Of course, NOMOS Glashütte is traditionally cautious when it comes to complications: The NOMOS designers believe in the guidelines of the Deutscher Werkbund, they like to keep the dials clean and the cases slender—and complications tend to take up a lot of space in both. So, any complication needs to be reinvented before it becomes suitable for a NOMOS watch.
The patented date function, for instance: The date ring was mounted on rubies and set around the movement, making it a seamless addition to the caliber and keeping the watch both elegant and flat. Another example of our watchmaking skill is the crescent-shaped power reserve indicator that signals when a watch needs to be rewound: This mechanism comes with just a few extra components and has also been patented.
Another milestone was our first in-house built automatic movement that we presented in 2005: It made NOMOS Glashütte a member of the very small league of watch manufacturers that produce their own calibers (nowadays we build all our movements in-house). A few years later, the first NOMOS world time function came out: The DUW 5201 movement ticks inside both the Zürich Weltzeit and the Tangomat GMT models—making them de facto 24 watches in one.
In order to improve continuously, NOMOS works in cooperation with the Technical University of Dresden and the Fraunhofer Institute. This has led to the development of our own gear wheel train, for example. And it also ensures that the latest discoveries about materials can contribute to our watchmaking work. Two calibers that the watchmakers from NOMOS’ R&D department are particularly proud of are DUW 1001 and DUW 2002—the amazingly sophisticated calibers at the heart of the gold watches Lambda and Lux. They belong to the best that has ever come out of Glashütte—and to the most beautiful.
