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The benefits of owning a watch with a tritium illuminated dial is clear. Rather than having to charge your lumes, tritium is perpetually glowing. This is because when the gas (tritium) is compressed in to a tube, its atoms have constant collisions with each other causing a glow. Watches with luminova paint are not made like this. They are not a naturally occuring element and will not constantly glow.
This makes tritium watches especially useful within dive watches as you don’t have to worry about visibility in murky water. This is especially true for T100 tritium, since it is the brightest dial available. Although even if you use T25, this will be a lot better than any dial with a luminous paint coating.
The need for a tritium dialled watch is for those who work graveyard shifts in dark areas, or spend a lot of time underwater. Of course, you may have an office job and simply prefer the idea of having a watch which is illuminated 24/7. People wear submariners and space watches in everyday life, so there is nothing wrong with wearing a tritium watch either.
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Is Tritium Still Used In Watches?
Yes, there a a handful of watch brands that still use tritium. Whilst Omega & Rolex stopped using the radioactive element during the late 1990’s, many other less well known brands still use it.
The main reason that some companies stopped using tritium is because there are a lot of health and safety costs involved with using the material. Secondly, paint such as luminova became widely available and inexpensive. Whilst it isn’t quite as effective as tritium, it is still good enough for the average watch wearer.
Are Tritium Gas Tube Watches Safe?
Yes. Like many other radioactive materials, tritium is only dangerous when you are exposed to it. Typically this would mean smashing open your watch and ingesting the glass tube containing the tritium – not something a sane person would do.
When people think of radioactivity, they immediately think of a nuclear wasteland. Tritium is placed in a small glass vial, inside a watch dial. Unless you went out of your way to come in to direct contact with the tritium it will not affect you at all.
Lastly, a lot of controversy came about because of the use of radium in watch dials. A lot of factory workers got sick due to ingesting the radium (from licking the brush before applying the paint). Of course with machinery and less radioactive materials, this risk has been completely eliminated.
How Long Will A Tritium Watch Last?
Tritium has a half life of 12.3 years. This means that every year, 5.5% of the tritium will decay and become helium. What this means as a watch owner is that after 12.3 years, you watch will be roughly half as bright as it once was when you first purchased it. Given that tritium watches are not particularly luxury or expensive, if the lume wasn’t bright enough, it may be worth buying a new watch after 12 years.
What Is The Brightest Tritium Watch?
This is actually a silly question. There are only two types of tritium used in a watch dial which are tritium T100 and tritium t25. Tritium T100 has more gas inside each glass tube, so is brighter.
So due to tritium being a natural gas, there is not really such thing as the brightest. This would be the equivalent to saying which watch is made of the most steel? As long as all brands are using 316L, then they will all be the same quality steel. This does not determine who makes the best designed tritium watch, but it does show that there isn’t one brand who is brighter than all others.
Do Any Brands Make A Solar Tritium Watch Model?
Yes. However unfortunately, most of these brands are not really well known and are difficult to buy outside of Chinese websites.
Thankfully, some of these solar tritium watches are now available on ebay, so can easily be bought in the USA and certain countries in Europe.
Brands such as Yelang, make an unusual solar tritium chronograph. This model uses a Seiko movement, which makes us wonder why Seiko don’t make this watch themselves?
Another brand known as Detomaso also make a fashion watch named the Matera which is another solar based tritium dial watch.
Yet another Chinese brand named Carnival did make some tritium watches for a while, but these seem to be discontinued. It’s not known whether this was due to lack of demand or problems with importing them in to the US.
Outside of these two brands, it is very difficult to find such a watch as they are in very short supply.
The Best Tritium Watches
Luminox
Luminox are the brand which is best known for their use of tritium. Their watches are marketed as Navy Seal standard and always have a military and tactical element about them. Luminox watches are genuinely good in the field and extremely rugged, resilient and lightweight. This all black model shows that with tritium, you don’t even need to have visible numbers on the dial. Since all hour indicators, as well as the seconds, minutes and hours hand are luminious, you can still see the time in even the darkest visibility conditions.
The watch is both Swiss made and 200m water resistant. These features probably aren’t necessary to have, but are at least a nice bonus. As a brand Luminox watches are pretty reasonable value for money and aren’t particularly cheap nor expensive.
Armourlite
Armourlite produce a variety of watches which look very similar to Luminox, albeit with a slightly more outdated style. They are also built to a very similar specification with 200m water resistance and a Swiss quartz movement.
