When I woke up this morning, I did not anticipate seeing Casio releasing their first-ever mechanical watch. This new Casio ediface becomes the first Casio watch to not hold any quartz mechanism to measure time. The Ediface line has been a fan favorite as they provide a more premium alternative to the classic Casio line when it comes to analog watches. With sapphire glass and a solid quartz movement, these watches were a budget beast.

To spice up the ediface collection, they didn’t decide to take the easy way out by adding some new dial colors, or a new size, or PVD coating the bracelet in some new material like uranium or something crazy. Instead, Casio went and made a new automatic caliber, again, I can’t stress this enough, for the first time in the brand’s history. Granted, the brand has only been making watches in an era where quartz models were cheaper to produce, but still, this is incredible.

Let’s quickly talk about this new Casio revelation of an automatic watch. The caliber is highly inaccurate, the average daily rate is -35+45 seconds a day, and the power reserve of 42 hours. Accuracy is not the goal how ever, due to the cheap nature of the watch, this launches it into competition with the likes of Citizen and Seiko for that sub 400 dollar price range in the category of automatic watches.

These watches are not only automatic but they are also very pretty as the dials are arguably the best we have seen from the Ediface collection with a truly unique texture that helps the watch stand on its own two feet in the war with other Japanese watchmakers. The watch also has an integrated bracelet, making it the most direct competitor to the Citizen Tsuyosa.

But as if one new thing wasn’t enough for Casio, they also made their first watch out of forged carbon, and yes, it also has the new automatic caliber. I usually am not a fan of carbon or ceramic, and I still don’t know if I like this carbon watch, but I won’t ever discourage a brand for doing something new and different with an established watch line to see if it can be improved.

The biggest pro with these watches is the same as we talked about in our Seiko article: these watches are fantastic in introducing new people to the beauty and tradition of mechanical watchmaking, and I sincerely hope that Casio will keep growing that market.