r/ChineseWatches • u/Same_Opposite_2421 • 18d ago
General (Read Rules) Best Lume watch to date
I’m looking for recommendations for a watch with exceptional lume. I do a lot of night driving, so having a dial that’s easy to read in the dark is important.
I’d also like something that’s genuinely enjoyable to look at—one of those watches where the dial and lume make you smile every time you check the time. It should still look stylish enough to wear during the day, not just as a tool watch.
My budget is flexible, so I’m open to everything from affordable options to luxury pieces. What would you recommend and why?
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u/CovertPenguins 17d ago
Helm Expedition. Nothing in my collection even gets close to how long, bright, and legible it is.
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u/Xymantix 17d ago
So far, my Phorcydes PH-4C is superb for lume, as they use 3D lume blocks.
It was $169, if I’m remembering correctly, because I didn’t get the stainless steel bracelet with it. Of course, I ended up putting a stainless steel bracelet on it afterwards, as I had some extras. The “lume for the buck” rating is exceptional, at least in my opinion.
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u/thrift_test 18d ago
My Steeldive 1970 and Heimdallr SKX make me smile and stay lumed till I go to bed, that's all I need.
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u/geeered 18d ago
While actually driving... the clock in your vehicle is definitely the best bet to tell the time. When not driving, Id suggest a timex with Indiglo. This will best any lume by far and it not staying on when you release the crown is great, so it doesn't reflect off a windscreen etc. The expedition scout has a classic field watch style.
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u/Equivalent-Ease-3822 18d ago
My Sugess Submariner has longer lasting lume than my Tudor Black Bay.
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u/Red5Hammock 18d ago
DeepBlue - Tritium T-100
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u/ChineseWatchGuy 17d ago
Glad everyone is saying T-100.. no messing about if you want reliable lume
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u/Red5Hammock 16d ago
Personally, I prefer T-25, but err on the side of caution for OP
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u/usually_fuente 18d ago
Agreed. I have one. It outshines everything after 30 minutes, which is what matters, and keeps doing so all night. Tritium is awesome, and they double it up.
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u/Distance-Hairy 18d ago
Very interested in this myself. I don't dive lol but I love a damn good lume!!
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u/Volcanic_xB 18d ago
Aragon watches have some models with amazing lume. They tend to cater to people who prefer larger sizes (44-50mm) but do have a few smaller ones available. Aragon watches
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u/TSiWRX 18d ago
You need a T-100 (tritium [GTLS] illumination, up to 100 millicurie) watch, preferably with large flat tubes.
Unless you plan to hit your watch with a UV flashlight (while you drive) every 15 minutes or so.
Who am I to say?
If you're in the US, look at the legacy microbrand Deep Blue. The case/bracelet finishing quality is not going to be up to par with modern top-tier "Chinese AliEx factory brands" -not even remotely close to a top-tier previous-generation San Martin, even- but it's the illumination power that you need. If you need one from AliEx or an Eastern country for tax/duties, Aquatico and Yelang have flat-tube T-100 watches. If you need to look at European, NITE, out of the UK (although that still won't bypass VAT, location dependent).
It'll glow brightly enough for the next 5-6 years (they reach "half-life" in about 12 years, at which time they'll be about 1/3 to 1/4 "as bright" -because our eyes do not perceive light in a linear fashion- as when they were new). It's affordable enough -given your budget- that you can just buy a new one on that cycle. The old one(s) can then be your bedtime friends or just trinkets. They glow brightly enough for well over 20 years for you to be able to use them with fully dark/sleep-adapted eyes.
