HEXA K500 Prototype

By TLex This week I had the honor and privilege of being the first person outside of Hexa Watches to have the opportunity to spend some quality time with the Hexa K500 prototype watch. I have worn the watch solidly for the last few days and have grown quite fond of it.

However before sending the K500 to me Hexa carefully scrutinized it, highlighting anything that they felt could be improved upon or enhanced. Below is a list their revisions . . .

* The crown length will be extended by approximate 1mm to improve ease of use, this will allow the crown to protrude very slightly for a more comfortable grip when screwing-down.

* The Hour and Minute Hands will be painted in gray, as per the original renderings.

* The casebacks will be customized with art, which is yet to be revealed along with its serial number.

* The second hand will be beefed up a bit and will have a slightly larger lume area.

* The date window's angle will be corrected on the production models so that it is properly aligned with date wheel.

* The date wheel will be in black with white numbers.

* The lume will be of a higher quality for the production models.

* The bezel action will be made slightly tighter.

* Production models will have respectively matching crown finishes.

Now that we know what changes will be made for the production watches - what did I think of the prototype myself? The first thing that struck me about the K500 was its design, utilitarian and ever so slightly quirky. This watch will lend itself beautifully to either a bead-blasted or PVD finish.

You can tell that it has been designed from the ground up, it really is quite different from anything that I've come across. Yes, there are some gentle notes of the Sinn U models, but that's fine with me, who doesn't like block hands?!



It's quite difficult to pin the case design down really; it looks like two completely different watches depending on which side profile you're looking at.

The bezel is lovely and high, the bezel teeth are widely spaced to give a really chunky appearance. I found the bezel action very reasonable actually, but Hexa want to improve upon this so that it's even tighter. The bezel pip and markings are nice and crisp. I would like the markings even more if there was less of them though.

I guess the K500's quirkiness comes from its unusual crown position. I had always imagined it to be a little awkward and fiddly to use, which it is, but Hexa are going to extended its length slightly to address this. The 10 o' clock crown position makes for a very comfortable wear.

I used to love the 5-link / brick-link bracelets, these day they do very little for me. Personally I feel that it kind of lets the side down a little, as design-wise it isn't really on par with the rest of the watch. There are better factory bracelets available these days that could also have also been engineered to fit the K500's case, I wish Hexa had explored some of them, perhaps they will in the future?.

We've seen the clasp before, this is an excellent item. It works beautifully and looks good. Actually the watch was sized too small for me, but I was still able to comfortably wear it thanks to the sliding extension.

The watch wears well on the wrist thanks to downwardly angled lugs. It's not particularly heavy either nor does it sit particularly high. If this is the prototype, then I have high-hopes for the production model. My thanks to Rocky and Vic of Hexa for the loan of the watch, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with it and look forward to the production model. Stay tuned for more Hexa K500 updates soon . . .

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