Over the years, RZE has developed multiple facets to its own unique persona, debuting with the world’s first fully hardened-titanium tool watches and exploring the most essential styles of these timekeeping devices, from everyday sports and field watches to divers, GMTs, and pilot timepieces. On Mainspring we have analyzed several of its models and we’ve been fans of all of them, as it seems the brand cannot release a bad collection, each new model it brought to market was followed by a review over here which was itself sub-titled something like “The Best RZE so far.” And so far repeated itself multiple times until the Resolute Type A which is by far my favorite of the massive bunch RZE has output since Travis Tan founded the brand in 2020. Even though RZE has always been about building reliable and comfortable tool watches for active or passive lives (they think about everyone), more recently, since the introduction of its first digital watch the UTD-8000, they’ve gotten into a different chapter. 

As the more time passes, the more RZE focuses on building a comprehensive portfolio of the most dependable, no-nonsense, no-frills tool watches no other micro house of horology would know how to come up with, equipped with battery-operated calibers and displaying more straightforward designs, unveiling one affordable tough nugget after another, the latest being the Seeker which comes in three variants including this DLC Metropolis Blue—which we should consider as being the most badass analog watch the brand has ever created. And even though I’m not the biggest fan of DLC or PVD-coated cases—which RZE is sarcastically aware of—I’ve been asked to get outside my narrow comfort zone to review a timepiece that doesn’t have a fully brushed stainless steel case and monochromatic dial. I’m taking one for the team. Retailing for $299 USD and with pre-orders opening up on November 19*, the Seeker was designed and spec’ed out to be your next affordable no-thinking grab-and-go everyday watch for 99% of what you do. 

*The Seeker is not currently listed on RZE’s website but you should keep an eye out for it. 

Specifications 

Amongst the many conversations we have about horology, the things we like and the ones we dislike, the question of value for money is one at the center of most reviews that pertain to microbrand offerings, and one which sadly divides our community of enthusiasts of non-essential timekeeping devices. As you might have read before on Mainspring, AliExpress pretty much blew a hole in the raison d’être of numerous microbrands whose primary reason for living was to offer good designs with good specs for good prices. But the ginormous online retail platform put mass-produced high-value watches so easily accessible to so many watch nerds that it shifted the value-conversation from one about how good microbrands were at offering attainable original creations, to how none of them can now compete with AliExpress specials, just because they offer more specifications for less money than most micros can. But offering soulless cheaply made watches with sapphire crystals, 100 meters of water resistance, and good lume doesn’t make for good horology. 

Surprisingly then, RZE seems to be releasing watches that are becoming more and more affordable whilst preserving the core technical recipe that made the brand stand out in the first place—hardened titanium cases. As far as my aging brain can recalls, the Singaporean brand has yet to commercialize a collection over $1,000 USD, and more often than not, their models live comfortably below the $500 USD price mark, which has been a core defining characteristics of microbrands vs independent and luxurious ones for more than a decade. What is pretty incredible about RZE then, and what makes it stand out even more prominently in the over-saturated microbrand market, is the fact that it manages to offer more robust, superiorly reliable, and still visually singular timepieces for less money than most microbrands can. As for the $299 USD RZE is asking for to slide a Seeker into your pocket, you get more than what you wished for in terms of specifications and design. For the first element, which we’re discussing now, we begin with the case. 

All three versions of the Seeker—the UltraHex™ Spruce Green, UltraHex™ Carbon Black, and DLC Metropolis Blue—come in a grade 2 titanium chassis measuring 38m in diameter, 45.7mm lug-to-lug, 10.2mm in thickness, and a 20mm lug width, putting this model in the modern-average-dimensions category many enthusiasts will appreciate. The first two versions come with RZE’s proprietary UltraHex™ coating which increases the titanium scratch-resistance to 1,200Hv on Vicker’s Hardening Scale (untreated grade 2 titanium’s ranges 145-200Hv,) and the third has a DLC coating pushing its scratch-resistance to 2,000Hv. All come with knurled push/pull crowns measuring 5.9 in millimeters, paired with screwed-down case-backs for a sufficient 100 meters of water resistance. (Remember, it was estimated that the Seeker was good for 99% of what you do, and that is the type of water resistance that you need for that.) Moreover, the crystal is made of inner AR-coated sapphire and the dial showcases generous-for-the price dual applications of BGW9 and C3 lume. 

And, as mentioned earlier, while RZE managed to preserve one of its core technical specifications that has always put it inside its own microbrand box—hardened titanium cases—it has managed to continue to offer affordable tough-as-nails tool watches by adding a grab-and-go feature to its collections by way of solar-powered quartz calibers. As far as my aging brain still recalls, RZE never offered regular quartz movements but went straight to solar ones, and it makes sense that it did: while it shifted focus to making attainable watches, RZE also invested in making environmental-friendly horology by using recycled materials for its straps (the Seeker comes on a color-matched recycled polyester strap equipped with DLC hardware) and solar-powered movements that reduce the number of batteries finishing their lives in landfills, since capacitors have a lifespan of about 15 years. Anyway, the Seeker is powered by the Epson AS01 which comes with a stated monthly accuracy of ± 20 seconds and four months of power reserve on a full charge. 

