Three Weeks with the Codek Spiral

As I was mentally preparing myself for a weekend of watch overload at WindUp SF, Chris from Codek Watches reached out to me through Instagram. We had met briefly at a Watch The Bay Meetups event and he wanted to give me a chance to check out the Spiral, a watch he developed a couple years back. My influence over social media is theoretical at best, so I jumped at the opportunity to engage with a brand, borrow a watch, and share my thoughts on it. Here’s what I learned.

First, let’s get right to it - the Spiral is a great size on the wrist. At 38mm in diameter, it’s sure to please the purists, but its C-shaped contour adds a welcome presence and makes the case wear marginally larger than its diameter would suggest on paper. Contour included, the case comes to 41mm top-to-bottom. This span is matched by that of the lugs, which emerge from the sides of the case with origami-like faceting. They’re small, thin, and drilled for easy strap changes. When viewing the Spiral from behind, it becomes apparent the extent to which the C-shape influences the overall case. While the crown-side of the case is sculpted and beveled from a slab, the opposite side is defined much more by a bowl shape. These forms converge between the lugs in an interesting way, notching their 20mm span asymmetrically. Also viewable from the rear of the watch is its exhibition case back, protruding a short distance from the rest of the case and showing off the Spiral’s ETA 2824-2 automatic movement.

The Spiral’s unique design cues don’t stop at the case, and the dial picks up the C-shape motif where the case left off. Two opposed, offset semicircles bound the inner extents of applied hour indices, while a wave pattern fills the area between them. This is a rather pleasing and eye-catching effect as the dial plays with the light. I do have a couple qualms about the dial’s execution, though. The indices have square-cut edges, but since the semicircles they meet are offset from the center of the dial, the inner edge of each index is not tangent to the arc it intersects. The result is an uneven, diverging gap between the two. If the applied indices were painted black on all sides, the width of the dial arcs might hide this effect. Since only the tops of the indices are black, though, and the sides are metallic, the effect can be more pronounced depending on lighting conditions. Similarly, the wave pattern ends with edges mismatched from the dial arcs. Instead of matching the angle of the arc upon truncation, each wave ends abruptly with a squared-off end.

My last issue with the dial is incredibly minor. Codek cleverly hid their brand name and “Swiss Made” in the minute track, but the first time I set the watch, the minute hand fell between 10 and 15, right where “Codek” is. I almost thought I could use the letters as stand-ins for indices, until I realized that Codek is 5 letters, and only 4 minor indices should fall between the two major markers. So I had to wait 1-4 minutes before setting the time. Not a big deal, but none of this stuff is - the devil is in the details.

On the subject of details, let’s touch on finishing: the vast majority of the case is brushed, but the crown and case back are polished. I actually welcome the polishing of the case back. I think it frames the movement nicely and distracts the eye from its otherwise-awkward shape (which, I understand, is totally necessary to house the movement while keeping the profile of the main case slim). What I’m not on board with is the polished crown. While it is signed with Codek’s logo, it comes across as an afterthought. The case of the Spiral has certainly never graced the pages of a watch parts catalog, but it’s no stretch to think that the crown has. Not only does it look a bit out of place, but I also found it too slippery for my liking.

You may have noticed that the strap in my photos is not one offered by Codek. When picking out the exact color combination I wanted to borrow, I went with the veg tanned version in tan. It looks great, it’s rather thick, and it pairs quite nicely with the pearl white dial. It proved to be too stiff to break in during my time with the Spiral, so I tossed the watch on a Worn & Wound strap that I already had. It might break in nicely if worn more, but I wanted to focus on the watch itself and not be distracted by the strap. It’s worth noting that the strap supplied with my watch is one of the lower end offerings from Codek. I imagine the shell cordovan straps are better, but I can’t comment on them from experience.

The watch industry is experiencing a bit of a microbrand renaissance at the moment, and it sometimes feels like there are simply too many decent watches to choose from. With so much competition, some brands bolster their narrative to make their watches stand out from the crowd. Explaining how a watch came to be, or why it is a certain way, is perhaps enough to sway a consumer into buying into one brand over another. Codek says the Spiral is inspired by a hairspring, a component found in the ticking heart of a mechanical movement. I’d say the inspiration is loose at best, but that’s not a knock against the design of the watch. While a hairspring spirals, defined by a decreasing radius, the Spiral’s design is constructed wholly of arcs with constant radius. Ironically there’s not a single spiral on the Spiral as far as I can tell. The hairspring connection feels a bit unnecessary to me, and I think the watch’s design can stand alone without it.

So, who is the Spiral for? I think if you like the design, you’ll like the watch. It’s executed reasonably well with a detail-filled dial, an interesting case, decent finishing, a reliable movement, and an affordable price tag. If you’re not so sure about the design, I’m not so sure it’ll grow on you. Some watches are more than the sum of their parts, and often turn skeptics into believers with a few days’ wear. My Breitling Aerospace is one of those watches, but I don’t think the Codek is one of those watches. It’s unapologetically quirky like the Aerospace, but what you see is what you get. If you’re drawn to the design, you won’t be disappointed once it lands on your wrist.