No backstory. No heritage. No excessive marketing fluff. Just a proper titanium tool watch designed by a Mountain Rescue volunteer. Sounds good hey? After all, who better to know what’s needed in an honest, no-frills tool watch than somebody who needs kit they can rely on in the unrelenting British weather. This is exactly what the new Ontic Utility 40 promises. But does it live up to expectations?
Utility 40 Collection Overview
Ontic is a new British brand founded by John Hickling, a Mountain Rescue volunteer from West Yorkshire. The word Ontic comes from philosophy. It means real and tangible, not imagined or abstract. John says he chose the name as it felt right for a watch that is built to be used, not dressed up with myths or marketing.
Ontic’s debut Utility 40 collection comprises a total of nine variants split into four sub-collections; Core, Dive, Duty, and Tribute. All Utility 40 watches are designed, built and tested in the UK and crafted from grade 2 titanium. The watches share the same case design and solar powered movement, but differ in their bezel type, colourways, case finishes and materials. Each watch comes supplied with a custom-design FKM rubber strap with titanium buckle and a titanium bracelet is available at additional cost. On review here is the Marine colourway from the Dive collection and the Field Green colourway from the PVD-coated Duty collection. Priced from £599, watches have a five-year warranty and will be available from 21 November 2025 on a first come first served basis, with priority going to Ontic mailing list subscribers. A portion of profits from the Tribute is donated to support UK Mountain Rescue, a small way to give back to those who put themselves on the line for others.
The Ontic Utility 40 Case and Bracelet
The simple 40mm bead-blasted case is craftedfrom what Ontic calls TiX Titanium, a Grade 2 titanium, hardened to 1200 HV. It’s 40% lighter and 4x harder than steel. Not only is it light in weight, but it’s also light in tone, being a light-to-mid grey, rather than the darker gunmetal tone found on some titanium watches.
The 46mm lug-to-lug measurement, female end links and gently curved case helps keep the span across the wrist nice and compact and the 12mm total thickness is just about perfect for this type of watch. The dimensions and case materials gave me an inkling that this watch would wear well, but I was still somewhat taken back by just how light the watch is on the bracelet. It somehow feels even lighter than its 101 grammes, sized for my 7.25-inch wrist. It kind of provides the best of both worlds; it’s not a delicate looking watch, but it wears as comfortably as any watch I own. You barely notice you’ve got a watch on at all.
The 120-click rotating bezel has a concentrically-brushed ceramic insert with engraved markings which are filled with Super LumiNova. Dive variants feature bi-coloured fully graduated countdown inserts (blue and orange on my Marine) with Arabic numerals at 10-minute intervals, except for the ‘Tribute’ which has Arabic numerals at five-minute intervals with orange accents. All other sub-collections feature monochrome 12-hour bezels more suited to tracking a second time zone, although of course unless you’re actually diving you can use them to time things also. The bezel edge comprises sections of deep linear knurling arranged in vertical strips of five, interspersed with engraved compass points which are painted black and can be used to help navigate using the sun. The bezel is very easy to grip and has a nice positive feel to the action with no back-play. The bezel lined up perfectly on one of my review watches but was very marginally off on the other. However, John at Ontic has assured me that quality control will be tightened for the production watches. The flat sapphire crystal has a triple layer of anti-reflective coating applied to the inside and sits flush with the bezel.
Integrated crown guards protect the grippy 7mm signed crown which features a deeply engraved custom knurling pattern. The crown screws down with confidence, and together with the screw-down caseback helps provide 300 metres of water resistance.
The mid-case profile has a subtle arc and soft, discrete bevels that run along the top of the case. The closed caseback sits flush against the wrist and features a really striking embossed stylised sun at its centre surrounded by engraved specifications and concentric circle design.
The no-nonsense bead-blasted case certainly looks very tactical and the matt finish is particularly suited to a true tool watch as it helps minimise reflections. The black PVD coated ‘Duty’ variants up the stealthiness level further and look like something black ops should wear!
All watches are supplied as standard on a custom FKM rubber strap with Ontic branding to inner and matching titanium signed pin buckle. Cleverly, even the holes for the pin buckle feature the Ontic ‘O’ design, a nice touch and something I don’t think I’ve seen before. My strap was excessively long (I have big wrists but was on the second to last hole), however when I contacted John about this he was already on the case, so rest assured retailed watches will have standard length straps. A three-link quick-release bracelet option is available for non-PVD versions of the Utility 40 at an additional cost of £99, although to be honest I think this should be included in the price. The bracelet tapers from 20mm at the watch head down to 16mm at the clasp and has female end links, helping keep the lug-to-lug short. Removeable links are secured by one-sided screws for ease of adjustment and the clasp is engraved with the Ontic ‘O’ and a series of lines which mimic a continuation of the bracelet links. There is only one additional hole for micro-adjustment, but there is a Rolex Easylink-style comfort extension (effectively a ‘spare’ link that can either be pulled out to provide extension or clicked back into place to shorten).
