In Their Own Words: Rossling and the Hydromatic

In Their Own Words: Rossling and The Hydromatic C.01

In Partnership with Karim Elgarhy (Co-Founder of Rossling)

Like most watch guys, my dad got my brothers and me into watches. My dad was a huge watch lover; one of my earliest memories was trying on his giant (well, it seemed giant to me at the time) Seiko 6319-5040. I also still vividly remember his first Rolex. It was a second-hand gold Datejust and it always inspired awe in me.

With some of my earliest memories tied to watches, it's not surprising then that when my brothers and I had the opportunity to start our own watch brand we jumped on it. Fast forward to 2013 and we launched our first Rossling watch on Kickstarter. By today's standards in horology that first piece was a "fashion" watch with a few twists, but it got a lot of media coverage and our tweed straps were a big hit.

After that release, our first automatic was next in 2014. It was a 9mm thick, Bauhaus-style dress watch with a Miyota 9015. To date, my brothers and I have launched 6 Rossling timepieces, but they've all been dress watches. For 2019 we knew it was time to try something new.

Enter: The Hydromatic C.01

We’ve always loved sports watches, but the prospect of our first diver had been a tough nut to crack. We honestly spent many years mulling over it and trying to work out the finer details. If Rossling did a diver, it needed to be done right. We didn't want to cut corners. We didn't want it to feel like a "diver-style" watch. We wanted it to be an efficient dive watch - something you could rely on and trust for whatever adventures you took it on.

Around this time we started making contact with manufacturing partners in Germany. Through many conversations and getting to know each other, my brothers and I started to understand and get a feel for German watchmaking culture. There's a strong sense of doing things objectively right in German horology. There's a strong sense of quality, precision, and over-engineering parts and processes (plus two of us are engineers by trade, so this deeply resonated with us).

It clicked then that our new diver needed to be made in Germany. It was the only way to get it right. And thus the Hydromatic was born.

The diver is manufactured in Pforzheim, Germany, which is an honor for us because it's the heart of German Horology. They've been making watches there since the 1700s. The craftspeople there are experienced and working with them was a no-brainer.

You can see the German influence in the design and engineering of the watch. It is no-nonsense, very efficient, and very effective. There's no fluff on the Hydromatic; everything has a purpose. The crystal, for example, has a pronounced box shape with a strong dome. While this adds to the visual appeal, it serves a crucial function first and foremost. It allows us to have a thicker crystal which allowed us to have a strong WR (200m) while also limiting distortion to the very edge of the dome. The Hydromatic dial also is very balanced, which (to my brothers and I at least) gives it a very aesthetically pleasing design.

One of the most important facets for us was ensuring the Hydromatic fit into the ISO/DIN spec. This basically means that the diver fits into the objective standards for product reliability as set by the International Organization for Standardization and Deutsches Institut für Normung. We're happy to confirm that the Hydromatic is fully compliant with ISO/DIN. However, watches will not be individually certified. It's honestly just too expensive, which would mean that we'd have to end up charging watch folks more. That's just not something we want to do. We want people to be able to afford and enjoy this diver.

The Rossling Hydromatic will feature the 2824-2 (or possibly the SW200-1). We would have loved to utilize a German movement as well. But as of yet, there aren't any commercially available options.

The Hydromatic is a monumental milestone for my brothers and me. So far the feedback has been really great and the watch resonates pretty strongly with the watchfam. Plus, at $399 during our Kickstarter campaign, it’s an insane value.

Check out the Kickstarter page - it’s currently live and the campaign ends on November 26th, 2019. This will be your only chance to get the Hydromatic for the preorder price of $399. Afterward, it’ll be retailing at $599.

We really hope you enjoyed reading the story behind this really special watch and a huge thank you to all our die-hard fans who’ve helped my brothers and I get this far.