Luminox watches use superior quality tritium to Armourlite (T100 compared to T25). This isn’t really a big deal unless you really need the extra brightness as both elements have the same half life. Overall, you would only pick the Armourlite if you prefer their design as there isn’t too much difference in price.
Marathon
Built to NATO dive specifications, the Marathon dive watch is truly built for the sea. Of course you don’t have to wear it underwater, but just know it can survive more than washing the dishes. In terms of specifications, the watch is excellent, in fact it is one of the very few tritium automatic watches on the market.
The pricetag on this military issue watch is quite steep, but with that said it is very well put together and contains a real workhorse movement. The ETA-2824 is very reliable and accurate and was used by Tudor for a while. So given that this watch costs less than $1500, it is really not too bad considering the standard it is made to.
Isobrite
This carbon fiber cased 24 hour watch is a very unique design to say the least. It is really not too often you see a 24 hour dial rather than a standard 12 hour. Not only this, but obviously since the Isobrite model made it onto this list, it also contains tritium.
Using a Swiss quartz movement, the Isobrite is still reasonably expensive for what if offers. It is a very unusual and cool design, but there are far better spec tritium watches for less money than this. You should only consider buying this watch if you’re a huge fan of its atypical design.
It should also be noted that this model comes with a replacement nylon strap giving it a field watch feel if required.
Traser
A no nonsense watch, the Traser looks like its design hasn’t been updated since the 1970’s. Of course, this is done on purpose as the watch is meant to fit a classical and vintage style. The watch uses a solid Swiss-made Ronda quartz movement so there are no questions of reliability.
As a fairly common gimmick, the dial displays the radioactive sign between the 2 and 3 o’clock hour indicators. Whilst this is true, tritium is a radioactive element, it is inside tiny tubes behind a sapphire crystal – so will not be posing harm to anyone.
Reactor
Reactor make use of being only one of the very few brands which make a sports style tritium based watch. As you can see, it is both rugged and bulky with a case size that extends well beyond the bezel.
The reactor logo is a nuclear symbol, so you know this brand specializes in making tritium watches. Overall, this watch is not built to a fantastic specification, but is priced accordingly compared to other watches on the list.
MWC
The MWC depthmaster is an aboluste beast. This automatic dive watch has an incredible 1000m water resistance which would actually be reasonably difficult to test since this is far deeper than a submarine can go. Perhaps the strangest thing about this watch is that it uses T25 tritium, which is not as bright as T100. Given that the watch can be used so deep, it would have made sense to use the brightest element possible.
MWC make use of the classic Seiko NH35A movement which is of course super reliable. Overall, this is a great dive watch at a very reasonable price point.
Smith & Wesson
Not what you would expect from a company which primarily sells guns. The best seller of Smith & Wesson is the 9mm Shield, yes it’s useful. But not necessarily something you would want to have in your posession at a party. The brand have chosen to put their tritium tubes around the outer dial rather than on the hour indicators themselves.
In terms of style and design, you cannot really fault this watch. It is very masculine and does a lot of things other watch brands don’t. The only questionable concern is the movement which is made in Thailand. Whilst Thailand has been making quartz movements for quite a while, obviously they are not as reliable as Swiss or even Japanese movements.
Vostok
A truly beautiful Russian watch. This Vostok model is an unusual tritium based divers chronograph. The first thing you will notice is that the tritium tubes have been placed vertically rather than horizontally at each hour indicator. As every other brand does the opposite of this, it lets Vostok stand out as having a unique design.
In terms of accuracy, this will be a lot more accurate than your typical Russian watch since it is not mechanical and makes use of a Miyota quartz movement. If you thought that the brand was simply cost cutting by doing this, think again. The Vostok grand chrono is a true divers watch with water resistance up to 300m and makes use of a helium valve for added pressure safety.
Deep Blue Tritdiver
The Deep Blue Tritdiver is hands down one of the best value tritium watches on the market. For what you’re getting, this watch is very cheap considering the level of detail and specifications it is built to.
T100 (the brightest tritium) is placed on all of the hour indicators as well as hands. It puts a lot of other dive watches to shame by boasting a massive 500m water resistance, compared to the industry standard of only 300m. A sapphire crystal protects this dial from any unwanted scratches and adds to the overall quality of the watch. The ceramic bezel will also make sure that you don’t have to worry about any damage to the entire front face.
Not only this, but the Deep Blue uses a Seiko automatic NH35. This movement is not luxury by any measure. It is however pretty much the most reliable movement you can get outside of Switzerland that isn’t in a high end watch.
