Switzerland’s latest craze places watchmakers in the literal limelight
From dials to dial markings and even entire watch cases, luminescence is getting glowing reviews in the darkest corners of Switzerland. And it’s thanks to some nigh-on alchemical experimentation that the mechanics ticking inside seem pedestrian.
Bell & Ross’s BR-X5 Green Lum kicked off last year with its photoluminescent polymer-composite case – now mastered in blue for 2024. Still to be commercialised, IWC used Lewis Hamilton’s appearance at the Monaco Grand Prix to unveil a pilot’s chronograph whose ceramic case was fully luminous; while Richemont Group label-mate Panerai put on a light show at Geneva’s Watches & Wonders showcase with its lumed-up Elux Lab-ID, co-opting naval technology first used for WWII signalling lights.
“Even though luminous components seem to be the flavour of the week, I don’t think it’s fair to say that this is anything new in watchmaking en masse,” notes James Thompson, chief of materials at Scandi indie brand Arcanaut who, under his pseudonym Black Badger, was one of the original lume experimenters. “The cool thing about the bigger brands getting to grips with this stuff is how deep their pockets are when it comes to research and development.”
“Luminescence was originally used during WWI to improve legibility,” says Albert Zeller, CEO of RC Tritec. His father, along with Japanese company Nemoto & Co, developed phosphorescent strontium-aluminate-based ‘Luminova’, followed by the industry-standard ‘SuperLuminova’ in the 1980s, getting around the health issues that came with radium- and tritium-painted dial markings used previously.
Unlike fluorescent materials, phosphorescent materials continue to glow when the source of energy fades. Electrons are ‘excited’ from their usual orbit around an atom, trapped in this state, then slowly decay back to their former state by releasing energy, which we perceive as a glow.
Whatever’s in the water, what’s worth celebrating the most is lume’s emergence as an overlooked watchmaking skill in its own right: up there with dials, polishing and gearwork. As Thompson says, “shining a light on things that glow is, after all, always a good idea.”
Rather than lume paint, which has historically glowed through the Florentine military brand’s stencilled-out ‘sandwich’ dials since the 1930s, a button on Panerai’s new Submersible Elux LAB-ID lights up several miniature LEDs beneath the indices, bezel and even the minutes hand on demand. No battery, but rather four spring barrels wound by the timekeeping movement’s usual automatic rotor. Unbraked, a geartrain spins six copper coils within a microgenerator, harnessing Faraday’s law of electromotive induction to deploy a dynamo-driven electric current. Unsurprisingly, it’s the result of eight full years of R&D. And surely something Guido Panerai himself would be proud of. Especially since this dynamo principle draws directly from his early, on-deck landing-pad lighting technology for the Italian Navy, from which Elux takes its name.
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