Today, I’d like to share my first (and second, and …) impressions of a watch that is quite an unusual member of my collection. It doesn’t fit into any of the categories I usually pay attention to, and yet it still managed to catch my interest. I’m talking about the World Watch V7, made by the YES company.
It all started back in 2019 when, purely by luck—or fate—I came across an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign launched by YES Watches, or more precisely, by its owner, Bjorn Kartomten. The campaign was created to fund the seventh generation of the YES World Watch. The main development challenge this time was to implement wireless charging for the battery.
I must admit I had heard about the YES World Watch before, and it had always intrigued me. However, it was consistently sold out, and used examples on eBay were priced higher than I was willing to pay.
The campaign offered an attractive price, along with the option to choose between several bezels, straps, and hands—essentially a tailor-made watch for each backer. After a few days of hesitation, I decided to support the campaign.
Although the campaign eventually ended successfully, the project was on the verge of collapse several times. The development of the wireless charger turned out to be more challenging than expected, followed by the COVID crisis—all of which demanded more time and money than originally planned. Still, Bjorn kept us regularly updated on the situation. He consistently managed to find solutions to raise additional funds—by selling shares, securing new financing, and even offering a version of the V7 with a standard charging system. In the end, by late 2021, the project was successfully completed.
At the beginning of this year, my watch was finally produced. Before the final assembly, Bjorn contacted me to confirm whether I had changed my mind about the overall design of the watch. He asked about the color of the hands, and just a few days later, the watch was shipped to me.
So, what makes this watch so special?
In short, it’s a dream come true for anyone fascinated by the sun or the moon. At any given moment, the watch can display the exact time of sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, the current moon phase, and, of course, the time in more than 650 cities around the world. For all of these 650 predefined cities, the watch has stored precise geographical coordinates, allowing it to accurately calculate the position of the sun and the moon at any given time. And if your location isn’t on the list, you can manually input your exact latitude and longitude—after that, the watch will work its magic.
The instruction manual clearly explains how to read all this information from the dial. In my experience, while some elements are intuitive, others take a bit of time to understand and get used to.
Naturally, managing 650 cities isn’t a trivial task—and to be honest, it’s not something you need in everyday life. That’s why the watch allows you to create a list of ten favorite cities. From this list, you can select two primary ones: your home city and your away city. Switching between these two is quick and easy. Selecting different cities from your list of ten takes a bit more time, and setting up your list of favorites is a bit of a process. But it’s a logical and well-thought-out approach.
In addition to the unique sun and moon functions, the watch also includes many “standard” features: an alarm, countdown timer, 99-minute timer, sunrise alarm, cuckoo alarm (which rings every full hour within a selected time range), and a stopwatch.
If you also consider the backlight for night viewing, battery status indicator, and all the various settings, you quickly realize that the watch offers so many functions that operating it can be quite complex. It uses four pushers to access all its features, and to be honest, you’ll need to consult the instruction manual regularly. As is usually the case, after a few days you get used to the daily, standard functions—while the others slowly fade from memory.
One particularly unusual feature deserves special mention: the ability to trim the time, which is quite rare for a quartz movement. If your watch runs too fast or too slow, you can manually adjust its rate by setting it anywhere from –63 to +64 seconds per month. My watch came with a factory setting of –9, which made it run slightly slow. I’ve now set it to 0 and plan to fine-tune it occasionally based on performance.
Alright, maybe I jumped into the functions a bit too quickly. Let me now give you some basic information about the watch itself.
The watch has a diameter of 46 mm, and the case is made of titanium. There are six different bezel inserts available in four different colors, allowing each buyer to choose their preferred combination—making for a total of 24 possible options. As you can see, I chose the 2400 bezel, which essentially gives me an additional time zone. The bezel is bidirectional and has 120 clicks. In my opinion, the rotation feels a bit too light, making unintentional movement quite possible.
The inner dial features 14 tritium tubes on the “night” portion and 10 lume markers on the “day” side. This approach is very interesting: at night, the tritium tubes glow brightly, giving the impression that only the night section is visible. However, during the day, when you suddenly enter complete darkness—like when driving into a tunnel—the opposite happens. The lume on the day side becomes more visible, creating the impression that only the day section is illuminated. Very interesting!
