Nomos Glashütte Tangente Neomatik Watch Review

 Nomos Glashütte Tangente Neomatik Watch Review

Nomos Glashütte Tangente Neomatik Watch Review

Within this feature in the WatchTime archives, we check out the 2016 released Neomatik form of Nomos Glashütte’s familiar Tangente watch, with a computerized in-house movement.

We’ve known Nomos Glashütte’s Tangente watch since its introduction in 1992, therefore the last factor we expected would be a profound change. But 2016 Nomos gave the timepiece a brand new automatic in-house movement and added it to the Neomatik collection.

This form of the Nomos Tangente is striking for many reasons. The Glashütte-based manufacture labored for several years to achieve independence from Swiss movement suppliers: first with individual components, then using its own escapement subassembly (so it calls the “swing system”), and 2016 using the automatic Caliber DUW 3001, a recently developed automatic movement that ticks within the Tangente Neomatik along with other Nomos models. “DUW” means “Deutsche Uhrenwerke” (German watch movements) and describes Nomos’s distinction because the maker of their own movements.

Nomos Glashütte Tangente Neomatik Watch Review

Nomos could keep your cost low for 2 reasons: extensive research and calculations, partially together with the Technical College of Dresden, permitted the brand new movement to become serially manufactured, and the organization introduced ultramodern manufacturing and set up techniques, making it easy to increase production volume.

These goals were presented in the start towards the engineering team, so details associated with fabrication, set up and servicing influenced the developmental work in the beginning. Among the results: Caliber DUW 3001 is put together in just three steps, when compared to five required for previous Nomos calibers. “Now that we’ve fully mastered building movements, we are able to question everything,” states chief design engineer Mirko Heyne.

Theodor Prenzel, the look engineer behind the DUW 3001, states, “That’s why nothing apart from an entirely new approach being considered for the new caliber. We altered many details within the classical construction and eventually showed up in a completely new movement.”

Nomos Glashütte Tangente Neomatik Watch Review

The movement developers first switched their focus on the apparatus train. Although its construction had recently been recalculated together with the Technical College of Dresden in '09, the technicians exposed it to restored scrutiny and customised it specifically with this caliber. By altering the amount, arrangement and angles from the teeth, the specialists could raise the gear train’s efficiency by 10 % for an impressive 94.2 percent.

That’s a massive improvement by itself, but it’s even more impressive considering the usual tolerances needed to be halved with this ultra-slim movement, which supplies only one mm of height between your base plate and also the three-quarter plate to support the rotating components.

That’s underneath the Three-Quarter Plate …

Nomos Glashütte Tangente Neomatik Watch Review

Based on Glashütte tradition, watchmakers attempt to put as most of the watch’s mechanisms as you possibly can underneath the three-quarter plate. Nomos required this effort a measure farther. Glashütte’s usually spacious bridge doesn’t cover only the gear train: the ratchet wheel, that is now only half as tall since it's predecessor, also disappears underneath the three-quarter plate, along with the double click wheel for that automatic winding mechanism. As it happens, the double click wheel is definitely an entire subassembly, which transforms the bidirectional motions from the rotor into unidirectional action to tighten the mainspring. This very efficient mechanism works together with a reverse position of just 10 levels. To compare, the related position is 27 levels within the ETA 2824 and 42 levels in Rolex Caliber 3135. Lowering the position to 10 levels implies that overall, less power is required to wind the DUW 3001.

The developers even used a brand new material for that ratchet wheel. They decided on a substance that's simple to process and hardens readily, loses less mass because of abrasion, and runs with nearly no axial eccentricity. To produce space for that automatic winding mechanism, Nomos’s own balance and it is blued Carl Haas balance spring oscillate underneath a bridge. This provides greater stability and therefore more precise running.

However the rate’s precision arrives mainly towards the recently calculated flow of pressure. The ability starts to flow in the low-rise barrel, which always includes a narrower mainspring. This spring contains less material, therefore it exerts less pulling pressure. Despite less energy flowing in the barrel, in which the moment of torque is simply 670 gmm (when compared with 800 gmm within the Rolex Caliber 3135 and 1,200 gmm within the ETA 2824), the enhanced gear train helps to ensure that the equivalent energy gets to your swing system. Our tests confirmed good rate values and acceptable amplitudes in a variety of positions.

Another precise calculation is made between your automatic rotor and also the barrel or, as it happens, the mainspring. Because the mainspring gets to be more tightly wound, the rotor moves more sluggishly, before the opposing pressure in the mainspring stops the rotor’s motions completely. This “rotor brake” reduces put on and lets the timepiece run with less noise since it prevents the rotor from ongoing to show unnecessarily following the mainspring continues to be fully wound.

Searching With the Azure Caseback

Nomos Glashütte Tangente Neomatik Watch Review

Newton’s law of action and reaction rarely appears simpler or even more remarkable than whenever you view its effects with the Tangente Neomatik’s azure caseback. You'll be surprised the rotor seems still and cast perplexed compares the technology. In addition, you will notice the handsome accents of Glashütte’s watchmaking tradition: striped patterns around the bridges and also the rotor, Nomos’s circular graining around the base plate, blued screws and, should you look very carefully, a blued balance spring. Another technical bit awaits discovery too: top of the top of the subassembly that conveys kinetic energy in the rotor, no matter its direction of rotation, to instantly wind the mainspring. The 3-quarter plate is engraved using the serial quantity of the movement. Another engraving across the narrow fringe of the caseback claims that our tested watch is one of the “1st edition.” In compliance using the DUW’s numbering system, this primary series contains 3,001 calibers in 10 different types: two versions each for that Tangente Neomatik, the Ludwig, the Metro, the Orion and also the Minimatik.

The Tangente’s bipartite situation is unchanged in almost all other aspects: it remains a shiny, 6.9-mm-high, straight-sided cylinder having a very narrow bezel, distinctive angled lugs, a azure very over the dial, a azure window within the caseback and water proofing to 30 meters.

Finally: The look of the Nomos Glashütte Tangente Neomatik

Nomos Glashütte Tangente Neomatik Watch Review

Our tested watch is attached, as always, for an eye-appealing Horween Genuine Covering Cordovan strap, although a vegetal-tanned cowhide strap can also be readily available for the Champagne version. The hands-stitched, remborded, cowhide strap is stiff, therefore the 35-mm Tangente fits somewhat clumsily initially, however this situation soon improves. The pin buckle is effective. The buckle’s closed frame eliminates the requirement for two belt loops around the leather strap. From the first day, it was suddenly smooth and simple to slide the finish from the strap with the buckle.

Information on the Tangente’s dial ensure that this watch appears like a Neomatik. Lengthy, slender, black-anodized hands indicate index strokes for that odd-numbered hrs and also to Arabic numerals for that even-numbered ones, except at 6, in which the numeral is substituted with a sub-dial, decorated with concentric circles, for that seconds. An attention-getting red hands sweeps for this little disk, that is marked with three various kinds of index strokes along with a quartet of Arabic numerals. Exactly the same red colorization can be used around the dial for the this type of watches: “neomatik” is presented in lower situation, typed having a final “k” and centered underneath the names “NOMOS” and “Glashütte,” located between your 11 and also the 1. The numerals for that 5-minute markings across the dial’s edge are vibrant blue: we’re just sorry the cyan paint doesn’t glow at nighttime.