July 28, 2026 · Microbrand
Let’s address the name before anything else: BA111OD is genuinely one of the more awkward brand names in the industry to say out loud, and no amount of Neuchâtel watchmaking heritage really fixes that. It reads more like a product SKU than a brand, and you will absolutely mispronounce it the first few times. That said — the watch underneath the name is doing real work. BA111OD only started in 2019, but the family behind it has been in watchmaking since the 1700s, and it shows in how deliberately they’ve built out the Chapter 7 line. The original Chapter 7 Skeleton launched in dark anthracite PVD earlier this year, and rather than let it sit, BA111OD has now flipped the whole mood: same watch, same architecture, but stripped back to bare natural steel. The brand says the change was inspired by the summer light on Lake Neuchâtel, right outside their own workshop, and it’s a genuinely different watch for it — brighter, cooler, and considerably easier to wear day to day than the moody original.
Nothing about the shape has changed — it’s the same 40mm tonneau-shaped integrated-bracelet case, 47mm lug-to-lug and a thin 10.5mm thick, with the crown angled off to 4 o’clock to keep the whole package compact. What’s different is the finish: vertically brushed surfaces on both case and bracelet, offset by polished facets that actually read differently now that they’re catching natural steel light instead of disappearing into anthracite. That same brushed-and-polished treatment carries straight into the skeleton dial, where BA111OD’s Soprod P024 sits fully exposed. Worth noting: this isn’t just an open caseback bolted onto an off-the-shelf movement — the caliber itself has been lightly skeletonized, which is a genuinely uncommon thing to see at this price bracket.
The steel version comes on either the integrated bracelet, with BA111OD’s tool-free micro-adjustment clasp, or a new frost blue rubber strap that leans even further into the summer framing — the campaign fittingly stars Neuchâtel-based wingfoiler Loïc Huguenin, one of Switzerland’s top competitors in the sport, playing on the same lake the watch is named after. Water resistance sits at 100m, with a transparent caseback and 38 hours of reserve from the automatic Soprod movement.
My honest take
What I like here is that BA111OD didn’t just repaint the dial and call it a new colorway — changing the case finish on a skeleton watch changes how the whole thing photographs and wears, since the light is doing half the design work once the dial’s this open. At CHF 895 for an automatic with a genuinely skeletonized movement, not just an open window over a stock caliber, this remains one of the more honest value propositions in the integrated-bracelet-sports-watch space that everyone’s been chasing since the Royal Oak and Nautilus boom. Does a lighter case finish actually change how you’d wear a skeleton watch day to day, or is that more marketing than substance?
The short version
| Model | Chapter 7 Skeleton, natural steel summer edition |
| Case | 40mm x 10.5mm, 47mm lug-to-lug, 316L steel |
| Movement | Soprod P024, automatic, lightly skeletonized |
| Power Reserve | 38 hours |
| Water Resistance | 100m |
| Availability | From August 2026 |
| Price | CHF 895 (rubber) / CHF 955 (bracelet) |
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