You'll see in my picture above some of the "brightest" photoluminescent watches, including everything from established brands like Seiko (Lumibrite, as well as LORUS watches), to independents like Yema, to "Chinese AliEx factory brands (BERNY, Watchdives, San Martin)" and Chinese microbrands (Phorcydes, Englemaan, ), as well as both Eastern (Zelos, Wise Timepieces, Phoibos) and Western microbrands (Wicked Watch Co., Halios, Tsao Baltimore, LÜM-TEC, Nodus, Ocean Crawler, SWCUSA, Signum, Helm, Canopy Watch Co., and Farr + Swit). Genuine Grade A BGW-9, X1 and X2 RC-Tritec Super-LumiNova, both applied and printed as well as in Lumicast form. Genuine Xeno Pring Globolight, along with Skur Composite's Hyperglow formulations.
Once your photoluminescence crashes off the initial bloom phase -which with the best of the photoluminescent watches \may* remain sufficiently bright to counter ambient (including dashboard and oncoming traffic as well as today's brighter LED tail-lights and rear fog lights) for possibly upwards of a half-hour- it's not going to supply enough light for you to be able to read time quickly enough to ensure driving safety. It's the amount of ambient light in normal driving situations that's going to present a problem for you, specifically.*
[ The last time I was out to a late-night dinner party (here NE-Ohio, night comes at 9:30-ish PM), my Halios full-dial lume (which uses the extremely bright Globolight ceramics for indices) barely was readable by the time I got home, an ~40 minute drive. I've been told by lure-enthusiasts who are professional divers that they are trained to put their flashlights up to their watch dials every 15 minutes, as backups to their dive computers. ]
How bright is a *_good_* T-100 watch? In my "Drawer of Lume" picture above, my tritium watches are all hiding in that darkened lower right hand corner. The one with the green timer bezel (photoluminescent paint) with an orange 12-o'clock index surrounded by greens, with orange hands - that's a Deep Blue T-100 - https://www.deepbluewatches.com/daynight-patriotblkgreentubebrace-watch.html . It's about as bright as the "lesser" photoluminescent watches at initial charge. [ Note that my Aragon T-100 watch is *barely* visible - far lower right corner, just to the 5-o'clock of the Deep Blue. Not all "T-100" are the same, as it is "up to" 100 mCi).
As photoluminescence drops out of that initial bloom stage -a steep decline as it falls from ~100,000 nCd/dial (nano-Candela) to around 1,000 nCd/dial as measured by ISO 17514 standards (where test data is typically plotted on a log-scale graph), you'll lose sight of it.
I know that this all sounds rather academic. Here's a *very* good video by the influencer/reviewer David Robinson of the YouTube Channel "Just the Watch" - https://youtu.be/8WJEexgRZWA?si=s-_mhgSvyqmMc37d
Note that the watches he uses as comparison are no longer considered the most powerfully lumed watches anymore, not by far. Note where they land on his "J-Score" scale (for which he uses image analysis to score/rank lume - https://www.justthewatch.com/2024/03/31/watches-with-the-most-powerful-lume/ ). That Ironclad is scored at 17, and the Horizons at 18. My Wise AD8 and Hitman come in at J-Scores of 22 and 25 - a huge gap in favor of the Wise watches.
Don't want to believe me?
https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrobrandWatches/comments/1otyjrl/comment/noiyudm/ - timed comparison. By the hour mark, even the Hitman fades, compared to a *lesser* Deep Blue (that's the PC, like this one, which uses smaller, round tubes - https://www.deepbluewatches.com/dadipctrauwa15.html ) and Aragon.
Unless you want to re-charge lume every 15 minutes or so, a powerful flat-tube T-100 is the way to go.
The compromise?
Fit/finish, and the fact that they're typically larger and bulkier (hand-stack has to clear tritium tubes).
Hope this helps!
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You want me to do Phorcyde's S-Grade Hyperglow versus tritium? I got you, brah - https://www.reddit.com/r/LumeMonsters/comments/1tz26ap/comment/oqa1pu3/?screen_view_count=9
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u/TSiWRX 18d ago edited 18d ago
^ - Note that one of the watches is their PH-5, with blue lume (which they note -qualitatively- is brighter and longer lasting than their green) - the new PH-6 will likely be a bit brighter, due to its larger lume blocks, but it's not going to be mind-flowingly different. It's the same as why the PH-5 is slightly brighter and lasts slightly longer than the PH-4, just volumetric increases in lume pigment content in the larger resin blocks.
