Hublot iPhone App Review

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
Nov 3rd 2010 at 9:02AM

The promise of easy distribution to masses of (potential) luxury buyers via the iPhone App Store has made it an attractive venue for many luxury watch makers as a means of educating those interested in their watches. While iPhone application quality has been all over the board, the better ones give users a reason to keep the apps after initially downloading them. At the least, the apps should offer people a close-up and personal views of the timepieces they are interested in possibly buying.

Hublot has recently released their own iPhone app. Not exactly late in the game, Hublot seems to have wanted to take some time to develop they app and imbue it with a lot of functionality (as well as the core Hublot brand themes). Hands down, my favorite aspect of the application is a sort of augmented reality feature that lets you preview how their watches will look on your wrist. Starting with an impressive selection of their timepieces to choose from, you take a picture of your wrist along an outline of an arm, and then place the watch on your wrist. It gives you an amazingly real perspective of what a watch would look like if you wore it, and the system is simple and easy.

Other good features in the app are technical information for many of the brand's watches, as well as 360 degree displays of several Hublot timepieces that were taken on a special camera in-house at Hublot. Hublot further has developed a game that is based on the fact that mechanical watches need to be wound, and a "testing" mode where you can use the functions of a few Hublot watches, that also show the correct time as taken from your iPhone's internal clock.

Gallery: Hublot iPhone app

The app has a lot of features, most are useful, but a few feel a bit redundant. It isn't a big deal, but as Hublot refines the application, I expect them to merge some of the features together. They experiment with an interesting "watch builder" that has you putting together an Hublot watch using sounds. After you choose a few sounds which are related to parts of the watch you get to see what you have created. I don't quite understand that application, but do get that this is part of Hublot's furtherance of its "Fusion" message. It is interesting to use, and the sounds are nice, but the end results feel a bit unpredictable and leave the user a bit confused as to what it is all about.

The included game is amusing, and has you shaking the phone to keep a "power reserve indicator filled." Good thing power reserves on actual Hublot watches last MUCH longer. Hublot uses an internet connect function to have you compete against other players, the best of which can win prizes. The problem is that you must register with Hublot to play the game, and cannot play it without offering to them some information. I would recommend to Hublot to let people play the game without registering, but giving them the option to so if they want to join in the competition and contests.

Of course the app has a feature to show you nearby Hublot retailers using the location of you phone, as well as other information about where to get Hublot watches. It would have been good to include pricing information, but few brands do this. Which is interesting because in Switzerland prices must be shown in shop windows by law. If you are interested in getting an Hublot timepiece, or are a fan of the brand, the app is a comfortable (and free) addition to your iPhone app collection. The interesting features keep your attention on the app long after you'd have deleted most others, and with some refinement, Hublot can have an app that will really provide a lot of people positive messages about the brand and offer existing Hublot watch fans a way of incorporating their feelings in to their phone.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: app, apple, hublot, iphone, review, watch, watches

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jerome Pineau Nov 3rd 2010 4:48PM

Hi Ariel, and thanks for taking the time to test drive our iphone app. Just to add some insight to the musical composition part: the idea is to let people define a watch based on musical "mood", as opposed to a more classic "pick this and that from a generic database" approach often used in other apps. We actually put professional musicians and materials engineers together in a room and they figured out together how to match (or fuse, as you point out) musical frequency to both material density (of steel, tungsten or zirconium, for example) and color. End result is you can compose everything from a "terminator" watch to a more gentle "zen" type of model - demonstrating how our mixture of matter (fusion) can lead to a very wide & felxible array of possibilities. This is one of the key differentiating aspects of Hublot - now scientifically proven :)
Best,
Jerome.