This $500 Pilot’s Watch Has No Business Being This Good

The price almost seems like a misprint.

Published December 2, 2024

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Nearly every luxury watch brand has significantly raised prices over the past few years as a premiumization trend has taken hold in the industry, meaning bargains have gotten harder and harder to find.

Unless, of course, you look to the microbrand space.

Small independent watch brands are after a different type of consumer than the big brands, and value for money is still very much one of the factors that fuels popularity within the space.

California-based Nodus has built a reputation for not only crafting some of the most premium watches in the microbrand space but also for offering some of the best buys on the market.

With each new release, it seems Nodus is able to pack more value into its watches. Case in point, the brand’s new pilot’s watch, the Nodus Sector II Pilot, which takes this ongoing trend to an almost absurd level.

Thin Is In

The biggest difference between this generation of Nodus’s Sector Pilot watch and the previous version is the case thickness. Through a complete redesign and reengineering of the case, Nodus managed to shave off nearly a full millimeter of thickness for the Sector II Pilot, which for watch nerds, might as well be a foot.

The case profile has been slimmed down, which included streamlining the lugs and eliminating the curve found on the previous gen’s lugs. The end links of the bracelet were also redesigned to maintain the watch’s comfort on the wrist with the new lug shape.

The crystal is now a box-shaped sapphire, which allows for the hands to sit closer to the glass, effectively making more room in the case for the movement.

The new Nodus Sector II Pilot is nearly a millimeter thinner than the previous generation.

Nodus

The result of all of these reconfigurations is a sleek and trim case that measures just 11.7mm thick yet retains its 100m water-resistance rating. Nodus even says the Sector II Pilot is one of the thinnest watches to ever house a Seiko NH automatic movement. (In this case, a Cal. NH36 that’s been regulated by Nodus to run within 10 seconds per day.)

The watch comes on Nodus’s five-link Pentalink bracelet complete with quick-release spring bars and the brand’s Nodex clasp. A feather in the brand’s cap, Nodex is Nodus’s proprietary modular toolless micro-adjustment system that the brand licenses out to other brands like Farer, Astor + Banks, Raven, Sangin Instruments and more.

a nodus pilot watch bracelet clasp — Nodus’s proprietary adjustable Nodex clasp has become one of the brand’s calling cards.

Pilot Season

As a pilot watch, the Sector II Pilot boasts features you’d expect to find on such a watch. Namely, there’s a countdown bezel available in either plain stainless steel or with black DLC coating. The bezel is unidirectional and features 120 clicks on a piston system.

The dial is complex with a multilayered stepped design featuring lumed cutouts in the rehaut and a grained center portion featuring a sector pattern — hence the name. There’s also a nicely incorporated day-date complication at 6 o’clock — I love that curved day window — with prominent frosted applied Arabic numerals for the indices.

a nodus pilot watch next to a camera — Nodus’s anti-reflective coating is the best you’ll find at this price.

The indices and the hands are all loaded with blue-glowing Super-LumiNova BGW9 Grade A lume, while the crystal has a beautifully applied blue anti-reflective coating that’s heavy on the IWC vibes — not a bad feature for a pilot’s watch.

Pricing and Availability

With its dynamite looks, high levels of functionality and superb refinement, I wouldn’t be shocked if the Nodus Sector II Pilot were priced at $1,000 or more. But the madmen in charge of Nodus over in Los Angeles have priced the watch at half that.

There are two colors available on the Nodus Sector II Pilot. Blackbird is a traditional black dial, and Phantom is a more daring blue that changes from light to dark depending on the light. Personally, that’s the one I’d go for, but both are priced the same at $500 with the steel bezel and $525 for the DLC bezel.

Finally, there is a third version of the Sector II Pilot that’s been launched as a special edition. The “Flyboy” is a collab with online watch community WatchCrunch and features a fully lumed green ceramic bezel that’s undergone some additional engineering. It also features more lume on the dial and the WatchCrunch logo engraved on the caseback.

Priced at $550, the Flyboy is non-limited and is built to order, with shipping not expected to begin until April 2025. The Blackbird and Phantom, meanwhile, are available now, with the first watches set to ship out on December 16.