I want lume on everything, the stronger the better. Too bad not everyone can mix a good lasting lume. Didn't stop me from buying some watches I really liked with no lume at all thou.

 

On certain watches (dress watches) I couldn't care less, but on an active/outdoor style watch, like a field watch or diver, I do feel cheated if the lume is poor. I agree Hamilton, a brand I otherwise like a lot, is quite guilty of this... really this seems to be true of many of the entry-level Swiss brands. The lume on my Longines Hydroconquest is laughable, and on my CW Trident, mediocre at best. My VSAs are hit or miss... my 38mm Divemaster is outstanding, but on my VSA field watches it is just okay.

Even Omega isn't exempt from the wimpy lume syndrome. Most I've owned (SMP, Speedy Pro, PO, pre-teak quartz AT) have ranged from fine to good, but both my current gen quartz AT and my brother's old Skyfall 8500 AT are jokes in the lume department. My brother's Nomos watches were both pretty wimpy as well - Club Dunkel and blue Ahoi.

Wimpy lume on an inexpensive sports watch is disappointing but wimpy lume on a luxury sports watch really makes you wonder what other corners the manufacturer is cutting while still demanding premium prices.

Seiko and Citizen can manage to put decent amounts of lume on even their cheapest watches. It's hard to imagine there is any legitimate reason why the Swiss cannot. Sometimes I wonder why they bother at all if they're just going to half-ass it.

 

Lume is a zero factor for me. I'm always a little surprised at how much emphasis it gets on these boards.


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Once you have been spoilt with excellent lume... you won't settle for less.



This one looks like it's been bought from Chernobyl.

 

This one looks like it's been bought from Chernobyl.

What watch is this?

 

It was only when I joined WUS that I found lume was a big thing. Myself personally even the faintest of faint suffices as I really am never looking at it in pitch dark, usually enough light to see the time without it.

 

I like my watches to look brand new and lume is just another thing that can develop patina. I have a watch box without a glass or clear plastic lid just for my divers in a futile attempt to preserve the like-new condition a little longer.

 

I care about lume unless it is on a dress watch.

 

I like it on my divers. Seiko has daylight strength lume. But I'm not really that bothered about it. I don't mind just a faint touch of lume, just enough to see the hands to know the time.
I'm always a bit surprised how important some people find it.

 

It's not *quite* a must-have for me, but when done well, it's a definite feature that makes a watch better. I would definitely prefer that my watch lights up like a christmas tree in the dark.

It's only partially about reading in complete darkness-- although I do that sometimes-- but more about increasing contrast in dim or low constrast conditions.

Even on a dressy watch, I still often prefer some lume on the hands. I can live without it, or with crappy lume, but only on high-contrast dials (white with dark hands.)

In terms of patina, conventional lume *can* get a patina, but my watches will never be so sun bleached that they'll see patina before the watch itself is shot to hell.

Not a huge tritium fan, though. That's a wear-and-tear issue in that the tubes will require replacement eventually and IMHO/IME few watches do a really good job of aesthetically integrating the tritium tubes.

 

I love lume, but to me it has to match the dial and hands properly. Big hands should have lots of lume, big indicies... big like etc. Also it should always be even and the same colour, nothing worse than different colours to me, or uneven luminescence between hands, bezel, pip etc

 

I agree that it should be even, that's why I really like sandwich dials. The bottom layer of a sandwich dial is usually a solid layer of lume, and usually a bright one. I also agree about the handset matching the indices. A watch with a different color lume on the hands makes the watch feel like it was just thrown together from whatever was laying around.

 

Yes lume is important unless it's a Gshock.

 

I don't care but I do expect a tool watch particularly a pricier one to have very good lume and so far I haven't been disappointed. However if it doesn't have nuclear powered lume it doesn't really upset me. Because it isn't one of my purchasing criteria. What do I really need super bright lume for? Usually it diminishes in brightness quickly anyway if I did need lume on a watch the length of time it stays legible would be more important to me.

EDIT: The lume on my stowa, sinn, seiko and laco watches charge up so that it's legible in low light while I am sitting at my desk at work in an office building. W hen I stick those watches in the sun for 30 seconds they light up like a christmas tree. To be honest I don't think lume is a very hard thing to get right. Or maybe I should say bright?

 

I prefer contrast above lume.
I can not understand how brands might think it is a good thing to put white hands on a white dial, or even worse going Stealth and greying everything out!
As I need glasses to read the time I can not read the bloody thing in bed anyway so a big blob of light on my wrist annoys me more than doing good, just reminds me of the decay of our bodies....

some of the watches do light up in half light which I think is neat, My Seiko's do it, and I am always wonder how they pull the trick, as most of the other watches don't.

D

 

I prefer a high contrast as well. I have problems with some silver hands on white dials in certain lighting. And I have never understood 'Stealth' dials and hand sets. It's like 'Let's make the watch impossible to read'.

 

I have pretty decent lume on a YM and several divers. I think it's a pointless feature in general. There's the odd case when it's getting dark and it so happens that your lume is fully charged up. But that scenario almost never happens as watches get covered under sleeves from shirts, jumpers, jackets etc. You'd have to artificially charge it up to be able to use it in most cases, so the inconvenience defeats the whole purpose, thus it's completely pointless.

Then there's the aesthetic aspect. A watch without luminova all over the markers and hands looks much better in daylight, reason why most proper dress watches are not lit up.

