteration of the Hydra has some areas that could be improved upon, it is a watch whose virtues far outweigh any nitpicking critiques.
For deep-cut enthusiasts — you included, as you’re reading this — Lorier is no secret. Since 2017, Lorier has offered a carefully curated selection of watches with design cues rooted in the mid-20th century wristwatch design. Lauren and Lorenzo Ortega have developed their brand carefully, taking inspiration from vintage watches without entering homage territory. Lorier’s collection has always included iterative designs within each model line, but for the most part, these designs have remained true to their initial templates.
The Hydra series, since it was launched, has been the outlier here. In its first iteration, it was a maxi-dialed dive watch with an external rotating bezel that swapped in an interesting geometric approach to bezel markings. The idea behind these markings was that, unlike a typical rotating bezel with a 12-hour scale, or diving scale, the cardinal-point triangle markings allowed the wearer to choose the format. The watch looked good but was perhaps a little too similar to the brand’s archetypal dive platform, the Neptune.
For the second iteration of the Hydra, the Lorier design trust stayed within the dive watch territory, but opted for a different configuration, that of a dual-crown compressor-style watch. I found this design to be an aesthetic improvement upon the Series 1, but I wasn’t quite sold on the internal 12-hour ring, as opposed to a 60-minute count-up dive scale. Within Lorier’s catalog, the Hydra felt like a design test-bed of sorts, a design in search of a technical solution.
Well, thanks be to Miyota and their 9075 movement, as the Lorier Hydra Series III is the realization of what I felt Lorier was reaching for since they first launched the Hydra series in 2019. The addition of the GMT function (complication, to be fancy) freed Lorier from the bezel-function compromises of the Hydra SI and SII, as they’ve opted to place the GMT scale on the dial and maintain the elapsed-time utility of the rotating bezel. This places the Hydra in more unique company, with a format closer to the Mido Ocean Star GMT, or Seiko’s recently-released Marine Master 200 GMT.
In this Year of the Affordable GMT, the vast majority of releases utilizing Seiko’s NH34 or the 9075 wear a 24-hour bezel, whether fixed or rotating. I am biased toward the dive-GMT format, as it allows for tracking two time zones without losing the regularly-useful elapsed-time capacity. It may be an unpopular opinion in horological nerdom, but if I want to simultaneously track more than two time zones, the world clock on my smartphone is still the most effective tool at my disposal.
To keep these various scales easily legible, Lorier has employed a sector-like approach to the dial, with the local time-keeping function isolated to the central section and the GMT hour scale isolated to the perimeter of the dial, where you’d typically find the minute and seconds track. To further aid in legibility, these distinct time reading sections are rendered in different colors. The central portion of the dial is a dark gray that matches the bezel insert, again helping to connect the local time and the elapsed time functions, which both rely on the minute hand.
The GMT ring is done in white, which facilitates the illuminated cherry on the top of this design sundae: the lume. When the lights go out (really, the lume is eager to shine through in half-light) the Hydra flares to life in bi-colored glory. In line with the functional distinction afforded by the sector-dial approach, Lorier has deployed the cool blue of BGW9 for the local timekeeping function and the elapsed time scale on the bezel, and C3 for the GMT ring and the diamond tip of the GMT hand. Quick as the lume may be in coming to life, it isn’t the brightest, with the GMT hand’s diamond tip being the weakest point of light. Nonetheless, the Hydra has more than sufficient glow to support clear time reading in moderate and low-light conditions.
The one qualm I have with the Hydra’s dial legibility doesn’t actually have to do with the dial itself but rather the window through which you view it. I love the warmth and depth of the plexiglass crystal. It adds vintage charm and visually brings the dial closer to the top surface of the watch. In the case of the Hydra, though, the dome at times negatively affects the legibility of the outer 24-hour scale on the dial. In my experience, this challenge was isolated to reading the 24-hour scale between 1000 and 1600 hours, as my normal time-reading viewing angle placed the vertical element of the crystal over the outer portion of the dial. This could be corrected by rotating my wrist further inward toward me; not impossible, but a bit awkward. The other workaround, earned through wear time, is that your mind comes to understand the relative positions of the hours on the 24-hour scale, similar to how I can pick out the 7 o’clock position on the local time scale without it being marked numerically. Nonetheless, much as the domed plexi crystal is a hallmark of Lorier’s lineup, from a functional standpoint, reducing the dome height, or flattening it entirely, would improve the Hydra’s home-time legibility.
