The Plain and the Flamboyant: Tale of 2 Bioceramic Swatches
Mention Bioceramic and the Moonswatch is likely to come to mind for most. To the watch industry, it was likely as significant as Speedmasters landing on the moon and the Quartz Crisis. No watch had ever elicited such enthusiastic and chaotic responses across the world. It was a marketing masterstroke but a logistical Hindenburg that everyone will remember for a long time. What if I tell you that the Moonswatch has a humble cousin that honors another significant event in horology history: the Quartz Crisis and the rise of Swatch from the Swiss watch industry’s ashes? Here today, we’ll take a look at the Moonswatch and its lesser-known cousin: the Swatch Bioceramic What If.
Ask any watch enthusiast and they will be able to tell you the story of the Omega Speedmaster. Originally designed for motor racing, it beat Rolex, Longines, and others in 1965 to be certified for the rigors of spaceflight by NASA. In 1969, thanks to Buzz Aldrin (not Neil Armstrong), it became the first watch to grace the wrist of a human on the moon. While not everyone can afford a Speedmaster or have one issued for wear at work, the Moonswatch offers an affordable and faithful official clone with some fun elements sprinkled on top. After over a year of enthusiasm taming and production ramp-up, during which I recommended the Dan Henry 1962 (read here) as a better alternative, I could finally walk into a Swatch boutique and get one at the end of 2023. I got the Saturn as it serves the purpose of why I wanted a Moonswatch, not to be mistaken as an actual Speedmaster but being loud and fun.
At 42mm diameter, 13.25mm thick, and 47.3mm lug-to-lug, the Saturn and all its siblings are very wearable even for small wrists. It comes with a brown Velcro strap that looks nice, especially with the NASA code-like imprints but really belongs in a display case. It’s rather stiff, creases easily and its synthetic material will likely turn icky quickly in the hot and humid weather in Singapore. I swapped it out immediately for a comparably loud Burgundy and Sand Nato strap from Nomad Watch Works. The design features of the Moonswatch are well known by now. For the Saturn, you get a beige, asymmetric case which also serves as guards for the pump pushers and cupcake crown. A brown tachymeter scale surrounds the dial with 3 sunken subdials: the minute and hour totalizers at 10 and 2 o’clock in brown and the running seconds at 6 o’clock with an image of Saturn printed on it with its rings extending well beyond the sub-dial. Why have a moon phase complication when you can have a picture of the planet with the most moons? The hands on the dial are also well color-coded with the time-telling seconds, hour, and minute hands in white and the chronograph second, minute, and hour hands in olive. For visibility in the dark, only the central running hour, minute, and chronograph seconds hand received lume treatment. While this would have been fine for Apollo 13’s 14-second burn in the darkness of space, you’ll be out of luck using it to time anything more than a minute in the dark. Protecting the dial is a domed plastic ‘crystal’ that keeps cost down while maintaining similarity to the Hesalite (acrylic) crystal-covered Speedmasters that went to the moon.
True to Swatch’s principle, there isn’t really a caseback to speak about. A single-piece case which the movement is mounted directly onto is a key cost-cutting design of the original Swatch. You’ll only find a battery cover with a printed image of Saturn, this time with its extended rings deleted. Powering the Moonswatch is an unknown ETA movement with 4 jewels according to the embossed texts on the back. Speaking of movement, this unknown movement is the loudest I’ve heard. Thankfully it only ticks once instead of the sub-second tick in mecaquartz movements common in chronographs at this price point. It does remind me of the ticking in Interstellar’s soundtrack which I’m sure is not intentional.
Spaceflight aside, in the 1970s and 80s, something on Earth came as close to death as the astronauts on Apollo 13. The once mammoth Swiss watch industry was facing an impending collapse caused by an influx of cheap Japanese quartz watches. The Quartz Crisis relegated Swiss watchmaking to the same category as ornate horse-drawn carriages. It was the genius mind of Nick Hayek (Sr.) and Swatch that prevented it from disappearing altogether. Tasked with liquidating the two major Swiss watchmaking companies ASUAG and SSIH, Hayek instead merged them to achieve what modern business schools call synergy and bought a majority stake in the combined company. Alongside the reorganization, Hayek also oversaw the creation of Switzerland’s answer to Seiko and Citizen: Swatch. Derived from the words ‘Second Watch’, Swatch was meant to be low-cost, fashionable, quartz timepieces appealing to the mass market, effectively the Daniel Wellington of the 1980s. In 1983, Swatch entered the market with 12 designs at 50 CHF each. The low cost was achieved by using plastic, single-piece cases in which the movements are directly mounted. It was an instant success. Within 2 years, the company broke even and sales from plastic watches enabled the survival of the Swiss watch industry. While all 12 initial models were based on the same round design, 4 decades later, Swatch told the world that a square design was among the initial candidates. This invites the question: what if the initial Swatches were square instead? Would square watches like the Tag Heuer Monaco be the de facto standard today? Or would Swatch fail and doom the entire Swiss watch industry?
