Bring This Watch Back: The Omega Equinoxe Is A Reverso-Style Retro Relic

Bring This Watch Back is a series where we take a look at watches that deserve a second chance after being discontinued for one reason or another. Maybe they were ahead of their times or they fell out of favor due to outside factors. Here we make the case for our favorites, forgotten no longer.

The Omega Equinoxe is truly one of the oddest watches I have ever encountered. And of course, I mean that in the best possible way — not just because it is simply remarkable that it ever got produced in the first place, but because it is just so damn cool. A JLC Reverso-style watch with flippable case boasting an LCD display on one side and an analog display on the other with a remarkably well-made Royal Oak-style bracelet? This is a 1980s time capsule that wore its inspirations on its sleeve — and, 43 years later, it still has more personality than most watches out there.

The Equinoxe barely even had a shot, since it was both launched and discontinued in 1981, carrying the whopping price of just around 1,500 CHF — which was triple that of a mechanical Seamaster (!).

It’s true that Omega received a fair bit of flack for its embrace of quartz during the 1970s and ‘80s, but besides the Equinoxe there are some real gems that came out of this era. Arguably the most famous of the bunch was the Marine Chronometer from 1974, outfitted with the “Megaquartz” movement that made it the most accurate wristwatch ever at the time, with a variation of less than 0.002 seconds per day.

But back to the Equinoxe: what exactly is the deal with this retro curiosity? Well, the Equinoxe is kind of like a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso but with one digital LCD-screen face and one classic analog-quartz face. The idea here was that the digital side is one’s more practical daytime watch and the analog side is for evenings, which makes a fair bit of sense. Considering an “equinox” occurs biannually when night and day are of equal length, I see where Omega was going with the naming convention here as well. I sometimes read that at the time of its release the Equinoxe was the first watch to feature two displays within the same case, but this is something of a misconception because, technically, the also-very-rare Cartier Ref. 3687 dual-time watch did this first. However, the Equinoxe does predate the first Reverso Duoface, which came out in 1994.

The Caliber 1655 is a quartz movement that was only used for the Equinoxe and there’s really not much information out there on it, other than that it powers both an analog hour/minute display as well as a five-function digital LCD display and is accurate to 5 seconds/month (with a 2-year battery life). I am, however, fairly certain this is not a Megaquartz movement. Personally, I have never really taken full advantage of the digital functions here, beyond just testing them out, but it’s a fairly robust assortment, with a countdown, alarm, chronograph, and an hourly signal. The hourly signal is something that is oddly helpful if you’re someone like myself who tends to lose track of time and needs a little help with structuring their day. In fact, I’ve had it activated on my desk for a week now and I think I’ll leave it on. Another fairly obvious benefit is having the option of using this as a dual-time watch, so I’ve got the digital side set to EST and the analog side set to PST.

There were two iterations of the Omega Equinoxe in its brief yearlong lifespan. The one you see here is the steel Ref. 186.0013; the other was the Ref. 386.0813, which is two-tone with steel and gold plating. From what I can gather, there were more of the two-tone models produced, which checks out with a few cursory looks at available inventory.

Oh, and then there’s that integrated bracelet that was quite obviously inspired by the Royal Oak. Again, having such an elaborate tapered bracelet must have been a pretty large factor in the high cost (and short lifespan) of the Equinoxe, but it’s hard not to respect the effort that went into it. Each brushed link has beveled edges across all sides and three polished rectangular studs which make it a little “clinky” but I think that’s part of the retro charm here. I also noticed “Mod Deposé” is engraved on the inner clasp, which means the design was registered/trademarked by Omega.

So what would a reintroduced contemporary Omega Equinoxe look like? Most likely a lot like the original, but perhaps done in a titanium case and bracelet. I think some type of solar-powered functionality or simply just better battery life that is longer than two years would be welcome. If you really want to go crazy, it could be some kind of smart watch/analog hybrid but the inevitable obsolescence of that would basically negate the entire appeal here. And while the whole concept of luxury digital watches is not really a thing, there are exceptions like the Girard-Perregaux Casquette 2.0 and G-Shock’s MR-G line. Still, for some of us, a wildly impractical and elaborately built jewelry watch like the Equinoxe is so appealing precisely for those reasons.