Reactor Watches is Calling it Quits

Reactor Watches, the overbuilt fashion sports watch company started in 2003, is shuttering after nineteen years in business. The owner cites a variety of reasons; a business that started as a family business with his sons, who have now walked away from it; issues with supply chain, material costs, and waining popularity of analog watches due to smart watches dominating wrists.

At the prices that Reactor is charging, they should have went to automatic and mechanical movements. In my opinion, the price point for quartz watches that they were charging just isn’t competitive against brands like Invicta which offer a similar aesthetic.

Here is the statement from company owner “Jimmy” on the companies website:

The Mission from Day one, was to create the best sport watch on the market and to build an amazing family business that put business ethics and customer needs before all mighty dollar.

The mission remains the same today, but many things have changed. Both of my children that started in the business with me have left and joined their mothers very successful Real-estate business. The traditional watch market is under attack by smart watches and cell phones greatly reducing the number of traditional watches sold. Many watch companies have evolved their business model to more direct to consumer using a factitious retail so they can significantly reduce the sales price showing big savings that are truly not real.

Due to the slowdown in watch sales and difficulty of making money, many retailers have elected to simply exit the watch business, making it more and more difficult for REACTOR to open new accounts and maintain our current ones.

Manufacturing has its own challenges… the cost of raw materials is rising quickly along with a significant increase in shipping cost and additional tariff now that Hong Kong no longer has a “special” trade status with the US.

Building a REACTOR watch is very expensive, we only use the best materials and closely adhere to our DNA and our mission statement of making the best. Swiss Superluminova is now over 12,000.00 per pound and we put a minimum of 8 layers of SL on ever REACTOR we build, replacing spring bars with solid SS screw bars greatly increases the strength and fit but cost well over 100 times more than standard spring bar construction. Screw down crowns, double O ring construction, forged case backs are all very important components to making a REACTOR a REACTOR but come at a high cost.

We have always believed that building the best product, putting our dealer’s success and profitability before our own, keeping their customers happy, regardless of the cost, would make for a very strong long-term business…. Truth is it is not working.

What started off as an amazing dream has become a day-to-day challenge with very long hours, big financial risks, and no profit,

Our plan is to start promoting a retirement sale in early April to move through our current inventory, while making a commitment to our dealers and customers to keep our service center open through at least the balance of the year and to staff customer service to handle any concerns and needs. Once we make the decision to close the service center we will partner with a highly respected watch repair center and provide them with REACTOR specific parts to maintain ongoing service for REACTOR

The word “retirement” has never been a part of my vocabulary but with 5 grandchildren and a love for golf I am sure I will stay busy.

I want to personally thank our key dealers that have supported REACTOR and our mission, and I want to thank our many collectors that have supported us over the years and believed in me and my dream…

As stated, they are currently liquidating their inventory in a “retirement” sale. Not my cup of tea, but I’m sure some readers may want to take advantage of the discounts in their shop.

The $15 Ceramic Diver

From the unpublished archives. This blog was written in May of 2013

FOR the past few months, watchgeeks have been gushing over Sottomarino watches. This, the house brand of the retailer Precision Time who have both a chain of brick and mortar stores and an Internet retail presence. It seems to be treading in the TV brand space with oversized cases and inflated MSRPs.

Precision Time routinely runs specials on the Sotto brand with deep discount sales sweetened with coupon codes. It was one of these scenarios that was too good to pass up: the Ceramico on a rubber strap for $15. Two things stood out at this price; a ceramic case and a sapphire crystal. I figured it would be something to write a review about and for the price and materials would be a great summer beater. Perfect for shade tree mechanical jobs, yard work and eating sand later in the summer as the surf smashes me into the beach.

It took about five days to reach my mailbox. It shipped in a large, tin case similar to what you see with Fossil but with a hinged lid. as i opened it, I was initially taken back by the high-end look. Nice finishing, a clean aluminum bezel ring with sharp fonts and nice clean dial details. The first thing I noticed when pulling it out was the weight. As this is a ceramic watch I was expecting it to be a lot lighter until I got a good look at the caseback.

Where to start…

The Case. The face and side of the case looks great. It is a matte finish ceramic that is very pleasing to the touch. But flipping it over reveals that the case construction is actually two pieces – the stainless steel bottom of the watch with the ceramic fitting over it like a shell. The finish between the two case pieces is night and day. The stainless steel base is rough and poorly finished; this in sharp contrast to the well crafted ceramic top. The edges are super sharp and the tolerances are terrible with uneven gaps between the caseback and the surrounding ceramic top. Immediately the spell was broken. This was not much different than those Chinese switchblades at the flea market that seduce from afar and reveal their true hackiness up close.

Matte ceramic also has an odd quality in that when it gets covered in sweat and dries, it looks like the thing is covered in boogers.

The Bezel. With any dive style watch, a unidirectional bezel is pretty much the standard and the Ceramico is no exception. The clicks were solid with none of the sloppiness one would expect in a cheap watch. That was until I rotated it about a quarter turn and it immediately seized. It was then that the overall flawed bezel design became apparent as it is much too thin to be adequately manipulated with wet or dirty hands. I literally had to work it for several days to get it to reliably move through an entire one hundred degree rotation.

The Crown.

Here’s one from the spring that i never got around to publishing. I ended up replacing the terrible silicon band with a Panerai style leather band. Even with all of the flaws, this thing has taken a ton of abuse and keeps time. It looks pretty good in the wrist and has become my beater work watch.

As I went to unscrew the crown to set it, something seemed wrong. It felt like it was cross threaded. When I looked closely I found that it wasn’t centered properly into the case and that it was actually rubbing against the lower crown guard. Yet another detail missed.

The Dial. I can put up with a lot of flaws on a watch but an uncalibrated, inaccurate second hand drives me crazy. Couple that with haphazard dial markers and lume that’s worse than Invicta’s proprietary Tritinite and you’ve got a real mess. My biggest peeve is that the minute markers do not seem to be equidistant.

Interestingly enough, the hands have a great matte silver finish and are three dimensional.

The Strap and Buckle.

The silicone strap is okay but has proven to be a lint magnet. The buckle is nice and solid in a style reminiscent of Panerai.

The Crystal. This is actually the best feature of this watch. Very solid and thick and it has taken quite a beating. As expected, the optics distort the as it is viewed from the edge.

For $15, I kinda except all of the flaws. The retail of $399 is laughable. Even an Invictard would not put up with all of these issues from a yellow boxed behemoth. I’ve worn this thing to do a lot of manual labor and dirty jobs and knocked the hell out of it. It looks exactly as it did when I got it six weeks ago. Granted, it’s analogous to a really attractive woman with crossed-eye.