The Hydra’s sector dial is housed in a classically styled dive watch case, measuring 41mm wide, 14.6mm tall, and 46mm lug-to-lug. The Hydra’s midcase is a thin, horizontally brushed affair that is gently arced from lug tip to lug tip. This arcing, along with the reasonably short lug-to-lug distance, should make the watch wear comfortably for anyone who can get their hands on it.
The brushed case sides are separated from the similarly-finished case top by a polished chamfer that maintains its width along its entire length. Polishing appears once again on a small band that sits between the top of the case and the rotating coin-edged bezel. As befitting Lorier’s overall design ethos, the Hydra’s case is fairly traditional and exceptionally well-crafted.
The case, though, is one area where my nitpicky tendencies show up, and that is largely to do with the overall height of the watch. It is fairly thick at 14.6mm, 2.4mm of which is the domed crystal. Some of this is understandable. In addition to the additional movement height necessitated by the GMT function, the distance from the dial to crystal needs to be great enough to allow for the height of four hands. Presumably, some additional thickness as compared to the Hyperion (12.7mm overall) is rooted in the Hydra’s additional 100m of water resistance. Justifications acknowledged, the Hydra would be even more appealing if 1-1.5mm were shaved off the caseback, and consistent with my comments on legibility gains, if the crystal height was also reduced. Despite this observation, the effect of the height is primarily aesthetic, as the watch does not wear in a noticeably top-heavy fashion.
The Hydra ships on Lorier’s familiar flat-link bracelet, which beautifully captures light despite being primarily brushed. For the most part, the bracelet wears comfortably, with much credit given to the taper from 20mm at the lugs, to 16mm at the clasp, which provides three micro-adjustment holes. Given the Hydra’s ambition to be an all-purpose travel watch, it would be great if the clasp offered a wider spread of adjustability. When traveling, the human wrist tends to swell and contract in response to pressure and temperature changes, and I found the three existing adjustment points slightly too few to accommodate such changes. An even better improvement would be tool-less adjustment, which is rapidly becoming common in the microbrand space. For example, Nodus’ 16mm Nodex clasp could resolve my clasp-focused critique without adding much heft when compared to Lorier’s current clasp. A final point on the bracelet: comfort would be further aided if the underside of the links were rounded so that they better conform to the wrist.
My desired improvements (reduced overall height, reduced crystal height, more micro adjustment in the clasp) would vault the Hydra from excellent to exceptional, but as it is, the Hydra stands just about alone at the peak of its market segment. Critiquing it is akin to searching for flaws in LeBron James’ game at his peak, or expecting Shohei Ohtani to somehow hit in every spot of the Angels’ lineup. Yes, minuscule flaws can be found even in greatness, but they are so overwhelmed by the qualities that comprise said greatness as to be nearly irrelevant. For $599, there is only so much you can expect, and even then, the Hydra over-delivers. The potential changes I’ve noted above all come with attendant cost increases, except perhaps for the reduced crystal height. While the Hydra could still compete strongly at $699, or even approaching $800, with some of the changes I mentioned, it plays its part to near perfection aat its current price, and as it is currently constructed.
Though the initial run of the Lorier Hydra Series III is currently sold out, a second batch is promised for mid-to-late August, and I expect and implore Lauren and Lorenzo to continue to offer it as part of their regular lineup, with fine tweaks along the way as is their wont. With the availability of an affordable flier GMT movement, the Hydra series has taken the form it was meant to have from the watch’s inception. If you have GMT fever, are a fan of great design, or simply can’t abide that empty space in your watch box, sign up for updates on the Hydra here.
