This Futuristic Sports Watch Is the Most Fun You’ll Ever Have Using a Chronograph

When you stare at this watch, it literally stares back.

Close-up of a luxury mechanical wristwatch showing intricate gears and components. The watch has blue hands, including a second hand, and a smaller subdial with Roman numerals. The crown is visible on the right side, featuring an engraved emblem. The watch face reveals detailed craftsmanship with visible screws and jewels.

Published September 2, 2025

·

Updated September 2, 2025

If you buy from a link, we may earn a commission. Learn more

Back in April, while attending Watches and Wonders in Geneva, Switzerland, I was given a sneak peek at an upcoming watch from Swiss independent watchmaker Czapek. The watch was a chronograph version of its flagship sports watch, the Antarctique, with a unique feature I’d never seen before: A 3D robot head at 12:00 whose eyes changed color as you manipulated the chronograph.

The watch I saw was a prototype and had some bugs to work out, but it still blew my mind, and I’ve been patiently waiting to see when it would finally rear its head — no pun intended.

Well, just ahead of Geneva Watch Days, that day has arrived, as Czapek has now unveiled the unique, robot-adorned Antarctique Rattrapante R.U.R.

And it’s even cooler than I’d hoped.

Silver wristwatch with a skeleton dial showing intricate mechanical details, blue hands, and a matching silver metal bracelet, worn on a wrist with a light beige shirt cuff. — Who doesn’t want to wear a robot on their wrist?

Look into my eyes

The inspiration behind Czapek’s robot watch comes from another Czapek, or rather, “Čapek” (both pronounced like “Cha-peck”), the Czech playwright who coined the word “robot” in his 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti, or Rossum’s Universal Robots in English).

R.U.R. is about a race of mechanical workers who rebel against their creators, and it is largely viewed as a critique of the dehumanizing potential of technology. With the rise of AI and technology imposing on our lives more than ever in 2025, Czapek felt now was the perfect time to pay tribute to R.U.R. with a robot-adorned mechanical watch.

Mounted at 12:00 on the dial is an intricate robot head made of titanium. Made by Czapek’s partner MD’Art, the head is laser-engraved, hand-polished and its three sets of eyes are all micro-painted by hand. Speaking of the eyes, they hold all of the robot’s secrets.

Close-up of a watch face featuring a metallic, stylized mask design with red accents in the eye sockets. The watch has blue hands and visible mechanical components with screws and gears. The outer edge shows detailed minute markers. — A titanium robot head on the dial has eyes that change colors to reflect what the chronograph is doing.

When the chronograph is at rest, the robot’s eyes are a calming blue. But press the top chronograph pusher, and the eyes instantly switch to bright yellow, indicating that the chronograph is running. When you stop the chronograph, the eyes turn a cautious red, and once you reset it, they go back to blue.

I’ve never seen an indicator quite like this on a watch, and it makes using a chronograph — already admittedly a pretty fun activity — considerably more of a good time. What’s more, this isn’t any ordinary chronograph. The Calibre SXH6 movement powering the watch is an automatic split-seconds chronograph with two column wheels, a 60-hour power reserve and 441 total components — including a rotor made of recycled 5N rose gold.

Close-up of the back of a luxury wristwatch showcasing its intricate mechanical movement. The watch features a transparent case back revealing gears, screws, and a rotor with gold accents engraved with "CZAPEK & Cie" and "AU 750." The metal bracelet and case are made of brushed stainless steel. The text "MANUFACTURE EN SUISSE" is visible on the movement, indicating Swiss manufacture. — The impressive movement boasts 441 components, including a solid gold rotor.

The movement is skeletonized and is a serious looker, with a symmetrical layout featuring subdials at 4:30 and 7:30. The counters and the minute ring are made of smoked gray sapphire and effectively make up the “dial.” If you look closely, you’ll notice they all have some pretty strange markings.

Rather than using traditional numbers, Czapek opted to double down on futurism with its own X-based language inspired by the “Yautja: alphabet from the Predator movies. (The letter “X” was chosen as a base for the language in honor of Czapek CEO, Xavier de Roquemaurel). Now, if you’ll allow me to press my glasses up on the bridge of my nose for a moment, I have to point out that the Predator is an alien, not a robot, but the language looks cool here, nevertheless.

Close-up of a Czapek Genève watch face showing intricate mechanical gears and components. The watch features blue hands, two subdials with blue hands, and Roman numeral markers. The text "CZAPEK GENÈVE MANUFACTURÉ EN SUISSE" is visible on a metal plate near the bottom center. The design highlights the detailed craftsmanship and precision engineering of the timepiece. — Instead of typical markings on the minute track and chronograph registers, Czapek invented its own futuristic language inspired by the alphabet from the *Predator* franchise.

While the movement and robot-adorned dial are the clear stars here, it’s still worth mentioning that both are housed in the excellent case and bracelet of the Antarctique — the flagship integrated sports watch that put modern Czapek on the map. In this iteration, the case and bracelet are made of stainless steel, with the former measuring 42.5mm across and the latter featuring both a micro-adjustment clasp and a quick-release system.

Pricing and availability

Unsurprisingly, Czapek is not making very many examples of the Antarctique Rattrapante R.U.R. — this movement and those little robot heads are a lot of work to produce. The brand is limiting production to just 77 examples, with all watches ready to ship and orders opening on September 5.

The watch is priced at 58,000 CHF, which, as of this writing, roughly converts to $77,000 in American greenbacks. I kind of can’t believe I’m saying this, but that price is not bad (I know, I know). For the level of craftsmanship on display here with the movement and the intricate robot head mechanism — which I know required a ton of R&D to pull off — I honestly expected the R.U.R. to be a lot more expensive. Hell, when you consider your fun-per-dollar rate, it’s practically a steal.

Czapek

Czapek Antarctique Rattrapante R.U.R.

Specs

Case Size	42.5mm
Movement	Czapek Cal. SXH6 automatic split-seconds chronograph
Water Resistance	120m

$72,000 at Czapek

About the Author:

Johnny Brayson is an editor at Gear Patrol mostly covering watches. He enjoys watches that are packed with blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em details and believes nearly every watch could stand to be a tad smaller.