 

I think it's a pointless feature in general. There's the odd case when it's getting dark and it so happens that your lume is fully charged up. But that scenario almost never happens as watches get covered under sleeves from shirts, jumpers, jackets etc. You'd have to artificially charge it up to be able to use it in most cases, so the inconvenience defeats the whole purpose, thus it's completely pointless.

Good lume lasts more than 6 hours. If you have good lume on your watch, you usually do NOT have to intentionally "charge" the lume. In darkness you just look at your watch, and it's there, because the watch saw light sometime during the past 6 hours and was already "charged".

I have a clock in my bedroom, so I don't have to look at my watch to see time. But I do find lume helpful in situations such as travelling, or in a cinema when I want to know what time it is and how long this damn boring movie has been going on. With bad lume there is no way to tell, and I have to get my phone out of my pocket, and light it up like a torch in total darkness. You know what happens next.

Lume is like a feature in a tool set. I can't stand it that it's there, but it doesn't work, or doesn't work well.

 

No. I grew out of hiding under the blankets just so I could see my watch glow a long time ago.

 

But never grew into backpacking so far in the middle of nowhere that the only source of light at night is the headlamp that would wake up your partner if you turned it on.

Your loss.

 

I do not care one bit about lume. Couldn't off hand tell you which ones of my watches have it and which have not.

 

I like lumed hands just because generally the shape of hands that can be lumed look more appealing to my eyes. Maybe because I'm not really into dress watches. But that being said, I always get interested in blued no-lume hands like in those marine style watches. I guess it depends on the overall aesthetic. And of course, once lumed the stronger the better.

 

I like lume on divers, well that's pretty much it

 

It's the least important factor for me. I can't remember ever needing lume on any watch. It blows my mind when people pass on a sweet watch simply because the lume isn't sufficient. I don't need a nightlight on my wrist.

 

Lume was 70/30 for me. When i first started with my Timex's and Indiglos and progressed to the Seikos. The OM is freakin nuclear and love it to death and still do. But my collection has recently come to a crossroads when deciding on a watch this year. A few months ago, I got the Vilhelm Elemental. Lume sucks, but the rest of the watch is why I bought it, not for the lume. From that point, when I came to decide what I wanted for a watch and I had time and a budget ceiling of what I can spend I sought out one that I wanted personally for a while, but never really did. This was the Melbourne Portsea Calendar in white. I always loved the style of it, but when I first came across it, I didn't want it because it didn't have lume. Fast forward to 2016, and I came to the realization that lume isn't that important to me. Sure, it's cool to see it light up here and there, but I rarely "use" it or "need" it in a particular situation. If I need to see the time in the dark, I usually can make the time out on my watches with the light I have. Usually in the movies and concerts and such.

So as of now, no it is not important to me. Would I want it, sure if it had it, but no longer a deal breaker for me.

 

There is at least one watch I have not bought because of poor lume, namely the Sinn 556. I did however buy an Oris ProPilot despite several reviews that criticized ONLY its lume. Some people who own it have gone so far as to relume it, but I noticed that while the Oris' lume is much weaker than my Seiko diver's, it is actually MORE legible at 5 am, I think because the lume on the dial is much weaker than on the hands, allowing the hands to stand out and be read at a glance.

I have come to see the radio-active lume on some micro brand divers as yet another meaningless arms race, just like the depth rating arms race and the more recent power reserve arms race for inhouse movements.

What I care about is whether I can read the watch in the middle of the night (I wake up frequently and like to track my sleep patterns) My SARB035's lume is insufficient, and so is my Orient Curator's, but the ProPilot and the SKX are both fine. So yes, I care about lume, but there is a definite point of diminishing returns.


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I have discovered a trick for reading a watch with very weak lume in complete darkness: hold the watch as close to one eye as possible. Of course the lume plots will be out of focus, but they will be much more visible, and hopefully the hands will be distinguishable.


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I'll make no bones about it - I like lume but it's not the be all and end off of choosing a watch. Just because something doesn't glow like a Seiko is not a deal breaker for me.

 

Depending of watch purpose, lume is crucial, e.g. divers

 

I think the 'lume' issue is not much of a factor for the average buyer, and also not much of a factor for the average mechanical watch buyer, or even the average luxury mechanical watch buyer. If it were, we would see far more consideration given to it. Heck, even Sinn who sells to the most detail driven spec oriented sort of mechanical watch buyer has so-so lume on most models. I think most watch buyers look at their watches in the light and lume is only a concern if it is insufficient to see the time in the dark and one has the expectation of being able to do so. I certainly could basically care less about the state of the lume on my watches so long as it does not negatively impact the aesthetics of the watch.

Now that said, if one hangs out on the dive watch forum, or the affordables forum (fueled to a significant extent by micro dive watch mushroom brands), one would have a very different perception of the importance of lume. Lume clearly is important to divers who actually use their dive watches under water (or at least theoretically may), enthusaists of dive watches who may not do so but understand the desirability of having a dive watch be able to peform well under water or in extreme conditions, and advocates and consumers of microbrands seeking a rationale for the offerings and/or purchases. Outside of these forums, I don't think lume is a major consideration for most watch buyers, or even buyers of mechanical luxury watches. If it were, midrange luxury brands would be lumed like a torch or be using tritium tubes.

 

Lume has never been a deal breaker for me, but I guess my main point is, if a manufacturer lumes a watch at all, WHY USE CRAPPY LUME??? I like lume, but when I get a watch without I might look at it and think 'Too bad'. And that's it. I rarely think of it again. However, a watch with poor lume is a constant reminder. Every time I see it all I think is 'That lume SUCKS'.