Ulysse Nardin Freak ONE OPS Review

Ulysse Nardin has been one of my favorite watch brands since I first really got started in collecting watches in the early 2000s. Through my time in the watch industry I've had the pleasure of wearing and owning various Ulysse Nardin timepieces, from their iconic divers all the way up to the original Freak and chiming pieces.

The Freak developed by Dr. Ludwig Oechslin and released in 2001 was so far ahead of its time that the watch still amazes watch collectors over two decades later. While I was very familiar with Ulysse Nardin, I hadn't really spent much time with the brands newer pieces until I started Hourstriker. FX and his team at Ulysse Nardin have always been overly generous to us and continually provide us with their newest watches to review.



Having spent countless hours wearing new releases from tons of brands over the past sixth months, I can honestly say Ulysse Nardin is probably releasing my favorite and most interesting modern watches. I typically tend to prefer watches from the 2000s and 2010s and don't own a watch produced this decade. For some reason I just find the slightly older watches have a bit more "soul" in them then the newest over engineered and polished watches. However I do feel Ulysse Nardin have achieved a great balance where their watches are executed exceptionally, but they still have some character to them.

The rose gold Freak X and Diver X Skeleton OPS were just stunning watches that I really missed after sending them back to Ulysse Nardin. The Diver X Skeleton OPS in particular really hit a chord with me and I believe it's probably my favorite modern watch. I am very familiar with the original Freaks and have months worth of wrist time with them, and I got to spend a few weeks with the new Freak X a few months ago as well. So I consider myself pretty familiar with the collection, but there were still Freak models I had not experienced, one being the Freak ONE and the other the Freak S.



While the Freak S is an out of this world spaceship on the wrist that took this year's Watches and Wonders by storm, the Freak ONE is more in-line with the original Freak from 2001. I really wanted to spend some time with both of these Freak models, so I reached out to Ulysse Nardin to see if they had either available to review and was pleasantly surprised to find out they had a Freak ONE OPS in stock.

The OPS or operations variant of Ulysse Nardin's collections basically gives the look of a particular watch a more adventurous look. I had already spent time with the OPS version of the Diver X Skeleton and fell in love with it. The OPS watches have a mostly khaki and black aesthetic with some sand colored elements on the dial. The cases are crafted out of black DLC titanium and they feature Carbonium bezels. Finally the watches come on a khaki green rubber or fabric strap.



When the Freak ONE OPS arrived, the first thing I noticed about it was its case number printed on the plaque on the side of the watch. Instead of having a normal case number, this Freak ONE OPS was labeled "P7" for Prototype 7. It's not every day that we get in a prototype watch… so I thought this was a super cool little piece of watch history. It would be interesting to know how many prototypes were actually made, by guessing how complex the Freak ONE is, I wouldn't wager many.

The next thing I noticed was the flying carrousel movement exposed on the "dial". The Freak X we had in a few months ago was more of a hybrid Freak model having a crown and a simplified version of the Freak's movement exposed on the dial. Of the Freak X, Freak ONE and Freak S, the Freak ONE has a movement most resembling the original Freak with four gears of the gear train visible on the "minute hand". It's a real treat to see the large silicon balance beating and watching the gears turn at different speeds getting slower as they extend out from the center of the watch.



The final thing I noticed on the Freak ONE from my initial impressions was the case back and the Grinder winding system. While the Grinder system does have an oscillating weight like a traditional automatic movement, the way in which the systems functions is drastically different. Unlike many automatic watches, the Freak ONE offers bidirectional winding which makes the winding incredibly effective. The Grinder system uses a set of blades instead of a traditional gear train to transfer motion to the mainspring. This system is not only highly efficient, but it also drastically reduces the wear of the watch's components.

Now that I've gone over my initial impressions of the Freak ONE OPS, we can move on to the technical specs of the watch. The Freak ONE OPS is listed as 44 mm, but we found it to be 44.5 mm with our calipers. The lug to lug width is a perfect for me 52 mm and the watch is 13.6 mm thick. The watch weighs 105 grams on our scale with the rubber strap and titanium deployant. The watch is crafted out of black DLC titanium that has a mostly brushed finish with polished chamfers.



The Freak ONE OPS has a slightly domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating applied to both sides of the crystal. Under the crystal clear sapphire is the khaki green dial which is made up of two rotating discs covering the barrel that feature a sunray pattern. The inner disc features the hour pointer which is covered in Super-Luminova and has a beige sand colored appearance. The Ulysse Nardin branding is also opposite of the hour pointer on this ring.

