The world timer is one of the harder complications to do well at any price, and almost nobody does it under $2,000. Farer's Roché II is the rare attempt that actually works.
The Verdict
A genuinely useful 24-city world timer for $1,775, with the kind of dial work most brands reserve for watches twice the price. The colour is louder than it photographs; go in with eyes open.
The Make
The case is 39mm in 316L steel, 11mm thick, 45mm lug to lug. Those are good numbers. It will sit under a shirt cuff and it will not look like a hockey puck on a 6.75" wrist. The bezel is brushed with a polished edge, the side outline and inner lugs are polished, and the case-side cut-ins are micro-blasted. Three finishes on a sub-$2k watch, executed cleanly.
Inside is a Sellita SW330-1 Elaboré, customised so the GMT hand is replaced by a 24-hour rotating disc that reads against a bidirectional inner city bezel. You set the second time zone by rotating the bezel via the offset crown at 10. It is a true world timer, not a GMT pretending. Power reserve is around 56 hours, with hacking seconds and a quickset date. Domed sapphire with internal AR, sapphire caseback, 100m water resistance.
The dial is where the money shows. Midnight blue with a Clous de Paris guilloché under a gloss layer, Grade X1 lume on the indices, a bronze-capped crown stamped with the Farer A. Designed in Ascot, assembled in Bienne by Roventa-Henex. The build is honestly closer to $2,500 than $1,775.
The Fit
39mm and 45mm lug-to-lug is the sweet spot for most wrists between 6.5 and 7.5 inches. The 11mm thickness is the quiet hero here; a lot of GMTs and world timers run 13mm plus, and you feel it. The Roché II tucks. The St. Venere leather strap is good out of the box but, like most OEM straps at this tier, will be the first thing you replace once you start rotating.
The Context
At $1,775, the closest like-for-like is the Christopher Ward C65 GMT Worldtimer, which is cheaper but visually busier. Nomos Zürich Weltzeit does the complication more elegantly but costs north of $5,000 and runs thicker. Longines Spirit Zulu Time is the safe COSC pick at a similar price, but it is a GMT, not a world timer, and the dial is conservative by comparison. The Roché II is the one to buy if you want some personality and you actually travel.
The Personal Note
Travel-friendly is the whole point of this category, and most watches in it are boring. The Roché II is not boring. The blue is assertive in daylight and calms down under a cuff, which is the right way around. If you wear a watch every day and own one other dressier piece, this earns the spot.