It was this curiosity that drove me to get the Swatch Bioceramic What If alongside my Moonswatch. While I got one of the most flamboyant Moonswatch in the form of the Saturn, I did the opposite for the What If, going for the monochrome Black model. Its simplicity, and black-and-white scheme reminded me of the Q&Q watches that I had as a kid. At 150 SGD, it is a lot of money for a Q&Q but I’m paying not just for the watch but the premium of the Swiss flag and the history that Swatch has successfully marketed to me.
The What If consists of a black Bioceramic case, crown, and buckle. Swatch also claims that the strap and slightly top-to-bottom curved crystal are ‘biosourced’, whatever that may mean. Measuring 33.25 mm wide, 41.8 mm lug-to-lug, and 10.5 mm thick, the watch would fit most wrists although the integrated strap does extend out by a centimeter or so before fully curving down. On the left and right sides, the opaque black case is cut out with the plastic ‘crystal’ wrapping around it, allowing an interesting side-on view of the dial and hands.
For the Black design that I own, the dial is extremely simple compared to the other models. A minute track consisting of black lines is printed around the outer perimeter with hours marked using thicker and longer lines. The stick hands are similarly spartan, with the hour and minute hands lumed with rectangular inset strips near their tips. Surprisingly, the What If comes with a day and date complication seen through a cutout window at the 3 o’clock position. The only clue that distinguishes it from a Q&Q is the Swatch and Swiss words below the 12 o’clock marker. Other than the cheap Q&Qs, the design actually reminds me of Bauhaus-inspired watches such as the Junghans Max Bill and the similarly square Nomos Tetra. Just like most Swatches, the watchback is part of the case with only a removable battery cover. With the What Ifs the battery cover is printed with a round dial design that inspired the actual square dial design on the watch. There aren’t many clues to be gleaned about the movement from the back although an ETA logo does make an appearance.
Unlike the Moonswatch’s impractical stock strap, the What If’s integrated strap is fairly comfortable. It is soft to the touch, pliable enough, and has enough holes for my 15 cm Asian wrist. The integrated strap is actually secured to the case with a pin like those in bracelet links instead of a spring bar. It can be easily pushed out with a spring bar tool through the holes on both sides of the lugs. With a 16 mm internal gap, it does look possible to replace it with aftermarket 16mm straps although I don’t have one around to verify. The fully plastic nature of the watch also means that it feels extremely light. I guess plastic can easily be a poor man’s titanium if you’re looking for a watch that won’t remind you of its presence every second.
Swatch’s recent direction of combining supposedly climate-friendlier Bioceramic with their significant history, brands, and models is no doubt a success. Prior to the Bioceramic Moonswatch and Fifty Fathoms, I’d never seen queues at either Swatch, Omega, or Blancpain boutiques. As a watch enthusiast, it is a fun and accessible way to commemorate different parts of history. From the first dive watch to the first watch on the moon to the survival of the whole Swiss watch industry. The Bioceramic line also provides something for everyone: the Moonswatch for the flamboyant-seeking, What If for the minimalist, and the Fifty Fathoms for mechanical purists. While the best Japanese watches in the form of Grand Seikos, Credors, and recently premium Citizens are great options, we all have to thank Swatch and Hayek Sr. for providing life support to the likes of Omega, Blancpain, and Longines that allowed them to survive for us to enjoy them today.
Specifications (Omega x Swatch Moonswatch Saturn, SO33T100)
Movement: ETA quartz, 4 jewels
Size: 42 mm diameter, 47.3 mm lug-to-lug, 20 mm lug width, 13.25 mm thickness
Case Material: Bioceramic
Crystal: Plastic
Complications: Chronograph, tachymeter bezel
Water Resistance: 3 bar/30 m
Strap: Velcro fabric strap (just leave it in the box)
RRP: 380 SGD (2024 price)
Specifications (Swatch What If Black, SO34B700)
Movement: ETA quartz
Size: 33.25 mm wide, 41.8 mm lug-to-lug, 16 mm lug width, 10.5 mm thickness
Case Material: Bioceramic
Crystal: “Biosourced glass”, feels like plastic
Complications: Day, Date
Water Resistance: 2 bar/20 m
Strap: “Bio-sourced material”, feels like soft plastic
RRP: 152 SGD (2024 price)
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