Would you buy an automatic watch from Casio? Digital watches, sure. Calculator watches, yeah, those are kind of retro cool. G-Shock, hell, yes! Edifice quartz analogues, yes. But an Edifice automatic? Yes, such a thing does exist and it has taken Casio into the hitherto untested waters of mechanical watchmaking with the Casio Edifice EFK-100 series of five watches. And just a few days ago they have been introduced in the Indian market at prices ranging from ₹25,995 to ₹39,995. And as automatic movement watches go, that’s a pretty sweet spot.

The new series, like the rest of the Edifice line, draws inspiration from motorsports for its designs. The top of the EFK-100 series is a black watch (EFK-100XPB-1A) with dial and case made of forged carbon and a urethane strap, making the whole watch light, at 87g. The case diameter is 40mm and thickness 12.5mm, which is a versatile size.

The other four watches in the series come with 39mm stainless steel cases. There is one with a forged carbon dial (EFK-100CD-1A), and three others with blue, green and white electroformed dial finishes (EFK-100D-2A, 3A, and 7A) that mimic the look of the forged carbon dial. The edgy brushed and polished cases give the watches a sports watch look that has been trending for quite some time now.

At the heart of the watch is Seiko’s TMI NH35A movement that is accurate to -35 to +45 seconds a day and a power reserve of about 40 hours. It also has a hacking seconds (where the seconds hand can be stopped to set the seconds exactly) and the date window at 6 o’clock. It is a movement that is powering a whole bunch of automatic watches from independent watchmakers and Seiko is turning out to be big global supplier of movements — there are other calibres as well — to smaller watchmakers.

This an interesting turn of events. Fifty-one years ago, back in 1974, Casio had entered the watch market with the Casiotron, the world’s first digital watch. This was when quartz watches were entering the market and Casio’s, unlike those of others, had no hands but a LCD digital readout. A whole bunch of mostly cheap and always cheerful Casio digital watches would follow, that were accurate, inexpensive, reliable, and pretty tough.

Five years before that, in December 1969, Seiko brought out the world’s first quartz wristwatch, the Seiko Quartz-Astron 35SQ. Together, Casio and Seiko triggered what snowballed into a crisis for the world’s best mechanical watchmakers. That was eventually stemmed by a coalescing of Swiss movement manufacturers like ETA, Valjoux and Sellita who supply good movements at lower costs to third-party manufacturers, many of whom are even well-known watch brands in their own right.

Cut to the present, and we have a bunch of mechanical watches from Casio that are trying to find space in the market. And it is a Seiko movement that is powering that foray. Now, when smartwatches are threatening mechanical watches, Casio, along with Seiko, could well help save the day for them!