We are over halfway through the year, and while many - including the rest of the editorial team - were somewhat underwhelmed by the recent Watches & Wonders, it doesn't mean that there weren't some good watches released this year. The following is our favorite watches of 2026, which includes new releases, new additions to our collection, or in some cases, watches we don't even have in our possession... yet.

Nubeo, as a brand, is no stranger to strange or cutting-edge, science fiction inspired designs (see the Missile Command Limited Edition Release recently), but they somehow continue to surprise me with each new release. Their latest collection, the Ulysses, is no exception, and it might just be my favorite watch from them yet.

There are some watches, which are built with multiple meanings in mind. These watches, in their description, try to keep it as vague as possible, so that it can appeal to as many people as possible. The newest limited edition release from Spinnaker does not care about trying to keep things general, and non-specific. As its name and design suggests, the Spinnaker Croft Dolphin Project was made to raise awareness about marine conservation prior to the upcoming World Whale & Dol

Spinnaker has been a crowd favorite - particularly in the past two years - for their robust divers at affordable price points. During a time when Seiko, who was once the Budget Diver King, has seemingly raised prices across the board outside of their Seiko 5 collection, Spinnaker seems committed to filling this vacuum with their own watches.

Most microbrands tend to compete over price - i.e. offering incredible prices for watches below what these mainstream brands would typically offer. Other microbrands try to compete by creating something entirely unique - something that you can’t just walk into any boutique to add to the collection. Orphic Watches, like Christopher Ward with their Bel Canto, has somehow managed to combine both things with Project 0: a Wandering Hours Watch inspired by the James Webb Telesc

With the recent release of the new Omega Seamaster for the latest James Bond game, or even the Call of Duty x Hamilton watch, it seems that gaming collaborations with watches are a hot commodity at the moment. While it would have been easier and arguably more profitable to collaborate with something like Minecraft or Fortnite, Nubeo Watches chose to collaborate with Atari on creating a new watch that honors where it all started: Missile Command.

Imagine you're flying through the sky as faceless pilots do their best to shoot you down. Scary, right? Now imagine that you're doing all of this while piloting a machine that was invented less than two decades ago. This is what the volunteer pilots of the La Fayette Escadrille, a French Air Force unit comprised of both American and French pilots, during the First World War experienced every time they flew. Now that we are over a hundred years removed from the original aerial

You can see it across all of their watches - whether it’s the small-seconds subdials that look like the fuel gauges of vintage sports cars, or their bullhead chronographs that make it seem like the pushers are exhaust valves of a race car. When it came time to create a new watch, it was important for Cadola that the watch would maintain that vision, and that’s exactly what they have done with the newly released Cadola Slipstream.

So when Christopher Ward announced the C63 Sealander True GMT, it immediately caught my attention. Not just because it’s a new Sealander, but because it introduces the brand’s fourth in-house movement and finally brings a fully integrated traveller GMT complication to their lineup. And after looking through the details, it feels like Christopher Ward might have built something very close to what I personally want in a GMT watch.