This May Be the First Kickstarter Watch I’d Actually Consider Buying

Yeah, it’s that cool.

Silver metal smartwatch with three circular discs on the dial and a linked metal band against a red background.

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By Johnny Brayson

Published 2 hours ago

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I am generally not a fan of Kickstarter watches.

Most are either gimmicky nonsense or cynical cash grabs, and with the watch industry already being seriously overcrowded (Thanos could snap away half the current brands tonight and few would notice), I just don’t see the value in backing a new watch on a crowdfunding platform.

However, every once in a while, a watch pops up on Kickstarter that actually looks interesting. And the new “Impossible Watch” from D1 Milano might be the most interesting one I’ve seen yet.

Silver metal watch with three large circular discs and a small digital display showing time and date. — A cool Kickstarter watch? I guess nothing is impossible.

Wearable art

The crowdfunded watch is as much a piece of wearable art as it is a timepiece, and for good reason. It was designed by 3D artist Peter Tarka, who counts Apple, Nike and Porsche among his previous collaborators. Tarka has a unique style, one that’s garnered him 278,000 followers on Instagram, and the goal of this project was to translate his specific digital style into a wearable product.

The result is the “Impossible Watch,” so called because the original digital design literally wouldn’t work as a functional watch, but D1 Milano was able to reinterpret its form to make it wearable.

Like much of Tarka’s work, the watch’s design is pure retrofuturism through a 1980s lens. It reminds me of a movie prop that could’ve appeared on Sigourney Weaver’s wrist in Aliens in place of Seiko’s Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed “Ripley” chronograph.

Person wearing a silver watch with a white and red layout, finger touching the watch. — The watch translates Peter Tarka’s digital art into a wearable, functional product.

Its Apple Watch-like case is a soft rectangle with a dial layout unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Three large circles resemble buttons, but they’re actually rotating discs that display the hour, minute and seconds. Each disc has a dot that tells the time, with the upper left disc tracking the hours, the upper right the minutes and the lower left displaying the seconds.

To the right of the seconds disc are two rows of dots cut into the dial, with four on the top row and three on the bottom. These dots display the day of the week when they are filled in. The first dot represents Monday, and when all dots are filled in, it’s Sunday. You can figure out the rest of the days from there.

Below the dots is a small LCD screen that displays all of the data found on the rest of the dial, plus the date, in a clearer, easier-to-read format — in case you tire of the dial’s novelty and just want to know the time at a glance. Two cut-out slashes to the left of the screen are purely decorative and help fill out the dial.

Two digital watches with rectangular faces, one in silver with red accents and one in black with orange accents, both with metal link bands. — Three discs on the dial display the hours, minutes and seconds, while seven dots denote the day of the week.

The watch’s case is compact, measuring 36mm wide, 46mm long and 12.5mm thick. Tarka originally imagined it in stainless steel, but the prototype proved too heavy, so he and D1 Milano changed gears and crafted the case and matching bracelet from aluminum.

In addition to making the watch 50 percent lighter than the steel version, the use of aluminum also opened up more color options through the use of anodization. There are four at launch: White Space, with an all-white dial; Orange Pulse, featuring bold orange accents; Black Orbit, which has the same orange accents paired with a black dial, case and bracelet; and Green Dimension, which is fully greened-out.

Other specs read a bit more traditional. There’s an AR-coated sapphire crystal protecting the dial, the water resistance is a solid 50m, and there’s a quartz movement inside, though one that has been customized to power the unique time-telling display.

Green digital wristwatch with three large circular discs and a small screen displaying time and date. — The watch’s case and bracelet are made of aluminum, which allows for anodized color treatments.

Availability and pricing

I always find it strange when an established brand, which is what D1 Milano is, launches a new product on Kickstarter rather than just doing it on their own. Maybe the brand thought the Impossible Watch was too weird to catch on, and that’s why they cut their risk by crowdfunding its production. I don’t know.

What I do know is the brand will have no trouble bringing the Impossible Watch to life. With 16 days to go, the project has blasted past its measly $15,000 goal with $316,346 in pledges as of this writing. You can still pick one up, though some options have already sold out, with remaining pledges starting at $379 for a single watch.

Silver metal wristwatch with a rectangular face featuring three round dials and a digital display.

D1 Milano x Peter Tarka The Impossible Watch

Specs

Case Size	36mm x 46mm
Movement	Multifunction quartz
Water Resistance	50m

Starts at $379

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.

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