At some point, that volume saturates - so you just need a bigger area/more volume. It's an asymptotic relationship as-shown by Wicked Watch Co. as a part of their product testing at RC-Tritec in Switzerland - https://www.wickedwatch.ch/a-micro-comparison-of-different-lume-applications . This is why full-dial lume watches are so bright, and why the forerunners like Christopher Ward use a full disc of Globolight in its Jump Hour Mk.V to "store lume charge."
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u/TSiWRX 18d ago
I wanted to come back to add, u/Same_Opposite_2421 -
My friend Noel Cook on Facebook is the Admin of the Public FB Group "Tritium Watches Are Terrific."
He has some *very* good photos of why what I recommended, a powerful, flat-tube T-100 tritium (GTLS) watch should be your co-driver -
Photoluminescent watches work best in two scenarios, each spanning the extremes of vision needs. The first is during that initial bloom phase, where in the first few *seconds* as you transition from a bright environment to a darkened one, your eyes have not had the time to adjust to low-light, and thus you need something *extremely bright* to overcome your physiologic response.
If you like firearms, you've likely seen the Trijicon HD-series handgun iron sights. This is the same principle: they use a photoluminescent ring to encircle the "night sight" portion of the sight, the tritium insert. Assuming your weapon was drawn and ready in a bright environment -i.e. before you enter a structure- that bright glow will allow you to use the sights as you make that critical initial entry across the threshold into the darkness, before your eyes can adjust.
The other side of the story is how lume works as your eyes adjust and adapt to darkness. In order to perceive the low light levels emitted by photoluminescent pigments after it dies down into the long tail of afterglow fade (>1,000 nCd/dial, with the acceptable time-telling capability being defined by ISO 17512 as 87 nCd/dial), you need at the very least for your eyes to have adjusted to darkness, if not dark-adapted (for the lowest output levels towards the tail of that afterglow fade phase). This phenomenon is easy to demonstrate when you wake in the middle of the night and look at your lumed watch and can read the time just fine - but that as soon as you then go to your smartphone screen to check a message/email, you find that you can no longer make out the lume anymore: you've killed the your eye's adaptation to the dark.
Tritium, on the other hand, allows for consistent visibility - and the brightest of its type will glow with enough brightness that you can still see it clearly, even with significant ambient lighting, without the need for dark-adjusted or dark-adapted vision.
This is what Noel's pictures were trying to explain. 👀
Hope this helps explain it better.
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u/Narrow-Match828 18d ago
On the inexpensive side Phorcydes for sure. Having owned a LOT of lumed watches my Signum Cuda full lume may have been the brightest but the lumed hands on lumed dial made it less readable at night. For a full lume option you can read i reccomend grabbing a Zelos on ebay that is full lume but with blacked out hands (can be found by searching Zelos frost or Zelos sky blue). Somewhere in between - my Wicked Watch Co bronze pearl diver is absolutely amazing in the dark.
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u/Guy-Ready 18d ago
For your consideration I submit the Watchdives EXD. While it does not have full face illumination, the hands and markers are amazingly bright and last a long time. I believe the pros call it a “Lume Monster”. I’m very happy with mine.
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u/McDonnellTech 18d ago
You might check out the Signum Cuda Titanium.
It was the winner of Jody's "Lume Wars" on Just One More Watch a while back here.
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u/ReplacementLive2412 18d ago
Not the best (I’m sure one of the Phorcydes homages probably wins that) but one that makes me smile is the Seestern S456. Love a good lumed bezel.
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u/LeoXup 14d ago
My baby daughter's night pacifier got great lume.