After the incredible success of the 2024 edition the Oracle Time Watch Awards is back for 2025! The only industry watch awards decided entirely by regular watch collectors and enthusiasts, that’s you. No specialist juries, no predatory entry fees, just good old fashioned community voting. In fact, it’s even up to you to nominate the watches that you’d like to see be put up for each award during our pre-selection process that starts next week, September 1st. Want get involved? Here’s everything you need to know (including how to take part in our Watch Awards Prize Draw).
Nominate Your Favourite Watches
The first task, and it’s quite a challenging one, is to cut down the hundreds of watches that have been released in the past 12 months to just eight watches for each of the nine main categories of the Oracle Time Watch Awards.
In order to do that, we want you to tell us your favourite new releases across each category and then we’ll determine which of them receive the most nominations to create our final shortlist of eight watches per category. We’ll discuss what those categories are in just a moment. Nominations open on September 1st and close on September 19th, giving you three weeks to decide on your favourites.
Some important things to keep in mind are that for a nomination to be valid it must meet certain criteria. The watch must have been released in the 12 months preceding the closing of the nominations phase. That means they must have been released between September 20th 2024 and September 19th 2025.
We also need to be able to identify the watch you wish to nominate. That means nominations of “Rolex” or “Tudor Black Bay” can’t be accepted. If possible, make sure to include the appropriate reference number, especially in the case of watches that don’t have specific names to differentiate themselves from other models in the collection.
Lastly, a nominated watch must be appropriate for the category you are nominating it in, which means it’s time to talk categories.
Awards Categories
Christopher Ward C60 Trident Lumière was the dive watch winner (2024)
There are nine primary categories in the Oracle Time Watch Awards, alongside a tenth completely open grand prize called the Readers’ Choice Award. As the Readers’ Choice is open, it won’t take part in the nominations phase. The other categories are:
Dive Watch – A watch designed for use underwater, featuring at least 200m water resistance and a bezel with an appropriate nautical scale (immersion timer, decompression timer)
Chronograph – A watch with a pusher activated stopwatch function. All styles of chronograph are acceptable including dual pusher, monopusher, bi-compax, tricompax and beyond.
Accessible – A watch with a price of £1,000 or less.
Dress Watch – A watch suitable for formal occasions with an emphasis on elegance and luxury.
Travel Watch – A watch with a dedicated travel complication allowing you to read the time in multiple locations around the globe, such as a GMT, worldtimer or dual time zone.
Field/Pilot – Watches that prioritise quick legibility and practicality for use by pilots in a cockpit or soldiers operating out in the field.
Microbrand – Watches released by microbrands, which are small independent brands typically selling watches direct to consumer.
High Complication – A high complication watch increases the mechanical complexity of its movement. These include examples like tourbillons, perpetual calendars, minute repeaters and split-second chronographs.
Integrated Sports Watch – A watch with an integrated bracelet and geometric motifs. Often (but not exclusively) inspired by 1980s styles from designers like Gerald Genta.
Voting, Readers’ Choice and Results
IWC Eternal Calendar was the Readers Choice Winner (2024)
After the shortlists have been determined, we’ll announce the eight watches chosen for each category and final voting will begin on October 1st. You’ll be able to vote for just one watch per category and submit your selection for Readers’ Choice. For Readers’ Choice you can choose any watch that was released in the past 12 months, including a watch that you already selected in another category if you so wish.
As the grand prize, the winner of the Readers’ Choice watch will also receive the honour of having pride of place on the front cover of the December issue of Oracle Time, which is also the first place you can read the full results prior to their publication online.
Voting for the Oracle Time Watch Awards closes on October 31st and you’ll be able to change your selections right until the end of the vote.
Watch Award Prize Draw
We appreciate that taking part in our watch awards is a commitment of your time (especially thinking back to the hundreds of watches that have been released this year) and as such we want to give back to you for being a good sport and joining in. As such, by taking part you are automatically entered into the Watch Award Prize Draw with the opportunity to win a watch. Prizes include an Ollech, Wajs M-110, a RZE Valour 38 and the ProTek Dive Series 1000.
Stay up to date with the Oracle Time Watch Awards as it progresses and make sure you don’t miss your chance to have your say by signing up to our newsletter.
Let me start by stating the obvious – l do like watches, otherwise why would I be part of the OT community and owner of a smallish collection of watches. Now let me continue with a BUT, but, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to see reviews of “normal” watches (normal being in my interpretation, as being legible, easy on the eye, and affordable), which I’m guessing will only meet the single criteria of this voting arena of being in the sub £1000 category.
As may be determined from these comments, I haven’t entered the voting race as I couldn’t honestly find watches in each and every separate category that I would list. It would be very different if there had been categories for the “ludicrously expensive” and “most ridiculous piece pertaining to be a timepiece” or “most vulgar watch”, but no, (and I guess rightly so).
It will be interesting to see the outcome of the voting, no doubt high prices will be reflected in more than one category, and also in terms of difficulty reading the actual time, with overly complicated dials and open frame actions being selected.
I appreciate that my views are personal and it would be unfair to both the OT community and watch makers in general to be omitted from review, but some watches are just hideous. I guess we can all be surprised occasionally, for example, by Hublot, (whom in my humble opinion) generally produce overly expensive and OTT watches, they then release (earlier this year), a more normal watch (yes still expensive in my world) at circa £7k, but one that I would happily add to my collection if funds permitted – they don’t I must add!
Of all recent releases, I would personally opt for the Awake Sơn Mài Silver Leaf Vignette Watch, a proper watch, easy to read but with a toned down pop of colour, and at an achievable price.
I guess my preference for vintage watches is reflected in my views (stylish rather than garish). – Can’t wait for the big reveal.