Watches and Wonders 2024 – The LAB
Watches and Wonders 2024 was a unique experiment for Oratek. Not a product launch, not a service demonstration — but a vision. An answer to a question we had been sitting with for a while: what should the watch display of the future look like?
A Mega-Structure That Thinks
The installation we designed is a large-scale motorised display structure. Watches are mounted on individual actuated arms — each one capable of moving up and down independently and rotating on itself. The back wall is a full-surface display screen, acting as a dynamic backdrop that can play unique video content for each watch position.
But the structure doesn’t just move. It reacts.
Built Entirely In-House
Every layer of this installation was designed and developed internally at Oratek. The motorised mechanics, the custom electronics driving each actuated arm, the embedded software, the vision system handling attention detection, the real-time control logic — all of it built from the ground up by our team.
No off-the-shelf modules. No outsourced integration. This is what Oratek does every day for its industrial clients — translate complex, multi-disciplinary challenges into compact, reliable, production-grade systems. The LAB was an opportunity to apply that same engineering depth to a radically different domain.
Gaze as Interface
The system is built around attention detection. When no one is present, the watches move freely — animating, dancing, drawing the eye from a distance. As someone approaches, the movement slows. When a visitor focuses their gaze on a specific watch with intention, the system responds: the other watches retract and lower, the selected piece presents itself at eye level, the background shifts, colours emerge, and a dedicated video animation begins playing behind it.
The watch chooses you as much as you choose it.
At Watches and Wonders, people stopped. They stared. Several came back a second time to try again. The reaction was consistent: something genuinely new was happening.
The Retail Analytics Layer
Beyond the visitor experience, the installation carries a serious business dimension — one that resonated strongly in conversations with watch brands and retailers throughout the event.
In the digital world, every interaction is measured. Brands know exactly how many people saw a post, clicked a product, lingered on a page. In the physical world — especially in the high-footfall, ultra-premium locations where luxury watch retailers operate — almost none of that data exists.
How many people walked past the window today? How long did they stop? Which watch did they look at, and for how long? Did they come back?
The infrastructure behind this installation can answer all of those questions. It transforms a window display into a measurement instrument, bringing the metrics of digital retail into the physical world without changing the experience for the visitor.
Conversations That Mattered
The LAB generated some of the most interesting conversations Oratek has had with the watch industry. Brands and retailers from around the world engaged with both dimensions of the project — the experiential and the analytical — and the questions asked confirmed that this intersection of physical retail and real-time attention data is a space the industry is actively thinking about.
A Project Built in Partnership
This installation was developed in collaboration with Studio Raphaël Lutz for the design and creative direction, and Preorder & Soldout for the execution and deployment.
To discuss how this technology could apply to your retail environment, or to learn more about Oratek’s engineering capabilities, feel free to contact us.
