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All New Rolex Releases At Watches & Wonders 2025: The Land-Dweller
The problem with Watches & Wonders Geneva being held at the start of April is there is always the possibility those of us who don’t attend and only get to see new models through press releases might mistake the more off-beat ones for pranks.
That was my immediate thought when I saw the first images of Rolex’s newest creation, the Land-Dweller.
In my defense, there was not a hint the brand was going to launch a luxury sports watch collection harkening back to their brief 1970s foray into quartz via the design genius of Gerald Genta.
Yet, it was not, as you now know, an April Fool’s jape. What the Land-Dweller is, in fact, is arguably Rolex’s most significant and impressive launch in years.
Out of the Blue
When I say there was no suggestion of this new model arriving, that’s not entirely accurate. Rolex USA actually patented the names ‘Land-Dweller’ and ‘Coast-Dweller’ back in the summer of 2023.
The move was picked up on by some hard core watch enthusiasts who, presumably, monitor the Swiss Patent Office (everyone’s gotta have a hobby, I guess) and the news was broadcast far and wide across Internetland.
There followed a few days of wild speculation, in much the same vein as when all we knew about the Sky-Dweller a decade ago was its name, then the whole thing blew over and disappeared. Rolex, as always, remained characteristically tightlipped on the subject.
Fast forward to this year’s premier horology trade show and, lo and behold, we have the third point in the manufacture’s ‘Dweller’ triangle.
What is it?
Even though I thought the model was some kind of elaborate hoax at first (we all know how famously zany the Swiss are) and the reveal came as something of a shock to the system, the Land-Dweller has since grown on me.
I think my initial reticence was that I didn’t know what it was for. Rolex has attained its unrivalled position in the industry through their tool watches that, gentrified as they might be these days, still stand as some of the most able and talented you can buy. And none more so than the ‘Dwellers’.
The Sea-Dweller, for instance, hits the perfect sweet spot of being both eminently wearable while possessing fearsome water resistance—far more than you would ever need. The aforementioned Sky-Dweller is the ideal travel companion, with a dual time zone display and an annual calendar.
The Land-Dweller doesn’t really have a theme. It has no complications beyond a date function and has the same 100m waterproofing as any non-dive specific Rolex.
The brand themselves explain that it is ‘designed for those who assert their place in the world and build their own destinies’. Which doesn’t really clear things up particularly.
But now that some time has passed since its release, I can see that the Land-Dweller just is what it is. It is a member of an exclusive club founded by the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and made iconic by the Patek Nautilus. It is a luxury sports watch, meaning it was designed to handle pretty much anything there is to throw at it, and to look extraordinary while doing so.
The Collection
The collection is made up of two sizes, 36mm and 40mm, with five models in each.
Both sizes have a single white Rolesor example (steel case and white gold fluted bezel) along with two Everose models (one with fluted bezel, the other with a diamond surround), and two platinum pieces with the same bezel options.
All but the platinum watches come with white honeycomb dials, a delicate repeated motif cut with a femtosecond laser, a standard three o’clock date window and baton hour markers except for the six and nine which are Explorer-esque Arabic numerals.
The handset, while similar to the straight sticks found across the Classic Collection (where Dwellers Land and Sky both reside), has been produced especially for the watch. And the integrated bracelet is a reworking of the Datejust’s Jubilee but with flat links, the center ones slightly raised and polished to match the middle case, while the outer links and upper case are satin finished.
As for the platinum models, they are identical save for the dial being the ice blue Rolex reserves for its top-of-the-line editions.
What Lies Beneath
You would think that with only three hands and a date function to power, Rolex would shoehorn any old workhorse under the hood. They do, after all, make some of the best mass-produced time-and-date movements in the business.
But, the Cal. 7135 inside the Land-Dweller is perhaps their most momentous innovation in living memory.
A few years ago, Rolex issued a major reworking of the Swiss Lever Escapement, the centuries old standard in timekeeping, in the shape of their Chronergy. Basically a geometry-optimized Swiss Lever, the Chronergy escapement did boast an increased efficiency of around 15%.
This time around they have come up with something different entirely.
To start with, the Cal. 7135 represents Rolex’s first ever foray into mechanical high frequency movements. Since the 1970s, all the brand’s movements have beat at 28,800vph. It is the frequency which grants the signature eight-ticks-per-second sweep to the seconds hand.
The Cal. 7135, though, beats at an El Primero-ish 5Hz, or 36,000vph. The faster speed delivers an increase in stability, leading to better resilience to shocks and improved timekeeping. Make a chronograph version and it would be able to time down to 1/10th second—and can a new Daytona engine be far away?
Believe it or not, however, the frequency is not the most important attribute to the new caliber. Doing away with the Chronergy, Rolex has developed their own in-house escapement system.
Subject to 16 patents, the Dynapulse escapement in the Cal. 7135 is the end result of 10-years work. What makes it so special?
In the simplest terms, the main benefit of the Dynapulse is that transmits the energy it receives from the mainspring to the oscillator in a rolling motion instead of a sliding motion as with the typical arrangement. Although the traditional escapement has been around since the mid 1700s, it is not without its disadvantages; one of the main ones being friction. The teeth on the escape wheel scrape on the pallet fork’s stones hundreds of thousands of times a day, meaning lubrication is needed to keep the components from wearing. In short, it is the reason your watch needs servicing every few years.
With the Dynapulse, which is described as an indirect-impulse escapement, two frankly bizarre-looking escape wheels deliver their energy to a lever which in turn feeds the impulse to the balance. In so doing, it bypasses any friction which could impair performance and is reportedly 30% more efficient than even the best conventional escapements.
And that is not where the innovations end. For the first time, Rolex is using a ceramic balance staff, the material chosen for its paramagnetic qualities as well as its ability to be manufactured to within ridiculously high tolerances. The staff is laser cut and the ends mirror polished to again reduce friction as much as possible. While the pivots on the staff are lubricated, Rolex stress it would perform perfectly well without.
The free-sprung balance is made of what the brand call ‘optimized brass’ rather than the Glucydur normally used, while the hairspring is in the brand’s proprietary Syloxi, a silicon alloy which is both lightweight and immune to magnetic interference.
All in all, the Cal. 7135 seems like the opening act of an entirely new wave of next generation movements from Rolex. Whether they will all tick at 36,000vph remains to be seen, but this initial offering has made as many if not more headlines than the watch it is driving.
Conclusion
Mixing very cutting-edge technology with vintage styling is nothing new in watchmaking. And the Land-Dweller is the latest to take advantage of the trend.
That case, while significantly thinner at just 9.7mm, is a conscious throwback to Rolex’s Oysterquartz days. Those battery-powered Day-Dates and Datejusts took their inspiration from the Beta-21 ref. 5100, the manufacture’s quartz prototype from 1970 with its consortium-built engine and bodywork courtesy of Genta.
The style was made famous a few years later thanks to the Royal Oak and Nautilus (both Genta again) and since then has gone from the outrageously avant-garde to the warmly embraced.
Rolex’s creation is sure to be a hit, an intelligently-judged blend of the best of both worlds, and we can expect to see two things regarding it in the near future; an ever expanding collection and similarly lengthening waiting lists.
Featured Photo: Mixed art by Oriol Mendivil for BKT Archive.
