Cheap and cheerful: A collection overview of Casio Edifice

Borna Bošnjak

Edifice is a sub brand of Casio that focuses on elevating the look of their parent brand, offering a range of watches that suit the everyday professional. Whether you’re after a simple and uncluttered watch, one with a motorsport connection or something just a little bit funky – Edifice does their best to cover all those bases, at an approachable price point. For a deeper dive into this collection, check out the video overview below.

Three-handed simplicity

Elevated looks at reduced prices – is a good way to describe Edifice’s simplest models, though it doesn’t quite tell the full story. Both of the models we took a look at are compact in their sizing, with a solid finish throughout considering the price point.

I mean, look at that dial! Not only that, both of these come with 100 metres of water resistance to boot. While they are intended as office-dwellers, you’ll be just fine if you happened to fall into a pool at an after-work party.

Simple, sporty chronos

The first of the three clearly follows the design language of the three-handed models, with a slightly more significant sprinkle of sportiness. It retains the 100m water resistance, and along with the chronograph, gains a 24-hour indicator at 3 o’clock for added functionality.

Next in line is a classic design. Three-register chronograph with enough sporty appeal to look at home with a t-shirt and shorts just as much as under a shirt cuff. At 47.1mm x 51mm, the size certainly won’t be for everyone, but the catchy-named EFR573DB-1A has another trick up its sleeve – costing only AU$229.

For those who feel that Formula 1 is too mainstream, and hope for more recognition of other aspects of motorsport – this is the watch for you. With an ion-plated bezel and carbon fibre dial, the EQS930NIS-1A, or the Edifice Nismo, takes inspiration from Godzilla’s successor competing in the Super GT series. Subtle cues such as the large Nismo branding on the bezel and colouring reminiscent of heat-blued titanium tie this one straight to the racing GTR. There’s also a cool detail relating to the red 23 engraved on the bezel – watch the video to find out what it is.

Quartz complication

This category is the bread and butter of Casio and its sub brands. Jam-packing an impressively thin watch full of useful day-to-day features, at an approachable price. The ECB30DC-1A above offers Bluetooth connectivity and calendar synchronisation, which will send notifications to your phone and watch for the start and end times of your scheduled activities – all for AU$299.

The motorsport connection is again more overt with the next two models. Starting with the grill-like mesh of the solar cells in the EQB-1200D-1A, featuring a Casio’s tough solar technology underneath a sapphire crystal. With dual time displays, it’s easy to switch between time zones when travelling via the accompanying app.

The piece that I spent the most time with is the ECB-S100HG-1A from Edifice’s Heat Gradation Collection. The cross-shaped bridges and power reserve dial captures the colour of a searing hot titanium exhaust, just like we saw with the Nismo. Among many other features such as Bluetooth connectivity and a multitude of world time locations, my favourite by far was the phone finder – more on that in the video above.