Their dials are just so… bland. It’s always black and white and minimalist to a fault. Like there’s nothing interesting. Even Nomos has splashes of color here and there and play on typography. For example Nomo’s simplest watch - Tangente, has a slight splash of color with blue hands. Other minimal dress watches usually differentiate with dial finishing - like with sunburst or a textured dial. But nope, Sinn design language is just: stainless steel, pure black, sans-serif numbers, and white indices. That’s it. Yet they are super loved in here. Help me understand?
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Tool watch. Not dress watch.
Biggest appeal is there are very few left handed chronometers out there … but some of their EZM faces are crazy for color.
The whole point of tool watches is to be easy to read, the appeal is lost if you want an ornament on your wrist. Dievas and Tutima are the same ethos.
Sometimes, there is more than meets the eye.
Sinn tends to have a lot of that - value, excellent (over)engineering, purposely understated looks. And they do have splashes of color and some interesting design elements from time to time, so maybe check again?
That said, they are German, so expect a culturally-consistent product.
I feel the same. The only interesting watch they have is the 556i with the black mother of pearl dial, which completely carries the whole package and even then there’s much better looking watches you can get with the same dial.
I love them for the tech clear easy read functionality design simplicity.
fun fact. Bell & Ross were made by Sinn, when they were getting started,
First most Sinn’s are not supposed to be dress watches - if you look at the collections on their web site, really only the “Frankfurt” and Classical collection would be considered dressy at all - and these are not the watches getting all the love here and in other watch forums - the ones getting all the love are the Instrument Watches and Instrument Chronographs, and to a lesser degree their divers, probably most notably but not limited to the 356, 556 and 856 series. And all these are more along the lines of “tool” watches or even pilot watches.
And personally, I’m not that big a fan of the “instrument” watches. I’ve tried to like them but really they’re sort of dull- not terrible but not very inspiring especially for the price. I don’t think a watch needs a splash of color, necessarily, but I just don’t find them to be that inspiring and the ones that I do sort of like are too large for me. Frankly I, like you, would probably rather buy a Nomos. However Sinn’s dressier watches IMHO are darned nice, they have some really great stuff - those Frankfurt watches really call to me but haven’t quite gotten to where I can justify such a purchase financially.
Paying thousands to pretend your watch is a “tool” is incredibly stupid. A Garmin is a few hundred bucks and has actual useful features that could save your life.
No one is pretending, we just prefer the way it looks. It’s a piece of jewelry like any other mechanical watch. You do realize what subreddit you’re on, right?
Solid tool watches that are built for the job. No fancy bits
You’re basically describing their appeal but to people with tastes that are different than yours. That’s what’s great about watches, there are plenty of options for different tastes.
People like what they like…that’s the bottom line. For me, Sinn is the master of tool watches and they have a very wide selection to choose from. They are designed to over perform in a variety of difficult conditions. If I could only have 10 watches, a sinn would definitely be in that box. You do you, but I say give their catalog a slow thorough look before dismissing them. Happy collecting
To some, watches are an accessory that provides an element of unique style or an expressive element. To others, retreating to balanced minimalism provides perhaps a comforting sense of stability and austerity in an otherwise loud world.
More broadly speaking, I often think that the current trend of “blanding” across many brands and industrial designs is just as much in response to the chaos that many of us feel as it is drafting off the success of Apple’s design language in the mid 2010’s, which is what it often is hypothesized to be.
Part of the attraction to utility-inspired (military, etc) watches is also that this minimalism has been “tried and true” in a real-world sense, and so therefore one might feel like they can “outsource” evaluating whether something is good or not to the history of the design language itself. Again, an anchor which provides stability and comfort psychologically.
As a side note, I think it is interesting (and for me, unappealing) when Sinn and others (Omega, for example) add flourishes (i.e. red hands, MOP dials, the Snoopy Speedmaster, whatever) to their now-classic original designs because it feels like an attempt to leverage both psychological responses to austerity and expression without creating anything substantively new at all. But, people seem to love it in general, and it does create something to collect and broadens the market appeal of the design. I think this is why self-proclaimed “purists” don’t go for that kind of thing but many, many others find it enjoyable.
Also, I think this may be why designs like the Rolex GMT Pepsi might be so popular—it ticks all three boxes: 1. time-tested design, 2. not “boring”, 3. no novelty design gimmicks. Point #3 may relate to why the destro/green GMT got so much hate as well. Additionally, of course, the GMT is not minimal or austere by any means, but I think there are parallels to consider as well in terms of psychological and limbic response to design cues.
I have one Sinn watch (104 b) that I wear almost everyday and it has a blue sunburst dial. So I guess we can close the case on the “always black and white and minimalist to a fault”.
As for the appeal- I don’t really go too much for the whole “built like a tank, no-nonsense tool watch” type descriptors (though the U1 and other models sell that pretty well), but I am a sucker for German engineering whether it’s Porsche, Helles lager, or a gorgeous Bavarian woman.
I was looking a few years ago for my first “nice watch” to celebrate a milestone birthday. I had gotten the watch bug and had been researching for a couple years while wearing inexpensive pieces. I had given myself roughly a $1,500 budget, and in the end, after months of pouring over watches, nothing stuck with me within that price range like the Sinn 104. I really loved how it took the signature Sinn tool watch case shape with the blocky turned down lugs, and dressed it up into more elegant daily driver piece. I also liked how it blends a pilot and diver aesthetic/functionality, but all in an understated and attractive manner. While I’m not always a fan of a day date complication, it made sense for a daily watch, and the black date dial blends in nicely against the blue dial. The blue changes color in different lighting, and the dial is very legible because of the minimal white text, indices and hands, and the excellent AR coating that makes the glass disappear.
As for the brand appeal, I think Sinn has a good reputation for quality/value and I also respect that at least in the US, their distribution model is very tight, though resale value on this watch isn’t important to me because I’m keeping it. It is nice to not see your watch on sale for 25% off at the local mall. Instead I see the only US AD selling it for $330 more than I paid.
It is kind of funny how the Sinn 104 is an obscure product in the public’s perception (at least here in the US), but it is kind of “on-the-nose” as a “watch guy” watch. I guess it checks a lot of good boxes.
I would not call all of Sinn collections as bland. This limited edition is a great Valjoux 7750 implementation with beautiful dial colors. I also have this in green.
Enjoying my bland mother of pearl Sinn 😜
Just look at something like the Sinn 556. A minimalist, super solid watch with 200m WR that can be used on any occasion.
Nomos has a lot of appeal in the brand itself as well. A young, independent watchmaker with amazingly finished in-house movements that keep to older, traditional Bauhaus designs. They also have some creative, new designs in the same style as the Metro Date Power Reserve, Zurich World Time, and Lambda.
Because people who can afford them work in law firms or trading. And are obliged to follow a dress code. They have the money, but money will never buy you personality nor style.