There is a ringed gear track along the outside of the dial where the one hour flying carrousel rotates. The rotating "minute" hand is blackened and comprised of the blue silicon balance and gear train that rotates around the dial once an hour. The tip of the gear train is decorated as an arrow that like the hour pointer is covered with Super-Luminova and has the same beige sand colored appearance.



Finally the dial features small sand colored numerals for 12, 3, 6 and 9 and has small hash marks for each other hour. While the dial is not traditional by any means, telling the time couldn't be simpler. The large inner hour pointer acts as any hour hand pointing to the present hour, while the rotating one hour flying carrousel finished up with a pointer displays the current minute.

The bezel of the Freak ONE is made from Carbonium, which is Ulysse Nardin's innovative carbon material. The bezel has unique shades and patterns reminiscent of forged carbon. Carbonium uses the same carbon fibers that aircraft wings and fuselages are made out of, actually using offcuts from aircraft manufacturing which reduces the environmental impact of the watch. Just below the bezel at 6 o'clock a "FREAK" labeled tab that we'll get to later.



Looking at the side of the case you can see the stunning deep brushed black DLC titanium that the case is crafted out of. Also there is no crown on the Freak ONE, making the watch completely symmetrical. As mentioned earlier, on the left side of the watch is a screwed on plaque that has the case number on it, in this case P7 identifying this watch as the 7th prototype of the Freak ONE OPS.

Flipping over the watch shows off a few interesting details not seen in many watches. First you have the case back with six indentions on the outside of the case back. If you look at the markings on the case back you can see that the words "TO WIND" are accompanied by a directional arrow. Like the original Freaks, the Freak ONE is manually wound by the case back and not the crown. The sensation is interesting and not something we do often, so it's a bit of a treat to wind a watch this way.



Under the sapphire crystal you can see the other way the Freak ONE is wound, in the Grinder system. We touched on the Grinder system earlier in this review, basically it's a much more efficient bi-directional automatic winding system that uses an oscillating weight connected to the mainspring by blades instead of gears which offers extremely efficient winding and transfer of power. You can see the various pieces making up this system along with the outwardly set weight through the case back. With the display case back, the Freak ONE OPS offers 30 meters of water resistance, enough for the occasional splash or rain storm, but we wouldn’t recommend swimming with it.

For the Freak ONE OPS, Ulysse Nardin uses their in-house caliber UN-240. This automatic movement beats at 21,600 vph (3Hz) and offers 90 hours of power reserve. The escapement is DIAMonSIL and offers exceptionally low wear and tear to the movement. Ulysse Nardin was truly the pioneer in using silicon in watch movements, something that has copied by just about everyone in the watch industry in the decades since they first pioneered its use in movements. On our timegrapher the UN-240 showed an accuracy of -3 seconds per day. This is a strong result, but once again this is a prototype watch so I don't know what if any changes were made to the movement for production, I'm just sharing our findings on the prototype.



Now it wouldn't be an OPS watch if there wasn't a khaki green rubber strap attached to it. The strap on the Freak ONE OPS is crafted out of ballistic rubber and is a mostly textured khaki green with black along the outside edge and on the back of the strap. There are also cutouts in the green on both sides of the strap showing the black underneath. Where the pin goes into the strap, the holes and their surrounds are black as well. The strap is extremely supple and requires zero break in to be of the highest comfort.

The lug width is 21 mm and the strap integrates nicely into the case. You could use an aftermarket strap, but the look of the integrated strap is only something you will get with an OEM Ulysse Nardin strap. The strap does taper down to 17.5 mm at the black DLC titanium deployant clasp. The clasp mirrors the case with a blushed finish as well, with Ulysse Nardin branding on the clasp. The clasp uses two pushers to release the strap and the other end of the clasp clicks into itself with a strong re-assuring click. Overall, the clasp has a very minimalistic design, but gives more than enough peace of mind for keeping the Freak ONE OPS on your wrist.



Ok so let's come back to the little "FREAK" tab below the bezel at 6 o'clock. As I mentioned earlier, the Freak ONE is wound in a unique fashion with crown manual winding being replaced with being wound by turning the case back. So if there is no crown, how do you set the time on the Freak ONE? Simple, just flip up the little "FREAK" tab and all of the sudden the bezel becomes unlocked. With the bezel unlocked, you can now turn the bezel to effectively "turn" the movement. Manually turning the movement allows you to advance the minute and hour hands effectively setting the time. When you are done setting the time, just flip the tab back down and the bezel is locked again finishing the time setting procedure. The unique manual winding and time setting of the Freak ONE are a real treat. Both actions are just so different from any other watch which makes the process novel and just fun.

