Looking for the Future at the World's Craziest Watch Show

While its design dates back to a 1920s model, the under-the-skin bits of this new Movado are a study in modern restraint: This is an activity tracker. It tracks your sleep and your steps—that’s it—and Bluetooth-syncs with your cellphone. You can see progress towards your activity goal in the sub-dial at six o’clock, and get more info from Movado’s app (iOS and Android). And unlike most other smartwatches, you don’t need to plug this guy in—ever. Its battery is good for 3 years.

Most of the watches at Baselworld are mechanical: tiny little machines that keep time using energy stored in springs and meted out little by little. This Bulova is not mechanical, but it’s still awesome. Almost everything about this watch—the dial, the case, the hands, the gears inside, and so on—is curved to the shape of your wrist. The only thing that isn’t curved is the battery, because good luck getting Walgreens to stock a special curved button cell.

When the 35-mile-long Gotthard rail tunnel re-opens later this year, it’ll be the longest in the world, connecting Nothern and Southern Switzerland—and shaving almost an hour off the trip in either direction. Switzerland is pretty stoked, so to commemorate the occasion, Mondaine made this, a variation on the iconic Swiss railway clock. But check out the bezel: Each one is made from aluminum they pulled out of a “locomotive cemetery.” Specifically, the bezels are laser-cut from the doors of an Ae6/6 locomotive that used to haul trains through the Gotthard from 1952 until it shut down for renovations in 1992. Every bezel is different because the original army green paint is left alone. “It drives our factory workers crazy,” says Mondaine’s CEO Andre Bernheim. “They’re used to polishing everything until it is perfect.” They’ll have to deal—until the limited run of 2,016 pieces is over.

A lot of high-end watches make liberal use of gold and platinum, but you won’t see any on this Blancpain (though there’s probably some inside). Its case is plasma ceramic, fired at high temperature to increase its density; the material shrinks by 20-percent and becomes much stronger in the process. And see those circular and rectangular hour markers around the perimeter? Those aren’t precious metal either—at least, not in the classical sense. They’re liquidmetal, which makes it possible for a watchmaker to inject them into tiny holes on the face during construction and polish them without marring the dial’s more delicate finish.

There is no other way to say it: This watch is really really really really really light. Its case is made of silicon nitrate ceramic and grade-5 titanium, which itself is a huge weight savings. But Rado just had to keep going: the guts are lightweight, too, with internal structural components (“bridges,” if you speak this language) made out of aluminum. As a total package, the watch weighs 56 grams, less than two ounces. It feels like you’re wearing a friendship bracelet, not a $2,850 watch.

Hey now, here’s a subtle watch. You know how the crystal of a nice watch is often made of sapphire, for its scratch-resistant qualities? Well, this watch’s entire body is made of that same stuff. Hublot, masters of understatement—and serious materials science wizards—lab-grow their sapphire and then mill the case out of a single chunk.

When you think of bronze, you might think of the Bronze Age, when the Greeks went around trying to kill each other with dull swords. Not exactly cutting edge, in any sense of the expression. (Sorry.) This watch is different though, because the bronze Tudor uses in the case is an alloy. It’s blended with aluminum so that the metal will react with your skin and take on a patina with age—but stop just shy of turning Statue-of-Liberty-green.

Tradeshow lighting is murder.

One of the product guys at Citizen caught wind of an online community of modders who were rabid about hacking the company’s Eco-Drive dive watches to accept different bands. He told the company brass, and, surprisingly, they were like, ‘Sweet! Let’s hook those guys up.’ 👀 This watch is that hookup: a totally moddable package. The central module, which houses the important-for-timekeeping bits, is threaded on the back, so you can securely pop it in and out of straps easily. The package comes with two, but you’d better believe the community will take it from here.

Hell yes. <– A connected watch for people who aren’t primarily concerned with meetings and text messages. Nixon’s Mission is an Android Wear smartwatch designed for surfers 🏄 and snow bums 🏂 ; it’s waterproof to 100 meters, thanks to an innovative sealed microphone, and has full GPS navigation. Its coolest feature, though, is that it pulls data from Snocountry and Surfline to deliver you alerts when the waves or the snow is just right—say, if the swells crest eight feet at Pacifica, or more than a foot of Powder falls at Heavenly. You set the parameters, and, if they’re met, the watch will interrupt your day not with another meeting request, but a gentle nudge that it might be time to take a personal day.