The Dial and Handset
When John was designing the watch he wanted legibility to be paramount and for the most part, Ontic has achieved this goal. Each watch in the Utility 40 collection has a prominent hobnail design which adds texture and aids legibility. The ‘Duty’ watches and some from the ‘Core’ collection feature fume style dials, coloured at the centre and fading to black at the outer edges. My Field Green ‘Duty’ has a very dark centre which is almost imperceivable indoors, but comes out to play in direct outdoor light, although the effect is still very subtle even then. This might be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what you like.
Working from the outside in, a simple minute track is printed in white onto the deep, sloping rehaut. On the Marine Diver the minute markers at 3, 6, 9 and 12 o’clock are accented in orange to match the bezel, whilst the Duty collection watch is printed white only. The bold isosceles trapezoid-shaped hour markers are cast from solid blocks of Super LumiNova. A date window sits at six o’clock surrounded by an applied and lumed frame which mimics the stylised ‘O’ from the brand’s logo, a nice touch! However, the date window itself is recessed so deep into the dial that it’s actually difficult to read it. On my review watches the date window was colour-matched, but at time of publishing John is yet to decide whether to keep it colour-matched or go black-on-white. There are pros and cons to each option, but for this particular watch I’d personally prefer black on white. The reason being that the date window sits so deep into the dial that legibility suffers. The hour and minute hands are bold and feature a design which is unique to Ontic, something that’s always nice to see. The seconds hand, orange on the Marine, black and white on the Duty, has a lume pip that echoes the shape of the hour markers. Dial text comprises the Ontic logo at 12 o’clock, balanced by ‘TiX SOLAR’ and ‘300m/1000ft’ at six. ‘SWISS MOVEMENT’ in smaller font beneath the date window.
The hands are white, whilst the indices are an off-white due to the different colours of Super LumiNova applied to each. At night the hands and bezel glow blue, whilst the applied indices and printed 5-minute markers glow green. The lume is nice and strong on the indices and bezel, but very weak on the hands (which if anything should glow strongest). John from Ontic explained that using two colours of lume is a design decision, which is fair enough, but from a personal point of view I would have preferred them to be the same colour. I don’t mind two colours of lume at nighttime when glowing, but it looks a bit odd and unintentional in the daytime. Thankfully though, John has said the production watches will have more generous, thicker lume applied to the hands for a stronger and longer lasting glow.
Overall, I really like the dial design. It’s attractive, contrast is high, legibility is excellent in the daytime (except for the date) and should also be good at night once Ontic makes the improvements for the production watches.
The Ontic Utility 40 Movement
The watch is powered by Ronda 215 Solartech, a five-jewel Swiss-made solar-powered movement, with an accuracy better than ± 1 second per day. From a full charge, the watch can go a whopping eight months without exposure to light. What’s more, the battery will remain charged in complete darkness for more than two years and will start working again with just one minute of direct exposure to the sun. If you’re not going to be using it for months you can simply pull the crown out to activate the power saving mechanism which will reduce power consumption by approximately 70%. With no winding, no batteries to replace and no downtime, you could argue it’s the logical choice for a genuine tool watch.
The biggest issue mechanical watch lovers often have with quartz powered watches, regardless of brand, is that the ticking minute hand doesn’t always hit the markers and that is also true in the case of the Utility 40.
Final Thoughts
I can totally see where Ontic was going with the Utility 40 as the ethos behind the watch is a good one. Combining a surface-hardened titanium case with a tough ceramic bezel and a Solar powered movement is in many ways the perfect combo for a true tool watch. Sadly, the execution on my prototype watches wasn’t quite there though and I’m not convinced that using a different colour lume for the hands and indices is a good design choice. On the plus side, Ontic watches were very open to my constructive criticism and are addressing some of the issues ahead of production, such as applying more lume to the hands for a stronger glow at night, shortening the rubber straps and tightening the tolerances on bezel alignment. Ontic clearly has faith in the end product too, evidenced by the fact watches are backed by an impressive five-year warranty.
However, despite the fact the watch is designed, assembled and tested in the UK, I suspect some potential buyers will be put off by the £599 asking price, and that’s before you’ve added the bracelet. At this price there are cheaper, comparable options out there from microbrands and even solar innovators Citizen has its Promaster Tough. That’s not to say that you should overlook the Utility 40 though. It’s an attractive and purposeful looking watch with some nice touches such as the Rolex Easylink-style comfort extension and little flourishes that tie elements of the watch together and create a strong brand identity such as the date window and custom rubber strap where even the holes mimic the brand’s logo. With nine variants to choose form there’s bound to be one to suit you.
If you’re after a true grab-and-go tool watch, then the Ontic Utility could be a good shout as its clearly designed to be a true tool watch. It offers excellent legibility, has more water resistance than you’ve ever likely to need or want and will be a very comfortable all-day wear whether you’re up a mountain, under the sea or just in the office. The simple and unfussy, no-nonsense case suits this type of watch, reliability should be good and of course you’ll never need to worry about changing the battery, accuracy or power reserve. It has everything you need and nothing more, and isn’t that what a true tool watch should be?