I opted for the rubber strap, and I also received a NATO strap as part of the package. Metal bracelets are available too, but for me, this watch feels too sporty for a bracelet.
The watch fits very comfortably on my 19 cm wrist. My version, with the rubber strap, is very light, and I believe the titanium bracelet versions are also light enough to wear comfortably.
If you hide the digital time—which is possible—the watch transforms into a one-hand 24-hour regulator. But even that can be changed to a more standard display. You can customize what is shown on both LED rings, and one of the options for the outer (yellow) ring is to show the minutes. In that configuration, the analog hand displays the hour, while the inner yellow ring marks the minutes. However, this setup requires good eyesight—I personally can’t read the minute markers on the inner ring without glasses.
I’ve already said a lot about the watch and its functions, and yet, up until now, the V7 has introduced almost nothing new compared to previous versions—at least not compared to the last version—of the World Timer watch. I don’t own any of the earlier versions, so I can’t make a direct comparison based on experience. My assessment is based on reading instruction manuals and looking at photos of the earlier models. If there are any differences, they appear to be minor and not particularly significant.
But—as I mentioned in the introduction—one thing was important: the new charging approach. I must admit, it feels a bit unusual to have a watch like this with a rechargeable battery. Rechargeable watches are usually associated with smartwatches or sports watches, right? Standard quartz watches typically use button-cell batteries that you replace from time to time. But not this one.
All previous YES watches also used rechargeable batteries, but they required connecting the watch to a charging clip.
The main advertised innovation with this version was wireless charging. You simply place the watch on the charging pad, which is connected via USB to a computer or wall charger. Sounds great, right? Well... not really. Even the cheapest Chinese smartwatches and fitness trackers have used this charging method for quite some time. So, to be completely honest, I don’t quite understand why wireless charging was such a major hurdle in the development process—or why it’s being highlighted as a standout feature of this version.
Charging the battery from almost empty to full takes over 24 hours. But to be fair, once it’s charged, the battery lasts a very long time. I’ve had my watch for almost a month now, and the battery indicator still shows a full charge (four out of four bars). I read somewhere that a full charge can last at least three months. I haven’t verified that yet, but based on my current experience, the results are very promising.
One downside is that when the battery eventually dies, you can’t replace it yourself—or have your local watchmaker do it. Instead, you have to send the watch back to YES. That’s quite inconvenient, especially if you live outside the USA.
The watch comes in a sturdy presentation box. As mentioned, you receive an additional strap, two screwdrivers for strap replacement, and a very good instruction manual. I also have to praise the excellent website, which includes a wealth of useful information—for example, all instruction manuals for all models from the past 20 years are available there. And once again, I have to mention the very active and responsive project owner, Bjorn. He regularly updated all backers, offers post-purchase support, and answers questions promptly. A really great customer experience.
The watch is now available for purchase, and from what I can see, it is currently in stock. The price depends on the buyer’s configuration, but generally ranges between $800 and $900 (plus import taxes if you live outside the USA). That’s much higher than what we early supporters paid, so I’m probably not the best person to objectively assess whether the full price is justified. I gladly paid $500 for the black satin version, but I wouldn’t have paid $845—the full retail price for my watch. And let’s not forget: on top of that, I had to pay 25% in import taxes, which makes the full price even less attractive from my perspective.
That said, if you’re a moon/sun enthusiast and travel frequently around the world, this watch could be a perfect fit for you—you won’t regret it. If not, you might want to skip it.
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Thank you for giving the V7 such a thorough review. Greatly appreciated.
A sun freak, huh? Yeah, you probably got me there. Aren’t we all? Turn that thing off and all life will cease to exist within 24 hours. Luckily it is estimated to burn for another 4.5 million years.
I have always been a sun worshipper. Growing up in frosty Norway might play a part but it is a worldwide phenomenom. From the Egyptians to the Incas to the realities of the Anthropocene.
Check out any and all organized religion, what lies behind? The light of the heavens. The halo, the morning prayer and the golden shrines all pays homage to the sun. The essence of life.
Dig into the soul of time keeping and you’ll find the sun at the center of all recorded time keeping as well, along with the moon.
Check out this link for our story:
https://www.yeswatch.com/wrist-watch/worldwatch/our-story.html?id=jBiTizEV
Cheers.
Bjørn.