Philippe Kahn is a big man with a big personality and big feelings about Swiss watches. He’s got a massive Alpina model on his wrist, and he’s bragging about how the watch is water-resistant down to 100 meters, and can last more than two years on its built-in battery.
He hands me a different Alpina. This one is for women. It’s smaller and more delicate with hand-set diamonds. Next Kahn celebrates a trio of watches from Frederique Constant, another Swiss brand. Their aesthetic is more deliberately urbane than a snifter of brandy. The fanciest of the three models has rose-gold plating that’s been polished to a concours-level shine.
Kahn didn’t design the watches, but he’s helping to bring them to market—and he’s very, very eager to explain what they represent. He’s the CEO of Fullpower, the company that developed the MotionX activity-tracking algorithms for the Nike Fuelband and the first three Jawbone UP wristbands. And now Fullpower is aiming to bring that same step- and sleep-tracking technology to real Swiss watches.
