I love a watch with good lume, find a watch incredible to look at when it's all lit up nicely.

One of my favorites was an electric blue Seamaster with the sword hands that you could basically read a book by when fully charged up.

All the current omegas in my collection (not just omegas mind you) leave me extremely underwhelmed.... no matter how long I charge them for the lume fades within a matter of minutes. It's not even a practical feature of the watch as I'm unable to tell the time after a few minutes of having it in the dark....

Anyone else irked by this? Is there any reason why the lume doesn't last so long? I'd figure that with newer watches the compounds would be more effective and last longer

Photo as tribute

 

What are you charging them with? Lume lasts the longest and burns brightest when charged with UV light, either a black light or the sun. It won't last long with just a lamp or even a flashlight.

 

I use a flash light for now. Am aware that UV does best. But even when I've been in the bright sun I still find it doesn't last too long.

Maybe I need to invest in a Blacklight and give that a go

 

You are right in one sense...My modern GSOTM and seamaster can't compare in lume to the previous electric blue seamaster I have had.. I live in sunny florida..and this is true even in natural light....

 

Narrower hands and indices to add Superluminova translates to shorter a lume time.

 

I get short. I'm not expecting it to last for hours on end.

But it's basically unreadable in the dark after 5 min. What's the point of even having lume if it doesn't even serve its purpose....

 

That is just my point, though. The lume on SMP sword hands are nuclear bright for the first 5 minutes, but because the lume covers a larger space, the lume appears to last longer than on your Speedmaster. Relatively speaking, your lume probably maintains the equivalent percentage in brightness for the space as my 2254 in 5 minutes.

 

I know some people who keep a tiny blacklight on a keychain and use that before movies and such. You'd be surprised at how much of a difference it makes.

 

My issue isn't just my Speedmasters. Aqua terra same issue. Actually same issue with most my watches. But particularly sad about the omegas as they are some of my favorites

 

Does your AT have broadarrow hands?

 

No, I'd say they're dagger hands

 

The seamaster smp have a good amount of lume on their hour markers...their lume doesn't hold well against older seamasters...I do like the theory about more area but I also believe the lume material is also less effective

 

The older ones used radium, therefore, the lume needed no charge and some vintage pieces still glow in the dark. But perhaps the brands changing the lume to blue has less of an effect than green?

 

Well I think he means older as in early 2000's old, not vintage. Plus most used tritium anyway, unless we're talking 2913.

 

OMEGA never used radium? It still appeared on watches into the late 1960's.

 

The type of superluminova and the pigment size do also make a difference. The 2254 has C3 which is today still the brightest of the bunch. But it has a slightly yellowish colour and therefore is a bit out of fashion. Pure white is C1, which is unfortuneately one of the poorest. BWG9 is much better but is slightly grey in color. That's probably why many manufacturers still prefer C1. As stated earlieer, there are also different pigment size available. Larger is better for brightness but not so good for application and printing. The pigement size is usually not disclosed.
Of course thickness of the paint does also have an impact. So it''s pretty much a tradoff with design descisions and manufacturing boundary conditions.

For a long time I thought batton hands must perform badly in this discipline. A Breitling Aersopace from the late '90s proved me, that this is not the case.

Some charts from http://www.sinn-uhrenforum.de/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=5410 (german)

 

^ Great info @BenjaminT!

 

Could always pickup one of these and then you wouldn't need any lume

On a serious note:
The lume is great on my moonwatch, I can see it during the day. My coaxial speedy is a little less noticeable. If I hit it with the UV flashlight though it glows for a long time and bright too

 

If my main objective in a watch is lume, then I buy Seiko instead of Omega.

 

The 2254/2255 are better even than the very impressive lume on the Monster. I have put them side by side.