Rolex Second Rate Luminescence

[Spartacus]

My Tudor Pelagos is quite bright in the evenings and dark settings. If lume is a thing for you, I suggest looking into the Pelagos. I think both Seiko and Omega display great at night.

But after ~ 5 years, even my Seikos had diminishing/duller lume. The worst brand for lume in my experience has been Breitling.

[inadeje]

Originally Posted by Galaga167

All these claims that their Rolex lume lasts throughout the night is utter . I have one and it would be lucky to last 2 hours. Even my Seiko Marinemaster which is up there with the best in the industry doesn’t last all night.

Keep it real guys.

Agree 100% ^^^^ I find it unusual that with all the advances in technology that we’ve seen over the past 3/4 decades that nobody has been able to invent lume for the ubiquitous wrist watch that will last for the extent of normal daily darkness

[supacarrot]

I think a lot of this has to do with vision as forum members get older. Focusing on a dot of light in the dark requires use of rods in your eye versus the cones you use during the daytime. Small, uncorrected defects in vision can make a big difference in ability to resolve that point of light through your optical system and onto enough rods to interpret and image.

There seems to be two camps here with some able to see the watch all night and some basically unable to resolve the dot of light at lower intensity. This probably is just due to visual differences rather than a quality difference between different watches.

I'm 26 and can see the time all night long on my YG subC.

[Jim Smyth]

Rolex does lack a little in the Lume department but the blue sure does look nice when its glowing. I think if you want something glowing all the time you better look at a Ball watch or something like that. I have a digital clock in my bedroom for the night time. Of course my current Rolex doesnt have any lume which is also fine.

[Raza_actual]

Tritium comes with some serious downsides:
1. The gas degrades over time and loses luminescence.
2. Tritium tubes come in a small variety of shapes and can lead to some unappealing dials.
3. Tritium has poor low-light visibility whereas Superluminova glows brighter and is easier to see in low light.
4. Rolexes are meant to last several lifetimes. Tritium tubes are not. They’d need to be replaced several times over the average life of a Rolex.

I can see how Rolex models have differing levels of brightness and longevity. Sport and dive models are likely to last longer (I’ve never had issues with my Submariner’s lume lasting all night), but something like a Datejust will have lume applied over a smaller area and not as thick.

Tritium glow is constant, so over the course of the night, it appears to glow brighter as your eyes get accustomed to the dark. Superluminova (or whatever compound Rolex uses) ideally should fade as your eyes become accustomed to the dark so a great application will give you a relatively constant lume level, as perceived by your eyes.

I’ve owned several of both, but I prefer lume paint to tritium.

[mmmmp]

In my opinion, Rolex *USED* to have one of the poorest lume performance on God's green earth. Tritium was decent but the half life was only, what, about 7 or 8 years? Then it was that lame Luminova which begot Super Luminova: lame and Super Lame.

Now we have: Chromalight: Chroma = Color
Light = Well, uh, light.

It seems this thread is all over the place in terms of user experiences which really doesn't make sense technically. However, I know all replies are honest, so It's a head scratcher.

My DJ41 glows bright blue when the lights first go out. (My eyes haven't yet compensated for the initial bright to dark change.) After 10 minutes or so, the lume is *clearly* legible but no longer 'bright' - it still can be called blue but very de-saturated. After 5 or 6 hours later, coming out of a deep sleep, lume is legible but quite dim. Color no longer reads as blue and the hand positions and markers are just barely visible but you can read the time.

My watch is about a year and a half old and the lume characteristics haven't changed since new. Lume was very important to me since I worked in very dim, almost dark rooms for decades. I'm happily retired but old habits and all that.

That's my report to add to the general confusion. I'm very happy with Chromalight but I can't fathom why folks with new watches are stuck with underperforming Lume.

Mark

Sent from my SM-A520W using Tapatalk

[abozz]

I do not have any complains about Rolex chromalight, I sleep with my watch on because I wake up several times at night to check the hour, without any problem, is the same last of my earlier Seiko MM300.

Enviado desde mi SM-G975F mediante Tapatalk

[jvb.nc]

Originally Posted by Galaga167

All these claims that their Rolex lume lasts throughout the night is utter . I have one and it would be lucky to last 2 hours. Even my Seiko Marinemaster which is up there with the best in the industry doesn’t last all night.

Keep it real guys.

..... and you can tell me that my experience with six different watches is utter ?

[Finslayer83]

Omega and Seiko could teach a thing or two about lume.