More than a thousand new watches were released in 2025 — and those are just the ones we heard about. Sometimes, the influx of new pieces can be overwhelming for everyone. Worse, it happens in fits and starts, with deluges during big shows, and slowdowns around the holidays. While we do our level best to cover as many as we can, we often have to pick and choose. In the spirit of picking and choosing, and in the spirit of another year coming to an end, the aBlogtoWatch team has chosen its favorite new watch releases from 2025. As always, we’d love to hear in the comments your thoughts and your picks.
Mike Razak: Atelier Wen Ancestra
I want to start by saying that Breguet won this year. In its 250th anniversary year, the brand released a slew of incredible watches, and not just variants. That said, I feel Breguet will get a lot of attention on these types of lists, so I’m focusing elsewhere. I got a chance to spend time with and photograph the Atelier Wen Ancestra and quickly realized it was the brand’s best watch yet. The release of the Inflection didn’t change my opinion. The Ancestra checks almost every box I have: The case is absolutely stunning, it wears well, and the dial is beautiful with plenty of depth and texture. While the hands are also incredible, I wasn’t entirely sold on the numeral font or the diamond markers, but that didn’t keep this one from grabbing my top spot this year. Honorable mentions: Patek Philippe 6196P, RZE UTD-8000.
Tom Roth: Seiko Rotocall
Picking up where Mike’s honorable mentions leave off, one of the most unexpected surprises of 2025 came from the realm of digital watches. In recent years, this category has become somewhat of a forgotten middle child, falling into the chasm between smartwatches and quartz timepieces. And while Casio is still the undisputed king of digital, it swerved out of its own lane this year, launching its first automatic, the EFK-100. Like a yacht zooming through a “No Wake” zone, Casio’s little jaunt into automatics caused major disruptions for the world of microbrands, which is heavily reliant on cheap, readily available NH35 movements. As Casio hoovered up the global supply, prices for watchmaking’s most common automatic caliber skyrocketed. Perhaps coincidentally, microbrand RZE blazed a trail away from automatics with its digital UTD-8000. Then a few months later, Seiko followed, announcing a modern revival of the 1980s Rotocall. Historically, Seiko has been no stranger to digital watches, but in recent years, it’s focused almost exclusively on analog pieces (not all of them very compelling). But the Rotocall not only represents something different for Seiko, but it also feels different. Instead of buttons, the Rotocall uses a rotating bezel to control its functions. For gray-hairs, it harkens back to the old days, and for the Pepsi generation, it’s a new way to interact with your watch. Sure, it’s probably overpriced (they’re north of $500 USD), and yes, for now they’re only available in Japan. But the Rotocall steps away from the pitfalls that have bedeviled Seiko in recent years: obscure streetwear collaborations and iterative changes to existing products. For collectors, it hits plenty of sweet spots: something retro, something fun, something accessible, and something functional.
Ripley Sellers: Breguet Expérimentale 1
Choosing a favorite watch release of the year is often somewhat of an emotional decision, but the Breguet Expérimentale 1 has properly earned this title for 2025. While Breguet has been experimenting with magnetic escapements since 2010, the Expérimentale 1 takes this concept to a whole new level, and the cutting-edge technology of its movement has the potential to reshape the future of this industry. Since its escapement uses magnets to deliver the impulse, the pallet fork never actually comes into contact with the escape wheel, and beyond just eliminating the need for lubrication on these key components, the amount of force remains entirely constant (because it is governed by the strength of magnets), which makes this pioneering design a true constant force escapement. All of this magnet-based tech allows for a tourbillon with an incredible 10Hz frequency, and the Breguet Expérimentale 1 is rated to just +/-1 second per day, which makes it one of the most accurate mechanical watches ever created. To be fair, blue hands set against a skeletonized display with blue-finished bridges is hardly a recipe for legibility, but the underlying technology of the Expérimentale 1 is truly revolutionary, and this is exactly the type of watch that collectors want to see from Breguet.
