Hands-On: The HYT H0 In Black And Blue

There are two distinct philosophies when it comes to the design of highly complicated watches. The first is for the watch to revel in its own complexity – you show off as much of the mechanism as possible, or at the very least, you get as much information as possible displayed on the dial. The other approach is to create something that wears its complexity lightly, and makes it subordinate to a unified aesthetic statement. In the first instance, we have watches like the Reverso Tribute Gyrotourbillon and the Ulysse Nardin Trilogy Of Time watches. In the second, we have things like the Ochs und Junior perpetual calendar, and the Rotonde de Cartier Astromysterieux (and, in fact, pretty much every Cartier mystery clock ever made).

Every once in a while, you see someone who's fluent in both approaches – Dr. Ludwig Oechslin is a case in point; he's given us both the mechanical maximalism of the Trilogy watches, and the ruthlessly pared-down minimalism of Ochs und Junior. HYT has, with the H0, done something similar with its "fluidic" time display system. A good example of the maximalist approach is the HYT H4 Metropolis, with its miniature mechanical electric generator for powering the LED illumination system. Historically HYT has tended to produce watches in this camp, and understandably – after all, the fluidic technology is unique to them, and if you've got it, flaunt it – but the inherently clean engineering of the bellows-and-tube system lends itself to a more spare approach as well.

While most of the other HYT watches have gone to great lengths to expose as much as possible of the mechanisms, and to make them essential to the appeal of each design, H0 dispenses with most of the visual pyrotechnics of H1, 2, 3, and 4 in favor of a more spare execution that really highlights the essence of the fluid timekeeping display. The same basic amount of information is there as in other HYT models, but on the dial side, most of the mechanism is concealed behind the deep black dial, which has only as many markings as necessary to gather information about the time (and the remaining power reserve, shown on the right). Even the signature bellows system is largely hidden, with only the bellows themselves (which act as reservoirs for the fluidic time telling system) exposed to view.

The result is a watch with a very different sort of appeal than HYT's other models. The reduction of the number of design elements results, I think, in a watch with perhaps less gearhead appeal, but with a much more coherent aesthetic. The deeply domed sapphire crystal gives the HYT H0 a rather appealing sense of luminous translucency that's strikingly organic for such a mechanically fascinating watch.

One of the things I've always found very engaging about HYT is the level of finish they apply to their movements – and not just the level, but the style as well. The bellows system is unique to HYT, sure, but the rest of the movement looks surprisingly classical in both design and execution, and serves as a reminder, despite the high tech flavor of the watch overall, of the fundamental machine-ness of the watch.

In a funny way, the stripped-down dial side of the HYT H0 seems to make the mechanical complexity of the movement stand out in even higher relief – it has much more an air of a mystery uncovered, or a secret revealed, than in the other HYT models. You feel as if you're being let in on a magician's secret, instead of the overt statement of technical prowess you get from the rest of the collection.

One of the nice things about HYT is that they have always had a sense of how to put on a show after dark, and the HYT H0 is no exception. I loved the Vegas-Strip-by-night quality of the H4, but there is something of an angel's halo purity about the PM light show you get with from the H0.

The effect is quite interesting – the glow comes from Super-LumiNova, which is applied to the of the dial below the fluid-filled tube, but the illusion that it's the fluid itself that's glowing is pretty strong. The optical properties of the tube and the fluid inside means you get a subtle variation in color and light depending on how you look at the watch – and there's a wonderful sense of depth as well. I often feel that watchmaking in general underuses the optical properties of its materials – of course, movement decoration plays with light a great deal, but in the context of a fairly narrow range of visual effects.

The HYT H0 is currently the entry-level model from HYT, at $39,000. Certainly, it didn't feel like an entry level watch to me, on any level – in eliminating all but the essentials, HYT's created something that rather paradoxically, captures the how-did-they-do-that pleasure of the fluid complication, in some ways much better than its more overtly complex watches. We often like to mention the competition for a particular watch when we cover it, but in some rare instances, there isn't any, and if you want an HYT-type wristwatch, you pretty much have to go with HYT.

The HYT H0 was a 2017 release and is now available in quite a wide range of executions, all of which (including a gold model, priced at a significant premium over the $39,000 starting price for the H0 collection) you can see at HYTwatches.com.

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