Yema Urban Traveller Joins Chorus of Integrated Bracelet Sport Watch Releases

Yema is fleshing out their young Traveller collection, which made its debut just last year, with a new family of integrated bracelet sport watches called the Urban Traveller. The new family is on-trend with a design that features the now familiar hallmarks of the genre, such as a flat link bracelet that integrates with the case, a flat octagonal mid case with single piece bezel, and a textured dial. Check, check, and check. The Urban Traveller does take a unique approach in a few ways, however, and more options of a good thing is, well, a good thing. 

Yema is a French brand that was founded in 1948, with an increasing selection of in-house labeled movements, which we’ve discussed before launched, somewhat curiously, via Kickstarter. The Traveller collection of watches have been no exception, with the template for the Urban Traveller, called the Wristmaster Traveller, hitting funded status in late 2022. That watch, which recalled Yema’s heritage with the use of the Wristmaster label, featured a colorful selection of in-house ultra-thin micro-rotor movements, a playful choice that set that watch apart from other integrated sport watches.

The Urban Traveller takes a more direct approach to the design, using Yema’s YEMA2000 movement, which is around 80% in-house, instead of the colorful micro-rotor movements seen in the Wristmaster Traveller. This change means a slightly thicker case and a closed caseback, as well as a dramatic reduction in pricing. The ultra-thin Wristmaster Traveller Micro-Rotor was a hair under $3,000, while the new production variant Urban Traveller comes in well under the $1,000 mark at $890. A welcome trade off for fans of the design, no doubt, though I do hope we see more of that colorful micro-rotor design in some manner moving forward. 

Perhaps the most unique feature of the Urban Traveller is the dial texture. Yema calls it a honeycomb dial, though it has more detail and structure than you might imagine. It’s intricate in structure, with larger and smaller pieces fitting together in a way that makes a pattern difficult to discern until taken in at a distance. The texture works well with the light blue, salmon, and white colorways, which forgo any other complications that might get in the way of the effect. I’m particularly fond of the white dial, which utilizes black accents around the hour markers and hands to provide a striking contrast in a way that feels more unique than the somewhat familiar salmon and light blue dial colors.

The steel case measures 39mm in diameter, and 11.4mm in thickness, with a slightly tapering bracelet that begins at 24mm in width at the edge of the case. Overall pretty pleasant numbers, though not quite as svelte as something like the Christopher Ward, The Twelve, which is a full millimeter thinner for around the same price. Like The Twelve, the Urban Traveller gets a distinctive bezel framing the dial. Yema is using a single piece bezel that is both brushed and polished, and gets deep notches set into the inner perimeter. It’s the calling card of this design and adequately sets the watch apart from contemporaries in an increasingly crowded landscape of integrated bracelet sport watches. 

The Yema Urban Traveller is available now from Yema for the price of $890 with shipping slated to begin at the end of this month. Yema.