Matt Reudink: Nomos Club Sport neomatik Worldtimer
It may not have been the flashiest release — at least not compared to watches like the Breguet above — but the watch that’s stuck in my mind this year more than any other is the Nomos Club Sport neomatik Worldtimer. The Club Sport lineup has rapidly expanded in size and dial color options, but a worldtime complication is something no one saw coming. This is when Nomos is at its best — when it creates something completely unexpected that, on paper at least, really doesn’t make sense. Why add a worldtime complication to the casual and sporty Club line that acts as the entry to the brand? In true Nomos fashion, execution of the worldtime complication is minimal and unobtrusive, with city abbreviations/airport codes along an outer ring on the dial controlled by a pusher at 2 o’clock that simultaneously jumps the outer ring counterclockwise and advances the hour hand clockwise. A contrasting 24-hour home time subdial with day/night indicators is then displayed at 12 o’clock and controlled by either the crown or a hidden pusher at 8 o’clock. The two regular-production models in blue and silver sunburst are lovely, but it was the limited-edition colorways like Glacier, Dune, and Volcano that shone brightest. Few brands do funky colors as well as Nomos, and the brand absolutely nailed these. Not surprisingly, these limited editions sold out quickly, but Nomos loves bringing in new colors, and since the initial release in March, Nomos has released an additional five limited-edition colorways. Don’t see a dial you like? Just wait a few months, and there will almost certainly be a new color option.
Sean Lorentzen: Ulysse Nardin Diver [Air]
So much of watch enthusiast discourse is driven by online conversation, e.g., people who have never seen a particular watch in person lecturing other people who have never seen that watch in person based on photos, press releases, and pre-existing community biases. Naturally, this process tends to elevate a certain subset of already hyped brands and models to the top of any discussion. My pick for the best release of 2025 exists completely outside that paradigm. Although the Ulysse Nardin Diver [Air] is attractive enough in photos, with a beautifully arranged skeleton dial layout and one of my favorite carbon bezels of all time, the magic of this watch does not work unless you strap it on your wrist. I can tell you that its overall weight is a minuscule 51.51 grams, lighter than a base resin 5600-series G-Shock and significantly lighter than a regulation tennis ball. Academically, you can understand that and perhaps feel mildly impressed. When I first put it on my wrist at Watches and Wonders Geneva 2025, though, it frankly rewired my brain. Every experience I’ve had with mechanical luxury timepieces viscerally told me what I was feeling was impossible, especially for a watch with 200 meters of water resistance. Ulysse Nardin has managed it, though, and no other watch in 2025 came with such a sense of genuine wonder. Honorable mentions go to the Zenith G.F.J. and the new-generation TAG Heuer Formula 1 Solargraph.
Jacob Van Buren: Citizen Promaster Aqualand 40th Anniversary Edition
Despite being very close to choosing the new 36mm Tudor Ranger, I would be wrong to ignore the fantastic work Citizen did in reviving the first-generation Aqualand styling for the watch’s 40th anniversary. The Citizen Promaster Aqualand 40th Anniversary Edition coincides with the reintroduction of the classic Aqualand format to the U.S. market — seriously big news for dive watch nerds—and Citizen did not disappoint. A summer spent diving with it, including a fantastic shipwreck in Lake Michigan, has only added to its continuing appeal.
Ariel Adams: Magnetic-Driven and Antimagnetic Watches
Magnets and magnetism (or the lack thereof) have represented the type of mechanical watch technology that I spent the most time thinking about in 2025. Most recently, Breguet significantly upped the ante on magnets inside traditional watch movement technology to improve performance when debuting its Experimentale 1 concept. Earlier in the year, Rolex‘s major new product release was the Land-Dweller. Say what you will about the exterior of the product, but inside is some of Rolex’s most impressive modern anti-magnetic movement technology that is practically immune to gravitational fields (which have a tendency to harm watch timing performance or even ruin components). A number of other watches came out with impressive levels of magnetic resistance, as non-magnetic materials were used in mechanical timepiece movements. Whether to help solve problems or when magnetism is the problem itself, 2025 has represented significant leaps forward in the watch industry, embracing the importance of magnetism in its field.
Ed Rhee: Zenith G.F.J.
A platinum watch wasn’t what any of us expected from Zenith this year, but it’s what we got in the Zenith G.F.J., and boy, is it a beaut. The multi-layered lapis lazuli and mother-of-pearl dial brings the style, while an updated version of the most awarded movement of all time, the Zenith Caliber 135, handles the substance. If that wasn’t enough of a statement, the optional seven-row platinum bracelet transforms the Zenith G.F.J. into a sublimely luxurious (and very hefty) wearing experience. It’s a welcome detour from the brand’s more sporty offerings, and here’s hoping that this platinum flex isn’t the last.
