Seiko Just Dropped One of Its Weirdest Chronographs Ever

No one was asking for a return to the hyper-funkiness of Seiko’s past, but in the back of our minds perhaps we craved it. The newest watch in the Prospex Speedtimer collection seems to offer just that. And like so many of those beloved, quirky old Seikos, it’s not weird-looking just for the sake of it but rather built on practicality and cool timekeeping tech.

As its name indicates, the Seiko Prospex Speedtimer 1/100 sec Solar Chronograph is solar-powered and lives in the Speedtimer line of chronographs within the Prospex sport watch collection. And it measures time down to one one-hundredth of a second. Here’s everything you need to know.

Seiko

Seiko

What’s Behind the Crazy Design?

The unexpected looks hit you first: a face comprising four separate subdials and the case’s four protrusions give it a look like few other watches, kind of like some steampunk-ish, sci-fi-imagined gadget. Although this feels left-field at first (considering the brand’s recent crowd-pleasing releases), it’s also familiar and purposeful.

The separation of the main dial into four subdials is meant to help easily differentiate the chronograph functions. Although watchmakers often design chronographs with this reasoning in mind, Seiko’s approach is uncommon and relatively extreme.

Seiko

It also recalls Seiko designs of the past. The Kinetic Chronograph from 1999 similarly featured the four subdials, and looked even more retro-futuristic. The case itself is 42mm wide with traditional shapes that contrast with and further emphasize the unconventional elements. Each of the elements seems to pull from Seiko’s past, and the overall sporty yet weird looks even recall Seiko’s wild collaborations with Italian car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro.

How Does It Actually Work?

Glance at the watch, and you’ll easily see the larger subdial at 6 o’clock is telling you the time of day. The remaining three smaller subdials are all stationary. Activate the “Mode” pusher at 8 o’clock, however, and you’re in chronograph mode: the hour and minute hands of the main time (6 o’clock) set to zero, ready to time something. In this mode, the hour hand will hide under the minute hand as the chronograph times up to 60 minutes — an unusual feature in watches.

The 2 o’clock and 10 o’clock pushers are used as in a normal chronograph to start, stop and reset. When you start the chronograph, this already funky dial becomes dazzlingly animated. The 3 o’clock dial’s hand is whirring frantically in order to measure down to 1/100th of a second, while the 9 o’clock subdial gives you the tenth of a second and the 12 o’clock dial measures seconds.

Seiko

There are a couple of quirks to this watch aside from its looks. First, you won’t be able to check the time of day while using the chronograph. Further, most of us don’t operate with the precision to really make use of a hundredth-of-a-second stopwatch, but never mind that because it’s just cool and the new Seiko 8A50 solar-powered quartz movement inside is impressive.

Why Now?

Although it wasn’t the biggest news in watches from 1983, that year Seiko released the world’s first analog quartz chronograph. That was 40 years ago, and every other watch nowadays seems tied to an anniversary.

Moreover, the timing of this release is linked to Seiko’s role as official timekeeper of the upcoming World Athletics Championships, taking place this year in Budapest, Hungary, and one of these Speedtimer models (the SFJ007, with a black-coated case and dial texture referencing a running track) is a limited edition for the occasion.

Seiko

Seiko

How Do I Get One?

At launch, there are four versions of the Seiko Prospex Speedtimer 1/100 sec Solar Chronograph: two non-limited editions feature an all-black face (SFJ003) or a white dial with contrasting black subdials (SFJ001), panda-style. The limited editions are the SFJ007 mentioned above and the SFJ005, which features a design based on another vintage Seiko watch from 1992, Seiko’s first chronograph to measure hundredths of a second.

The watches will be available at select Seiko retail locations from July 2023. The non-limited watches will cost $895 while the limited-edition SFJ005 will retail for $925 and the World Athletics Championships SFJ007 will go for $950. There’ll be “only” 4,000 examples each of the limited editions.

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