With its debut in 2012, the otherworldly H1Titanium catapulted the young HYT watch company and its game-changing technology straight into the limelight. Winning the GPHG Innovation award at the end of that year, its alien appearance and a taboo combination of liquids and horology turned perceptions on their head, and from that dramatic entrance, one of the most dynamic and successful independent watch brands has continued to produce ever more extraordinary variations on its award-winning concept.

An absolutely outstanding piece, in its massive 48.8mm case of semi-translucent lime green Azo Polyepoxide resin, and black DLC titanium with a pronounced crown guard and rubber clad crown, topped off with a domed sapphire crystal and the sculpted three-dimensional features beneath, the HYT H1 Azo Project is nothing short of spectacular.

Centred around its unique technical tour de force, which uses fluids and miniature hydraulics working in concert with a hand-winding mechanical movement, the HYT H1 Azo Project is an immaculately executed piece of contemporary Haute Horlogerie, which is as unprecedented in its aesthetics as it is utterly fascinating in its technical complexity.

Underneath the sapphire crystal, the dial area is pared back to a black chapter ring around the edge, which sports applied numerals and luminous indices, and opens onto the open-worked bare metal centre, where the minute hand and indices are accented in Super-LumiNova on the elevated black central dial, which sits between a turbine wheel with a single red accent for the seconds, and the power reserve indicator either side.

Circling the chapter ring sits a super fine glass capillary and through it, a bright green liquid is drawn around over the luminous indices via HYT’s proprietary hydro-mechanical technology.

As the two bellows in the lower half of the dial expand and contract, from tiny reservoirs beneath the prominent titanium dome at the 6 they force two immiscible fluids, one dyed with green, one completely clear, around the little tube, in a twelve-hour retrograde cycle to display the hours. The differing and incompatible viscosities of the fluids safeguards against cross-contamination. 

While its unconventional and innovative approach to the age-old standards of watchmaking and time display may seem unfamiliar at first glance, its classical regulateur configuration means it’s intuitively simple to understand and quite irresistible to the eye.

Around the back, a sapphire case back reveals the superb HYT Calibre 101 hand winding hydro-mechanical movement, and a view of its stripped back plates with horizontal Geneva stripes, the balance and escapement, along with the barrel and gear train which is all compacted into the upper half, to accommodate the pair of rhodium-plated bellows. Fully wound, it is good for 65 hours of power reserve.

At 48.8mm the HYT H1 Azo Project is an incredible watch which packs enormous presence on the wrist, yet with its lightweight, short lugs, close-fitting rubber strap making for a wrist-hugging fit, it does wear very comfortably for its size.