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| Black subdials form the panda’s eye patches, and the chronograph pushers sit at the top of the case as its ears. |
Seiko has opened pre-orders for a chronograph designed to look like an actual panda, two years after the watch first appeared as a concept. The Power Design Project Panda Chronograph is limited to 5,000 pieces and costs $540 in the US, £510 in the UK, and €590 in Europe, with deliveries expected from November.
It is a watch that sounds like a joke until you see the details. This is not simply another “panda dial” chronograph in the traditional collector sense. It is a chronograph that tries, quite literally, to resemble the animal.
A Panda You Don’t Have to Explain
Designer Kiyotaka Sakai created the watch, first shown in 2024 under the name Pandagraph, after his son told him that his panda-dial chronograph was not really a panda. Collectors use the term for any chronograph with a light dial and contrasting dark subdials. Sakai set out to design one that his son would recognize as the animal.
The white dial carries a texture meant to resemble fur. The black subdials at 3 and 9 o’clock are shaped like a panda’s eye patches, and a nose and mouth sit below the central hands. The hour and minute hands are shaped like bamboo leaves.
In place of a tachymeter, the dial carries what Seiko calls a Sasameter, calibrated so that a two-minute timing reads 30 km/h, which the company gives as a panda’s theoretical top speed. The chronograph pushers are positioned at the top of the case, where they form the panda’s ears.
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| The Seiko Power Design Project Panda Chronograph in white |
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| The Seiko power design project panda chronograph in white |
Two Versions, 5,000 Pieces
The production model comes in the concept’s original white as the HHK001 and in a new pink version, the HHK002, which Seiko says was inspired by a newborn panda. Seiko will make 3,000 of the white watches and 2,000 of the pink ones.
For full specifications, Seiko has published details on the dedicated HHK001 product page. Collectors who want to compare it with the rest of the current catalog can also browse Seiko’s watch finder.
Quartz Movement Makes the Layout Possible
The stainless steel case measures 43mm across and 14.6mm thick. Inside is Seiko’s 8T61 quartz chronograph movement, rated to ±15 seconds a month. Oracle of Time notes that the quartz calibre accommodates the top-mounted pushers, a layout that would be harder to achieve with a conventional mechanical chronograph movement.
That detail matters. The panda-ear pushers are not just decorative. They are part of the watch’s unusual functionality, and the quartz movement helps make the arrangement practical.
Why the Power Design Project Matters
The Power Design Project is Seiko’s internal design laboratory, where its designers build experimental concepts for public exhibition. It ran from 2001 to 2009 and returned in 2022 as a series of exhibitions in Tokyo.
Its first commercial release, the Collection 1, reworked Seiko’s 1980s Tissé and went on sale last December at €405 to €450 in runs of 500 per finish, all of which sold out. That success likely helped pave the way for the panda chronograph to move from exhibition curiosity to production model.
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| The Seiko power design project panda chronograph in pink |
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| The Seiko power design project panda chronograph in white |
A Separate Watch From the Prospex Speedtimer
Seiko teased the panda chronograph in late September with a silhouette of a panda eating bamboo and the line “Who are you?” The watch is separate from the Prospex Speedtimer SSC813, a solar chronograph that also uses a panda-style dial.
For anyone who has ever found standard panda dials too abstract, this release takes the idea to its logical, playful extreme. It is still a serious Seiko chronograph, but it is also a watch that a child—or a collector with a sense of humor—might immediately recognize as a panda.
Pre-orders are open now, with the limited run split between the white HHK001 and pink HHK002. With only 5,000 pieces total and deliveries beginning in November, availability may not last long.