I had the Freak ONE OPS for a few weeks and for that time it was the only watch I wore when going out for dinner and drinks or running errands. The only other watch I wore during this period was the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms I had just purchased and only wore the day it arrived. It feels weird to have just bought a new watch and not really have worn. Since the Freak ONE OPS was only here for a limited time, I made sure I wore it every chance I had. It's not every day we have such a unique watch in our safe, so I really wanted to take advantage of my time with it.



The 52 mm lug to lug measurement of the Freak ONE OPS is just perfect for my 7.5 inch wrist with a 58.5 mm width. The watch covered the perfect amount of my wrist and on the broad and form fitting rubber strap never favored either side of my wrist. The lightweight nature of titanium, sapphire and Carbonium kept the weight of this larger watch down to almost 100 grams, making it a pleasure to wear and never introducing wrist fatigue. Even with a few weeks of temperatures over 100 degrees here in Austin, the Freak ONE OPS never became an issue on wrist due to wrist swelling.

One thing that was surprising to me was that the Freak ONE OPS didn't draw as much attention as the Freak X in rose gold or the Diver X Skeleton OPS did while being worn. In all but the brightest light the dial of the Freak ONE OPS has a very dark green to black appearance, being a more brilliant khaki in direct sunlight. Also adding to the subtle nature of the watch is the gear train of the movement being blackened, so the carrousel doesn't quite pop off the dial. On the Freak X in rose gold, the carrousel hand and balance weights were gold, so the movement really popped on the black dial. Obviously the OPS treatment is meant to make the watch more incognito, which it absolutely did. Ulysse Nardin does also offer the Freak ONE with a rose gold bezel, carrousel pieces and balance weights, which I could only imagine would make the Freak ONE the watch equivalent of driving a super car around a crowded area while revving. I see the appeal in both approaches to the Freak ONE. At the end of the day, it just comes down to if you want a more introverted or extroverted watch.



Of course the people that did come up to me and ask about the watch and those others I pointed it out to were blown away with it. It's not every day you see a watch like the Freak ONE OPS being worn around, so people really appreciated the chance to check it out and learn what makes the watch tick. Explaining all the intricacies of the Freak ONE along with its history and what makes it special in the watch world is just fun to tell both watch novices and even mid level collectors.

With my dress predominately being made up of black t-shirts, shorts and sneakers the Freak ONE OPS fit in perfectly. The black of the case, bezel and strap lining blended in nicely with my t-shirts and the watch never seemed too dressy for all of the mostly non-formal settings it found itself in. Even though this is the most expensive watch I've reviewed so far for Hourstriker, the watch never felt like it should be worn to stuffy dinners with three piece suits, which is a feeling I've gotten from a few of the higher end pieces that have been around recently.



The Freak ONE OPS retails for $66,800 and for how unique and important the watch is to the watch world, it seems well worth the money. I also know Ulysse Nardin can't manufacture Freaks fast enough to keep up with demand, so obviously others think the watch is a good value as well. In 2023 the Freak ONE also won the GPHG award for "Iconic Watch". We should probably take some time now to look at some alternatives to the Freak ONE OPS.

Naturally the first watch you'd compare to the Freak ONE is the Freak X. The Freak X is also offered with the OPS treatment that sees the Freak X get the khaki green treatment. Instead of using DLC titanium with a Carbonium bezel, the Freak X OPS has a khaki green carbon case with black carbon blended in for a "magma" type look. Like we mentioned earlier, the Freak X is a more tradition watch using a crown for manual winding and setting the time. Also the Grinder system isn't used, instead the watch uses a traditional automatic winding system. Once again a simplified version of the one hour carrousel movement is used on the Freak X as well. With the case size being smaller on the Freak X, Ulysse Nardin markets the Freak X as more of a daily wearer as well as a unisex compliant watch. The price of the Freak X OPS is nearly half the price of the Freak ONE OPS as well at $35,000.



