One of the longstanding justifications for the luxury watch owner has been investment. Rare and desirable watches often appreciate in value over time, or at least lose far less of their value than something like a new luxury car or a boat (well, until the economy craters). At auction, extremely rare watches can go for tens of millions of dollars, which has solidified their place alongside fine art and classic cars as a legitimate place to "park" large sums of money.

With its new Wear OS watch, Hublot aims a bit lower, at a mere $5,800, but supposes that at just over half the cost of the next-least expensive Big Bang watch—there are no models under $10,000—the new Big Bang e Ceramic is an absolutely stunning value.

By Grabthar's Hammer, what a savings.

What does this $5,800 watch offer that no other Wear OS watch does? Well, the list isn't long:

  • It is made by Hublot, maker of very expensive watches
  • It has Hublot watch faces, which ostensibly makes this a Very Exclusive product

Otherwise, it is a standard issue Snapdragon Wear 3100 Wear OS watch with a ceramic coated body and a rubber strap. If you want to save $600, you can buy the Titanium edition. There's nothing really different about it, it just isn't coated in ceramic.

I know that it's more than a bit played out to poke fun at the luxury watch market, a playground for those with disposable income that make products like these impulse purchases in the way that you or I might decide to splurge and order particularly fancy takeout one night. But the sheer silliness of paying over five thousand dollars for a watch that will inevitably just stop working one day—and compared to a "real" watch, a day that is not at all far away—deserves some calling out.

What happens when Hublot inevitably can't order more PCBs for this thing? Or batteries? Or replacement screens? Or the software just stops working with phones? The answer is simple: it becomes a useless brick. A useless brick someone, at some point, paid $5,800 to own, without even the hint of a suggestion that this was some kind of "investment." Nor will anyone who buys one of these probably care, because they won't even wear it long enough to consider these eventualities. They'll probably just set a watch face, realize that this whole Wear OS thing kind of sucks, and put it in a drawer after a few months.

And unlike Tag Heuer's $200,000 Wear OS watch, there is no indication that Hublot intends to offer the ability to swap out the—have I said this enough—inevitably doomed to die "smart" core for something more analog. Their customers probably don't care anyway, honestly. They've got more important things to worry about, like yachting season, and commodities markets.

You can sign up to be notified when the Big Bang e is available, below.

Source: Hublot (Titanium version)