Speaking about the crowns, there are two. This is a “compressor-style,” watch. The top crown at roughly 2 o’clock adjusts the internal bezel. The crown at 3:30 winds the watch and sets the time. One thing I have noticed is that you need to be very intentional when screwing down the bezel adjustment crown. Otherwise, it doesn’t fully disengage the mechanism, and it’ll move it a hair while you’re screwing it down. Not a big deal, but worth pointing out.

Nodus chose the Miyota 9015 for the Duality. This seems perfectly fine to me — 24 jewels and a 28,800 BPH movement. This is generally thought to be a cheaper alternative to a Swiss movement. While this might be the case, I’ve owned several watches with Miyota 90XX movements, and they always perform excellently.

Keeping cost in mind, I believe that’s a really attractive movement for this price point — the incorporation of a Swiss Sellita or ETA movement would likely bump the price of this piece into a different category.

The dial is where the Duality really hits its stride. The watch has two crowns, is offered in two colors, and has a double-layered dial. I would personally argue that there are three layers to the Duality’s dial, however. The hour markers are applied, but the centers that would usually be filled with lume are cut out in the style of a sandwich dial. The lume is beneath. As you can imagine, this delivers an enormous amount of visual interest. The sacrifice, however, seems to be the lume intensity. I would guess that it has to do with the exposure the luminescent paint gets to the light.

The sapphire crystal is quite interesting, as well. There’s a sharp bevel along the rims of the crystal that lead into a flat plane. The best way to think about it would be somewhere in between a boxed sapphire crystal and a domed crystal. This crystal adds to the sparkliness of the watch itself. The bevel catches the light really nicely, but the flat center portion cuts down on any potential distortion. This is clear in the pictures.

The chapter ring on the Duality has been replaced by the inner rotating dive bezel. This watch is also available with a 12-hr travelers bezel, which would be my preferred configuration. The green painted triangle at 0 is lumed and should be visible when needed. The remainder of the painted numbers are not. This bezel appeals to me because it’s easily adjusted in either direction; this would be especially useful in the 12-hour configuration as you move through timezones.

It feels almost clichéd at this point to highlight how crowded the independent watch brand landscape is. It’s true, though, and it takes something special to stand out. Sometimes, the special something is a design that speaks to you, or sometimes it’s a functionality/value equation that works for your needs. In my opinion, I Nodus straddles the two with the Duality. You get a well-rounded and highly functional timepiece for precisely the right price. Plus, it’s something that you can be proud to put on your wrist. I know I have been. 

Necessary Data
>Brand: Nodus
>Model: Duality
>Price: SOLD OUT!
>Size: 40mm
>Would reviewer personally wear it: Yes!
>Friend we’d recommend it to first: Someone who is looking for a modern compressor-style watch.
>Best characteristic of watch: The multi-layered dial.
>Worst characteristic of watch: Some of the sharper edges; this is very minor, however.