Next up we have the Freak S Nomad. The Freak S Nomad is a millimeter larger than the Freak ONE at 45 mm and uses a titanium bezel and case with carbon fiber sandwiched between forming the lugs. The Freak S uses a much more complex version of the movement found in the Freak ONE with dual oscillators and balance wheels, which resembles a spaceship. The watch is also wound from the case back and set via turning the bezel. Ulysse Nardin uses their Grinder winding system on the Freak S as well. The Freak S Nomad is a limited edition and retails for around $150,000.

Since the Freak ONE is such a unique watch, you really need to look at other unique watches to even come up with alternatives. One such watch is the Ressence Type 3. The Type 3 uses an oil filled dial that creates a truly unique viewing experience that has no limit to the angle the watch can be completely legible from. Like the Freak, the Type 3 doesn't use traditional hands, but instead uses a system of rotating discs to display the time. The movement is also connected to the oil filled dial by a series of magnets. While the Ressence Type 3 is certainly innovative, it is not fully manufactured in house and its base caliber is based on a customized ETA 2824/2. The retail price of the Type 3 is around $45,000.



Finally we have the Code 11.59 Starwheel from Audemars Piguet. This watch is crafted out of black ceramic and is 41 mm in case diameter. Keeping with the trend of the above watches, the Code 11.59 Starwheel also has a unique way of telling the time by using three rotating discs that contain the hours and spin and turn along the 0 to 60 minute track to display the time. The wondering hours complication has been done by other manufactures before, so it's not as unique as the Freaks or the Ressence Type 3. The retail price on the Code 11.59 Starwheel is $59,600 and it carries a slight aftermarket premium.

As you can see the Freak ONE OPS falls right in-between the "everyday" Freak X and the exotic Freak S. It also offers the closest current version of the Freak to the original versions that came before it. While there are obviously other watches that use unique ways to display the time, the Freak and its flying one hour carrousel are just so iconic and any true watch collector knows about the importance of the watch. It's the connection to the original Freak and its justifiable price that makes the Freak ONE the sweet spot in the Freak lineup to me.

So is the Ulysse Nardin Freak ONE OPS for me? I'd say it really is. It's really rare that I come across a modern watch that I wouldn't mind having in our safe, and the Freak ONE OPS is really such a watch. The Diver X Skeleton OPS also by Ulysse Nardin was the other modern watch I've come across that I have really liked for myself as well. I'm not sure why both watches I have liked so much recently have both been from Ulysse Nardin, but they're definitely doing something right. I'm come across many other watches recently that for one reason or another were just missing something, but there isn't anything here I'd ding the Freak ONE OPS for. Normally watches are a tiny bit too small for my tastes, but at 52 mm lug to lug, the Freak X falls right in that Goldilocks zone for me. It would be a tough call for me though to pick between the OPS version of the Freak ONE and the titanium and rose gold version though. I do love the look of the OPS treatment, but I also really like how the gold looks on the carrousel and balance equally.



Would I recommend the Freak ONE OPS to somebody looking for a higher complication watch that has a bit of an edge to it? In a heartbeat… the way the Freak ONE uses the flying one hour carrousel to display the time is just ingenious. If you are looking at similar complications, you'd undoubtedly be looking at tourbillions, but they really don't do anything for the functionality of the watch. They're really just there to show the skill of the watchmaker and unlike the rotating time telling carousel of the Freak don't have a purpose on a wristwatch. Other watches like the Ressence and AP Starwheel do display time in a unique way, but they just don't have the history that the Freak does and why I wouldn't recommend them over the Freak.

Once again, great work by Ulysse Nardin. I'm leaving my time with the Freak ONE OPS thoroughly impressed. I'd really like to thank Ulysse Nardin for sending us this Freak ONE OPS to review. As with the Freak X and Diver X Skeleton OPS, the Freak ONE OPS is just a stunning timepiece. Hopefully sooner than later Ulysse Nardin can find a Freak S to send us so that we can have reviewed the entire modern Freak lineup!

For more information about the Freak ONE OPS please visit : Ulysse Nardin

Technical Specifications

Reference Number: 2403-500-8A/3A

Retail Price: $66,800

Case Size: 44.5 mm

Lug to Lug: 52 mm

Thickness: 13.6 mm

Weight: 105 Grams

Case Material: DLC Titanium

Bezel: Carbonium

Strap: Khaki Green Rubber Strap with DLC Titanium Deployant Clasp

Movement: Ulysse Nardin Caliber UN-240 Automatic Movement

Functions: Hours, Minutes, One Hour Flying Carrousel

Power Reserve: 90 Hours

Water Resistance: 30 Meters