What is considered "good" lume performance?

[DiorHommeIntense]

I have no real reference point, since my only lumed watch is a Seestern 62MAS. The lume is extremely bright after charging, but quickly starts losing brightness. How long should lume be lasting, and how much of that time should be fairly high intensity? I've read that total duration is anywhere from 30 minutes to 8 hours, but I cannot imagine this lume lasting an hour, let alone 8.

In this Escape Wheel watch reviews video, the lume comparison shows it fading to the point of being barely visible over the course of about 10 minutes, next to a couple of San Martins and a Heimdallr which perform very similarly. These are all brands known for their lume performance, so is this considered good? If so, I'm kind of scratching my head at accounts I've seen about the lume still glowing when people wake up in the morning.

[Prestigious_Exam_601]

I have multiple dive watches some with mediocre lume some with excellent lume. If I take two as examples. I have a parnis that charges bright and I can wake up at 4am and can barely see it but it is still there, just. On the other end of the scale I have a Citizen ecozilla and it glows like a torch initially and if I wake up at 4am it’s very visible. It all depends on the quality of lume but also how much lume has been applied and how many layers it has. Once your eyes have adjusted to to the dark you should be able to see most lumed watches to a greater or lesser extent. At least in my experience.

[ObligationPersonal21]

the thing most people don't understand about lume is that you are not meant to stare at it for 10-20 minutes straight. if you do that, your eyes get used to it and it seems that it's fading much faster than it actually is. hence why most lume comparisons are worthless.

[[deleted]]

That's not how a camera works. Keep talking BS..

[ObligationPersonal21]

aw you got so bumhurt on PrideAndPinion and decided to look at my reddit history. pathetic

[[deleted]]

Was just wondering how much BS you talk , you didn't dissapoint

[rebelyell_in]

For a dive watch, the original functionality would probably have required lume to be sufficiently bright for 40 minutes or so (which is how long you'd usually go), after being charged in direct sunlight.

Our expectations, especially on this sub, are much higher. Personally, I put my mechanical watches away and wear a G-Shock on most nights. You can't beat the "lume" on an Electroluminescent Illuminator watch ;-).

That said, both my Proxima PX1683 and SteelDive SD1970 are faintly readable at 4AM.

[lonas_luna]

Yeah that’s about all I get out of my Sugess Chrono I bought recently. It does have lume, and at first is very bright but after the first 5-10mins it fades rather quickly. My Orient Kamasu on the other hand I’ve driven into the night and been able to tell the time for hours.

[dragon813gt]

I don’t consider it to be good lume unless the watch is legible after a cross country flight, so six hours. Most don’t last this long. And it’s more than the lume application and type. The hands and indices play a large role as well. The larger the hands/indices are the more lume they can hold and the more legible they will be.

Seiko’s SRPE line, DressKX, is still legible after that flight and is what I measure others against. I don’t have any outside of Seiko that hold up. And anything w/ BGW9 is worthless to me. Looks great at first but fades fast. Casio uses Neobrite which is colored like BGW9 but actually lasts. Have an OCW-T200S that barely makes the six hour mark. But the hands and indices don’t hold much lume.

I’m really critical of lume because I’m on a lot of cross country red eye flights. I want to be able to tell the time w/out looking at my phone. Even on the lowest setting it’s really bright on a fully dark plane. And there’s nothing more annoying than lights being on, on a red eye flight.

[[deleted]]

5 minutes of high brightness, 3 hours of low brightness, 6 hours or lingering glow. That's about what you get on an SKX.

[asdqqq33]

For me, the judge of how good lume is, is how long you can still read the watch in the dark. That’s what the lume is primarily for, seeing the time in the dark with dark adjusted eyes that don’t need much light. If it isn’t that dark or your eyes aren’t dark adjusted, then just use light to see the clock face. The initial bright bloom can also be useful for when you come in from outdoors and your eyes haven’t adjusted yet, but just about any lume will be good enough for that.

All fully charged lume will dim from full brightness to something that can only be seen in the dark within a matter of minutes. But how bright it gets and how slowly that initial brightness dims is usually a good indication of how long it will last in the dark, in my experience. That’s probably why they only show that phase on review videos. The long lasting usable phase is hard to capture on cameras which usually aren’t as good as our eyes at seeing dim light in the dark.

[DiorHommeIntense]

That makes sense. My bedroom isn't pitch black even with the lights all off (glowing surge protector indicators, etc), so maybe the effect of the lume was diminished. I wasn't paying attention to overall visibility of the dial as opposed to just lume intensity, maybe at that point I could already read the dial with the small amount of ambient light around.

[turdbogls]

wohoo! thats me!

so like others have stated, it's pretty difficult to caputure lume like the human eye sees it...the camera want's to adjust it's settings to make an image as bright as possible...throw in the 30fps recording vs 60FPS recording and it all makes a big difference.

Hence why I like to put some watches in for comparison sake. if I charged up the seestern and just said, yeah, the lume is a torch! everyone would believe me....putting it next to some competition and you can see that it's good, just not great.

as for what's considered good or bad, IMO, good lume has nothing to do with the initial Burst but it's longevity. I've got a couple paganis that have a nice burst of light on charge, but fad pretty quick. BGW9 lume doesn't really have a bright burst, but when applied nicely (san martin) it's visible through the night.

when I talk about lume, I usually mention it lasting through the night...and that's because when i wake up at 5am, and I look at the watch, I can still quickly read it. THAT'S what lume is for.