Design 

The other thing RZE does well and has been doing for a while is to recycle its own design formulas for cases and dials, which is not a derogatory remark to formulate because once again it makes sense that they would: since RZE’s catalog is filling up with more and more affordable robust tool watches, replacing for example mechanical movements with solar-quartz calibers, logically the brand leafs through its own archives to pick a very good case design from one collection to pair with an effective dial layout from another, reshaping an angle here and there and refreshing the width of a typeface in the process as well. Think of it as replacing a car’s combustion engine for an electric one without changing its design or dimensions, and swapping heavy and clunky steel parts with lightweight carbon-fiber ones whilst decreasing the price of the darn machine. Granted, my car-horology analogy needs some fine-tuning but you get the point. (Please say that you do.) In other words, the Seeker DLC Metropolis Blue is an authentic RZE creation. 

Because what is the point of inventing new wheels all the time if you aren’t done using the ones you already have, which you can adjust to fit new purposes? That is why the Seeker’s case isn’t exactly as it was on a previous collection, the Urbanist, for the brand enlarged its sharp and muscular hardened titanium chassis to standardize its wrist presence, albeit it didn’t redraw its unique profile. In its original formula, this case measured 36 x 42 x 11mm and now it grew 2mm in diameter, 3.7mm in lug-to-lug, but shrunk by 0.8mm in height, placing it in the perfect middle-spot for most enthusiasts’ wrists around the globe, being neither too dainty for gym bros nor too extreme for the ladies. Therefore, by repurposing the Urbanist’ case, RZE gave another one of its proprietary visual horological elements a new purpose, and it turns out, as the brand doesn’t do anything by happenstance, it perfectly matches the tough-urban-everyday aesthetic of the Seeker’s. For instance, the sculpted scalloped bezel is bold, the thin case is comfy.

While I hope you are taking a small break from this review to go read up on the Urbanist—I shall not write another treaty about its fantastic case—we’re going to move onto the dial which has something of the Urbanist and Valour 38 (I reviewed elsewhere) blended together to generate something subtly new. What we are familiar with are the two sets of Arabic numerals anchored onto invisible concentric circles, one set of BGW9-coated numerals indicating the local time and another the 24-hour military time, printed in a modern rounded typeface to guarantee superlative legibility. On the periphery of the dial there is a slightly raised minute track with short hash-marks to indicate individual minutes, and C3-coated rectangles and triangles marking the 5-minute increments. The time is therefore through clean visual elements and three legible hands—two stubby polished pencil-style ones for the hour and minutes, each reaching the markers as they should, and a bright orange seconds one ever so slightly disrupting the dial’s perfect balance. 

The last piece of the Seeker DLC Metropolis Blue’s design we ought to discuss (and which borders its technical characteristics) is another subtle one and that would be the dial texture. And here RZE made an almost invisible change that goes a long way in making this model a better tool watch than the Urbanist was: on the former the solar cells are hidden beneath a textured transparent surface which looks like anything but that of your typical solar-powered timepiece, whilst on the latter they were built-into the chapter ring. The thinking with the Urbanist was to guarantee maximum legibility by moving the solar cells to the outer portion of the dials which came with a drawback—that it would take longer for the capacitors to juice up—while with the Seeker, RZE managed to preserve excellent legibility whilst concurrently making the charging process much more efficient. 

The Heart of the Matter

Being a microbrand and doing something interesting and good is tough. It was so 10 years ago and it remains the case in 2026 for two main reasons: (1) there are too many brands on the market all the time offering too many tool watches at all price spectrums—so many in fact that there is probably a bunch of incredible models we have never heard of yet because their existence is drowned out by the buzzing sound emitted by the hundreds of meh brands and their numerous blah models; (2) maintaining the interesting and good aspects of what they do is becoming more and more challenging each year as prices for parts, shipping, and duties go up and up without any end in sight. So what typically happens is brands up the prices of their collections either for no good reason or for good ones, or add a new component (often more fancy and more expensive) to justify asking more dough for their horological creations. The result: there are fewer and fewer options for attainable robust tool watches on the market today insofar you do not look at AliExpress. 

But RZE is nuts: it began by offering the first tool watches equipped with hardened grade 2 titanium cases and bracelets for less than a thousand American pesos, exploring all popular styles of utilitarian timekeeping devices and acing most interpretations it had of them, to now decreasing the MSRP of its most robust, most reliable, and most legible activity watches. In other words, more than any other brand my aging brain can think of right now, RZE is the leading voice in democratizing and standardizing tough grab-and-go tool watches by doing what most other brands aren’t capable of or don’t have the guts to do: to make better, cheaper, and more durable collections so that we would feel compelled to own fewer of them which in itself comes with many benefits for our wallets, the planet, and home organization. 

Conclusion 

To arrive at some kind of conclusion I would end with this: across all platforms I’ve contributed articles to, including Mainspring obviously, I’ve written something like 20 reviews on RZE’s horological creations since 2020. I was drawn to its debut collection, the Resolute, for it offered something we had never seen before—original design, hardened titanium case, good overall specs and sublime value—which has been copied and homaged multiple times since. And one could dare say the same has happened with many of its subsequent collections until RZE decided it was time for it to move onto something new and more sensical: digital watches as we saw with the UTD-8000-MY and now solar-powered quartz multi-activity timepieces such as the Seeker DLC Metropolis Blue. Thus, the brand continues to add up bold moves and I cannot wait to see what comes next.

The essential and final information you should be aware of as the Seeker release goes is as follows: all three versions will be available for pre-order starting November 19, 2026, for the price of $299 USD, with shipping slated to begin in late December of the same year. 

Thanks for reading.