Tristan Ho
Tristan Ho is a biomedical researcher who taught himself watchmaking. In August 2024 he founded LOTH — an acronym for Lab of Tristan Ho — in his home workshop in Singapore, with no formal training in watchmaking or design, and with no factory behind him. The debut piece, LOTH Watch 1, is limited to 12 pieces at S$6,498 each. Every one of those twelve movements has received more than 150 hours of hand-finishing by a single pair of hands. There is no team. There is no delegation. There is just the bench, the lathe, and an extraordinarily high standard.
Achivement
LOTH has earned recognition from collectors internationally despite being founded less than a year ago, with zero formal training and zero institutional support. The finishing quality — particularly the Mosaic surface technique and double-snailed ratchet wheel — has drawn admiration from established independent watchmakers who do this full-time.
Over 150+ hours per watch
12 Piece Debut - Loth 1
Origin
Tristan Ho describes founding LOTH as a reaction — to factory markups, to mass production, and to the slow disappearance of genuine hand-finishing from the market. His background is in biomedical research: a discipline of meticulous process, controlled variables, and obsessive documentation. He brought that discipline to the lathe, and spent years teaching himself what the industry schools teach over three years of formal study.
The Finishing
Three techniques define LOTH Watch 1. Mosaic — a term Tristan coined himself — applies homemade carbons in freehand brushstrokes across the dial and balance bridge, each adjacent stroke facing a different direction so no two surfaces reflect light the same way. Snailing decorates the ratchet and crown wheels on the lathe, with the ratchet wheel double-snailed for layered depth. Anglage applies wide, curved polished bevels with sharp internal corners that no machine on earth can replicate.
Loth Watch 1
Three families: Alku (the debut, meaning “beginning”), Loimu (aurora-inspired), and Suvi (a tonneau-cased expression meaning “summer”). Each limited in number, personally signed off by the watchmaker, and sold with the knowledge that the hands that regulated the movement are the same hands that drew the dial.