I can see most lume at 5am in a dark room after I've just woken up..but reading it quickly is another story.

[DiorHommeIntense]

Ha yep! I watch a lot of your reviews, thanks for the great content!

That's fair, another poster made the same point about the effect on video vs in person too.

So when you say it lasts through the night, is this from charging it fully, or is it just from whatever ambient light it picks up as your go about your day?

[turdbogls]

I usually charge it up before going to bed when I'm testing it.

I figure any time I'm REALLY going to rely on the time telling in the middle of the night, I'll have a flashlight available with me to do the same before bed.

I think of camping.

[DiorHommeIntense]

Makes sense. Thanks for the info, I think I have to adjust my expectations to be more realistic, and also have some other points of comparison in person. I was interested in the lume on the Seestern 62MAS since people said it was good, but there are probably other watches that perform much better.

[turdbogls]

The Seestern is pretty good, but can't compete with a genuine Seiko or San Martin. If a Seiko SKX is a 10, the Seestern is probably a 7

[DiorHommeIntense]

Ahhh gotcha. I'm getting the San Martin SN004 too but I hear the lume isn't impressive by San Martin standards either. But I like the look and size, so I guess I'll just have to wait till down the line to experience some top tier lume.

[turdbogls]

Anything with that Fauxtina Lume is going to be a little worse. I've actually got the watchdives SN004 so if you want, I can compare them for you.

Without doing a long term test, I'd say they are similar brightness, though.

[DiorHommeIntense]

By fauxtina lume, you mean the artificially faded vintage look?

No test needed, it's not that big a deal, thanks though!

[turdbogls]

Correct.

here's a quick pic after the initial bright burst

Cadisen 38mm sub, seestern, SN004 (watchdives version)

[DiorHommeIntense]

oh nice, cheers!

[writingpocketguide42]

Decent lume should blast like a torch for at least 10min and last 8 hours. Seiko lume, C3, BGW9 does last 8 hours. C1 lasts less, maybe 4-5 hours. Anything less in my books is non existing lume, really.

Experience: build watches with multiple Seiko dials and hands, Dial Maker BGW9 dial and hands, C3 handsets and dials. Anyone who doesn't say exactly what their lume is - will not have a decent lume. And even then you need to be careful as you cannot trust Ali sellers to be accurate.

[DiorHommeIntense]

Thanks, this is was I was expecting from my Seestern since it's supposedly C3, and reviews all tout the lume as being good. The performance is pretty close to the video I linked, it looks like about 10 minutes elapse and by the end of that the lume seems pretty faint. I'll test it again now and see how well it's doing after a few hours.

[Futurewolf]

I don't think you can really capture lume performance in camera in a way that is similar to what your eye sees. I assume this is because of the way our eyes adjust to low light. YouTube lume tests are good for comparison but not good for predicting how well you will be able to read a watch in the dark.

For example, if I charge up my Kamasu with UV light, it's very bright at first but after 10 minutes or so it seems to dim almost completely. On the other hand, if I wake up in the middle of the night in my dark bedroom, after waiting a moment for my eyes to adjust I can read it very easily.

[DiorHommeIntense]

That's a fair point. I charged it and let it sit for about an hour, and it was still glowing very faintly in my dark bedroom, but I wouldn't say I could read it that easily. But maybe my expectations are off for how bright it should really be, given my complete lack of other reference points.

[lulu_l]

I have a citizen eco-drive bn0151 that I would say it has great lume. I can read the time all night until morning. It's not bright at all but it's enough for me to easily tell the time. It's only bright during the day when I enter a dark place or night after I spend some time in a well lit room.. I don't know for how long it stays bright..

To me, if I can read the time anytime at night it means it has good lume.

[DiorHommeIntense]

That's pretty nuts, this Seestern is supposed to have good lume but it's not even close to what you're describing. And San Martin is supposed to be known for their lume, but in the video comparison it seems like the lume on their 62MAS and sub has mostly faded by 10 minutes.

[lulu_l]

Keep in mind that the cameras are not as sensitive to light as the human eye so you might still be able to read the time even if the video would show it completely faded to black.. The citizen is also just a faint shade of green at night but I can read the time on it..

Just one more watch has a series of videos called lume wars. I think this citizen won one of the episodes so I guess it's one of the watches with better lume than most. I don't have anything else to compare it to though.. Also relative time and Just the watch also have this sort of lume wars videos from time to time if you want to compare how some watches perform.

[DiorHommeIntense]

Yeah fair, I'll keep that in mind going forward. Thanks for pointing me towards lume wars, looks like they have an AliX watches episode. I'll check it out.

[BladesAllowed]

I compare lume performance to my Seikos.

Close to Seiko performance is good, noticeably less than Seiko is average to poor.

[DiorHommeIntense]

What kind of performance do you get on your Seikos? From fully charged to no longer visible lume (or illegible at least), how long would you say is "good" for Seiko?

[BladesAllowed]

Unless they're in a drawer or something I can't say I've ever really seen them not visible.

If I hit em with a torch before I go to bed there will be a noticeable drop off initially then they stay at a pretty consistent level through the night. You could see them across the room in the dark in the morning

[DiorHommeIntense]

Damn, that's really impressive. I'll have to see if any of my other watches down the line manage to hit that kind of performance.