The Most WIRED Watches at Watches and Wonders 2026 | WIRED

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If last year’s Watches and Wonders felt like it was playing against a backdrop of geopolitical chaos (with Trump's tariff bombshell sending a shiver through the Swiss watch industry), the 2026 edition arrives with its own complicated backdrop. The downturn that has been gnawing at Swiss watchmakers for the past two years hasn't fully lifted, and the industry is still finding its footing in a world where Chinese appetite remains muted and a booming secondary market is increasingly the first port of call for buyers discouraged by ever-rising retail prices.

And yet Geneva looks set to deliver. The 2026 show is shaping up to be the largest watchmaking gathering ever organized in the city, with a significant storyline being the return of Audemars Piguet, absent from the show since 2019.

But above all, 2026 is a year of anniversaries. Patek Philippe is marking the 50th birthday of the Nautilus. Tudor is celebrating its centenary. Most anticipated is the 100th year of Rolex’s Oyster case, which gave rise to the world’s first mass-market waterproof wristwatch in 1926. The Rolex Day-Date also turns 70 this year, introduced in 1956 as the first watch to display both the day and date spelled in full, affording the world's largest luxury watch brand two landmark occasions to shout about.

As ever, the timepieces themselves cut through the noise. Here are our top picks from the show so far, and we’ll be updating this throughout the week as we find more WIRED watches.

Updated April 14: We've added new watches from Tudor, Rolex, and Patek Philippe.

Courtesy of IWC

IWC Pilot’s Venturer Vertical Drive

The Pilot's Venturer Vertical Drive is IWC’s first watch designed from the ground up for human spaceflight. This isn’t a modified terrestrial pilot's watch with a few space miles on it; it’s a purpose-built instrument engineered in partnership with Vast, the company behind Haven-1, scheduled to be the world's first commercial space station.

The problem it solves is practical. Astronauts can't easily operate a crown while wearing Extravehicular Activity (EVA) gloves, so IWC has ditched it entirely. A patent-pending rotating bezel now handles all functions (winding, time-setting, and switching between the two displayed time zones) via a clever clutch system called Vertical Drive. A rocker switch on the case side flips between the modes.

The sleek black dial, stripped to essentials to avoid light reflections, shows two times plus a 24-hour scale (essential in orbit, where you'll experience 16 sunrises a day), all powered by a new in-house caliber with a 120-hour power reserve.

The case is white zirconium oxide ceramic with a Ceratanium bezel and back, rated to handle temperature swings from 100 to -100 degrees Celsius (212 to -238 Fahrenheit). Indeed, the whole piece has been shaken to 10 g’s at Vast's Long Beach facility, exceeding forces astronauts experience during ascent, and came out the other side running just fine. Price is still up in the air.

Courtesy of TAG Heuer

TAG Heuer Monaco Evergraph (From $25,000)

Watch brands love finding ever more recherché areas to reinvent, and the precise “snick” of a chronograph’s stop/start/reset buttons is the latest micro-battlefield in which R&D teams are duking it out. Last year, Audemars Piguet took the feel of an iPhone button as the inspiration for its Royal Oak RD#5; now TAG Heuer has its own take on push-button ergonomics.

Normally, chronograph buttons involve a cluster of levers, springs, and cams that click into place with varying degrees of precision. TAG Heuer has thrown most of that out with the Calibre TH80-00, five years in development between its TAG Heuer LAB innovation department and movement maker Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier. It replaces the traditional architecture with two flexible bistable components—essentially shape-shifting parts that snap between positions—produced via high-precision LIGA fabrication, a micro-manufacturing technique that includes lithography, electroforming, and molding.

The result? Crisper actuation that, crucially, doesn't degrade. According to TAG, the 10,000th press feels identical to the first. Paired with TAG's incredibly high-tech TH-Carbonspring oscillator (magnetism-resistant, 5-Hz, 70-hour reserve, COSC-certified), it's housed in a reworked 40-mm titanium Monaco with the crown back on the left where Steve McQueen's 1969 original had it. You get two versions: brushed titanium with blue accents or black Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) with red. The dial is transparent acrylic, so you can watch the compliant mechanism do its thing.

Courtesy of Vacheron

Vacheron Constantin Overseas Dual Time Cardinal Points (Price on Request)

Vacheron Constantin's Overseas line, among the most celebrated examples of Switzerland’s dominant "sports-luxe" genre, leans heavily into the sport