Hands-On Telling Time The Ressence Way With The Type 1²

Photos by Nick Kenyon

The Type 1 has been with us for twelve years now, and it’s Ressence's flagship model. It's done much of the heavy lifting in crystallising the brand's crownless design language of minimalist, orbiting subdials. This variant, the Type 1², eschews the model's typical round, pebble-like case for a more squared, cushion-case design that's now available with either a white, black or navy dial.

If you’re yet to encounter the watches of this Belgian-based and Swiss-made independent, then allow me to bring you up to speed on how to tell time on a Ressence. Ressence's ROCS movement module, short for Ressence Orbital Convex System, is crucial to the brand's design language and offers an unconventional but surprisingly intuitive way to tell time. It features a large central minute hand with separate subdials for the hours, seconds and day of the week, all of which orbit around the dial in formation as the central minute hand completes a full rotation every hour. This means that a Ressence watch constantly reorients its dial layout throughout every hour - complex at first, but simple once understood.

Ressence have iterated on the ROCS system in other models, both to add new complications (such as the interesting 3D power reserve indicator in the new Type 11, which came out earlier this year) and to simplify to just minutes and hours, but inside this Type 1² is the ROCS 1.3. It’s a case where creating something simple is actually rather complicated, as the module that sits above the base ETA 2824/2 calibre consists of 107 additional components and is driven by a minuscule axle connecting the automatic movement to the module. It uses a relatively standard movement as the blank canvas, then applies a module to create something entirely unconventional. Having developed the ROCS module, Ressence went even further and did away with a conventional crown, instead using a teacup-handle that folds out from the caseback to set the watch in one direction and wind it in the other.

This is serious watchmaking and design innovation, doubly impressive that Ressence have managed to somewhat industrialise it, iterate on it, make it reliable, and build a design language around it - all in just around a decade's time. But before diving into what the Type 1 is like in person,  there’s one more Ressence innovation that’s worth talking about.

Whilst experiencing the Type 1 in person, I also had the rare opportunity to check out a Type 3, one of Ressence’s oil-filled watches - again, if you aren’t familiar, let me clue you in. Turns out the orbiting dial ROCS module and a backwind crown weren’t enough innovation for Ressence, and in 2023, Ressence debuted an oil-filled display with the Type 3. Like with the ROCS module, Ressence have implemented oil-filling in subsequent releases (including the Type 7 and Type 3 MN made in collaboration with Marc Newson from late last year), but the Type 3 is where the watch world was first introduced to this impressive innovation.

Sitting between the Type 3s dial and crystal is a layer of oil that removes the refractive air gap and parallax that you’d find on a conventional watch. The Type 3s bulbous crystal spans the width of the pebble-shaped case and curves to meet the case sides, and the presence of the oil creates an optical illusion where the dial appears to pop right up to the crystal. In person, it’s quite the sight and somewhat resembles a digital touchscreen, but there are no such electronics at play. It’s purely mechanical, and unsurprisingly very complex.

Oil-filling a watch presents a considerable challenge that’s made even more insurmountable by the ROCS module. The Type 3 traps the oil in the top chamber containing the dial, which is hermetically filled and sealed at -5 degrees Celsius; the temperature that oil is at its minimal volume. Oil has an annoying habit of changing volume depending on the temperature, so at higher temperatures the oil pressure changes, but Ressence was able to overcome this challenge with the use of seven miniature bellows that extend or compress to compensate for the naturally fluctuating temperature changes to maintain an oil pressure equilibrium. On the Type 3, this is communicated to the wearer through a physical oil temperature gauge subdial that’s actuated through a mechanical spring underneath it.

Again, incredibly clever engineering, but the question still remains: how do you get the movement to communicate with a sealed, oil-filled dial module? Below the oil-filled chamber is the air-filled movement (kept separate because a movement can’t run in oil), with a thin titanium membrane between the two. It’s equipped with a series of magnets that allow the movement to power the dial and orbiting subdials without any physical connection between the two.

The Type 3, and its subsequent Type 5, 7 and 10 oil-filled siblings, are cases where design innovation also requires extensive mechanical innovation, which Ressence has impressively mastered.

All that engineering comes at a cost, which is paid not just in dollars but in thickness, and the Type 3 is a considerably bigger watch than its oil-free Type 1 - 11mm tall against the thicker 15mm of the Type 3 (not to mention the A$39,500 price jump).

Despite relatively large dimensions, the Type 1 wears surprisingly well. It’s down to the pebble-shaped case, which curves up and away from the wrist so the semi-wire lugs sit slightly proud of the wrist and allow the very soft leather strap to articulate down and hug the wrist. Despite visually appearing larger to the eye, I was surprised to learn that the Type 1² is actually smaller than the standard Type 1 Round, and that the Type 1² was my favourite. The two case designs differ substantially, with the Squared's rounded-off corners quite beautifully framing the white dial and fluidly forming to the lugs as one monobloc case. It’s 41.5mm across, though it wears much smaller than that with minimal lugs and minimal case due to the large dial.

Setting the Type 1 is where you get to interact with the engineering and really feel the quality of a Ressence. The teacup handle unclips from the caseback, and whilst slowly rotating, you can feel the gearing click through the handle - in the hand, you can feel how supremely well-made a mechanical object it is.

So the question remains: how quickly can you read the time on a Ressence? Surprisingly quickly, as it turns out. Because everything orbits around the central minute hand, I found it very easy to glance at the watch, spot the minute hand and then check the hours, and after a short period of wearing it, things became surprisingly intuitive. I’d liken it to navigating the subway system in a new city: for the first few trips the map is completely incomprehensible, but when it clicks you feel it in your mind, and then you’re navigating like a local. The Ressence layout is the same; beautifully intuitive once you spend some time with it.

Another detail I particularly appreciate is the typeface. It’s not a surprise that a brand as design-forward as Ressence would nail their fonts, but they have clearly laboured over picking just the right type to complement their design language. They even differ slightly between models, with the modernist sans-serif on the Type 1 looks even more funky on the oil-filled Type 3s. Pay close attention to the fours, fives and eights in particular - if you’re a design nerd (and if you like Ressence, you probably are), these will tickle your brain just right.

I was impressed by just how ‘normal’ the Type 1² felt after just a short amount of time on the wrist. A 41.5mm TV-shaped case usually doesn’t disappear on the wrist, but with the lightweight titanium case and minimalist design, it’s surprisingly subtle and understated. Even more so with the high-contrast white dial with black markers. Whilst it’s not the most mechanically impressive Ressence model and misses out on the engineering achievements of the oil-filled models, it feels like a great starting point for anyone curious to experience the unique charm of a Ressence, and is the perfect middle ground between their avant-garde watches and a conventional watch that we’re all familiar with.

Ressence is retailed exclusively in Australia and New Zealand by The Hour Glass. Find out more and book an appointment here.