Check out the new Traska Commuter 34mm watch! This smaller size is ideal for guys with smaller wrists but can work for just about anybody!
Traska is back with a shrunken-down version of one of their most popular watches, the Commuter. The Florida-based indie watch company is offering their hit everyday watch, at least temporarily, in the classic size of 34.5 mm.
When Traska announced this little Commuter, they said it was something “no one asked for.” But maybe somebody should have.
There are hardly any other 34mm with this level of quality at this price point. The 34mm Commuter makes a great case for small-dial watches.
This watch dropped at the top of December as Traska’s last big release of 2023!
Since this small-sized commuter is likely to sell out quickly and might not ever be in stock again, check out this review!
Table of Contents
Packaging
Traska keeps it simple with their packaging, but it doesn’t feel thoughtless or low-quality. Their boxes have a distinctive, compact shape and clean, Apple-like design.
They also provide a handy leather travel case, which makes it easy to take the watch with you as a spare.
The box itself came encased in a puffy, inflatable-cushioning pouch, almost like a cigarette pack made of Bubble Wrap®, complete with a special-purpose lid.
I’ve only seen something like that from Traska, and it’s nice to get a sense that your watch was shipped with specially-made protection.
Case and Crystal
Even though Traska calls this a 34 mm case, the fine print reveals it is actually 34.5 mm. A few decades ago, this was a standard watch size. These days, however, most watches this small are either aimed at women or consciously echo some vintage aesthetic.
It’s great to see this size confidently revived in a fully modern, unisex way. This is a sturdy, good-looking case of 316L stainless steel with 100 meters of water resistance and a hardening treatment to keep away scratches.
The case is 41.5 mm from lug tip to lug tip. The whole thing stays framed within my 6-inch wrist, with the lug tips not even close to overhanging. With almost every link taken out to fit me, this watch maintains an airy presence at just 3.6 ounces.
It also keeps a pretty low profile at a slender 10.5 mm thick, counting the raised sapphire crystal. The crystal keeps everything easy to read with an underside anti-reflective coating, and its “boxed” shape creates a cool distortion around the dial edges.
Traska nailed its cases a while back and have been iteratively tweaking them ever since, slathering some visual polish across their collection earlier this year.
The case sides are mirror-polished, and polished chamfers on the lugs make it seem even sleeker. The brushed bezel keeps the whole thing down to earth by being tangibly less flashy than the polished bezel on my Traska Venturer.
Dial and Hands
The Commuter’s dial bears only the essentials of timekeeping, with hands and hour markers sharing the same baton-shaped style. Not even a date complication is available in this size. It’s only on the 36.5 mm version.
Dial decoration is limited to Traska’s tasteful spiral logo and brand name up top, counterbalanced by small text announcing the automatic movement down below.
The applied hour markers strike me as energetic, as if they are starbursting away from the center of the dial, and they look great when light dances across their polishing. None of them are crooked, unlike another Traska watch I have. The hands are well-proportioned and easy to distinguish from each other.
I got this watch in the Sandstone Yellow dial color, but it’s also offered in Mint Green, Aegean Blue, and Faded Copper. The blue and copper dials have a sunburst effect, while the yellow and green are matte.
Traska does funky colorways well, but it’s unfortunate for smaller-wristed folk that more traditional colors, like white and black, are only available in the 38.5 mm version.
Still, I think Sandstone Yellow is a pretty good offbeat color that flies under the radar. This isn’t a loud, blaring, “caution” yellow.
It’s closer to a flesh tone, or an off-white, and tends to blend in pretty well with whatever I’m wearing. I think the color looks particularly good with blue jeans.
This colorway suffers somewhat from low contrast, which can make it hard to find the high-polish hands in even slightly dim light. It was basically impossible to read this watch in a dark movie theater.
There is a crisp application of blue-tinged Super-LumiNova BGW9 lume on the hands and hour markers, but it fades away after around 15 minutes.
Movement
This watch uses a no-date automatic movement, the Miyota 9039. Miyota advertises this movement as being accurate to within -10 and +30 seconds a day, and Traska says they do additional regulation on them. The movement has a 42-hour power reserve.
On a timegrapher, I measured this watch gaining around 3 to 4 seconds per day, with a nearly perfect beat error of 0.2 milliseconds.
Bracelet
Traska’s bracelets have been a standout in the indie watch world for a few years, and everything that made them great holds true here.
These super-flexible links mold to my wrist almost as naturally as a fabric strap, and they are easy to unscrew for resizing. The bracelet is well-finished, with mirror polishing extending from the case down the sides of the links.
The clasp closes with a secure click and offers five micro-adjust holes for fine-tuning the fit.
The links, while still fully articulating, are slightly more rigid than I’ve felt on previous Traskas. Sometimes they take extra massaging to fall perfectly flat, and when I straighten them, there’s a bit of a rough feeling where I’d expect no feeling at all.
Keep in mind that this is only ever a problem when I’m fiddling with the watch in my hands, never while I’m wearing it, and it may be a quality control issue specific to my copy.
The shrinking process took the Commuter’s 20 mm lug width down to 19 mm, rather than the 18 mm that is more common on watches this size. 18 mm is also the easier size for finding aftermarket straps, though more 19 mm straps are being offered all the time.
As solid as this all is, this bracelet is stuck in the past. Unlike the 38.5 mm version it’s being released alongside, this smaller Commuter doesn’t have a quick-adjust clasp, which makes it all but impossible to resize on the go.
Quick-adjust is a new thing for Traska, being recently offered for the first time on their Venturer GMT. It’s disappointing to see them take another step back for this watch, but maybe its limited release and smaller size made adding quick-adjust impractical.
Whatever the reason, I’ve spent my time with this watch frustratedly flip-flopping between two micro-adjust holes. One is too tight, and the other is too loose.
That would be OK if I could quick-adjust between them, but instead the operation calls for steady hands and a spring bar tool.
The Verdict: Best in Class
It’s been kind of a revelation to have this amount of watch in a package this tiny. Looking at this Commuter on my wrist makes me think this is how watches should look on me.
It reminds me of the kind of watch I wanted before I was a watch collector when I just wanted something nice to easily tell the time with.
The Commuter remains among the best affordable alternatives to a Rolex Oyster Perpetual. It has a combination of features, finishing, and pricing not seen in competitors like the Monta Noble, Christopher Ward C63 Sealander, and Citizen Tsuyosa.
And, in this compact size, the only thing to compare the Commuter might be the new 35 mm Tissot PRX, and that’s a quartz watch.
If your wrist is on the smaller side and you are looking for your everyday, grab-and-go timepiece, there may not be a better option than this one.
What other small-dial watches do you like? Let me know in the comments!
More pics of it on-wrist, please?