Which is brighter? Tritium vs. Superluminova, Seiko Lumi brite and other watch lume! 

A few people have asked, this comparison features Tritium T100 tubes on the dial, T25 on the hands.

Thank you SO much for not making this video 30 minutes long like some channels would have. To the point, informative. Cheers.

Tritium is great. It's not "in your face" bright but it is always on and the darker it gets, the more legible it becomes. Thanks for the explanation and comparison.

Would be interested to see how cheap brand watches last in the same test. I was in the Navy starting in 1990. Majority of the guys in my division went to Timex with Indiglo. When the ship lost power or when sleeping in our racks we could easily check the time with a touch of the button and they were cheap enough that they could easily be replaced when damaged from the work we did in the engine room. Another benefit was in a power outage on the ship we could literally use our watches like a flashlight to walk through passageways if the emergency light batteries had died or weakened.

You deserve much more reach! Excellent video and content. As always! Thank you

literally the best presentation I've seen on this subject. Thanks for taking the time to make and publish.

Firstly this is without doubt the best lume comparison video out there (Relative Time is also a top contender so don’t get too big headed LML) Lume on Diver’s watches is going to be the preference because it glows brighter, as you need to note your dive time, and light fades the deeper you go, also your eyes need a little time to adjust to darker conditions. With an average of 45/60mins total dive time, the lume is also possible to charge with lighting (you’ll have lighting anyway if in darker waters) When surfacing, you’ll need to time this carefully, so if anything this is where a Diver’s bezel becomes a your backup. You’ll notice (this is for looks mainly) that many Diver’s watches have a colour for the first 15/20mins. This is timing your surfacing duration. So you set the bezel so when the minute hand reaches zero (which has a luminous pip) that’s when you begin your surfacing stages. It’s very crucial not to surface too quickly, so it’s not about just diving to 30mtrs or so, then just surface with 2mins of air left. Using these watches as your main diving aid isn’t something unless you’re desperate, or maybe very old school, but these are really for secondary backup. Tritium gas tubes in a Diver’s watch is nothing but for show, as it’s in the wrong environment. Tritium is perfect for total/partial darkness when you need it for a long duration, but as your eyes are adjusted to darkness you’ll see the tritium easily, whereas when diving to depths it’ll be dark, thus you’ll be using bright lighting which effects your eyes, thus why lume is better. Just my little comment about this to how they work best, as it’s not always about strength. And again, this video is brilliant, and can imagine the amount of editing it took even if it’s a short video. I will share this on my community page, as I know many are lume obsessive like a kid (have to admit, this goes for me also LML) HaPpY Weekend buddy and thanks for sharing *)

Wonderful comparison of lumes, great idea you implemented here!

Great visualization Dave!

Excellent Dave!! Like I said before: this lum assessment is unique AND yours.. highly technical btw..👍

you do the best lume comparisons, i really appreciate it

Excellent, really love the animated comparison time lapse. Congrats!

Excellent video! I've worn my Ball Hydrocarbon Aero GMT daily for 4 years. I tried Super-Luminova, but the Lume just doesn't last on those long nights in the air or on the road. Re-Lume or re-tube in 20 years, win/win for either technology.

Was waiting for this topic to be covered!

Awesome quick and dirty comparison. You've answered the single question everyone is here for nice and fast. I'll check out more of your work.

This was really interesting! Thanks for doing this comparison :)

I really like how you did that comparison infographic. How did you measure the brightness to do such an accurate demo?

This was brilliant! Short informative and to the point! Surprised the Samurai did so poorly, I always heard about lumibrite being excellent. I wonder if it's better on the more expensive $1,000+ divers. Also surprised it only took roughly half an hour for tritium to win out.

I bought a used Ball engineer 2....and at first I thought I had bad tritium tunes because I was expecting it to be as bright as super Lume. It's hard to see with any ambient line, but it's a ear winner when it's fully dark! Makes it very easy to read throughout the whole night!

I think you've made the most original watch lume video online. Nice

That is a very good and short video with a nice comparison. Thanks

That's really awesome. Great seeing the rising/falling watches

Very nice and practically useful video man. Cheers!

I have a Nite Hawk tritium watch which is overpriced but wins out because of the lume. I work nights and in the dark a lot. I have also found it useful for checking the time whilst in bed with minimal movement of my arms which has made it an essential item for me. If only Seiko would use tritium.

Suppose I have to walk in pitch dark for half and hour before I check on my watch and notice it's time to have that sandwich. Tritium turns out to be useful then. For me, personally, it's more fun to notice how my watch glows bright as I walk away from the sun outside. I can do that pretty much all day every day. Then I'm thinking about the 1 time I woke up this month in the middle of the night and I instinctively checked time and was able to read it in a heartbeat since the eyes did not have to struggle to adjust from light to darkness, as it happens when you turn off the lights. Thank you for the comparison! I had doubts in regards of tritium watches, now I know I don't need one.

This is exactly the information I was looking for on tritium lume thank you very much for making this vid with the awesome comparison! Would the tritium still shine brightly enough to be easily read in a vehicle at night with your dash lights on? Thanks

I've become a big fan of tritium. For diving conventional lume is fine because you won't be underwater for long however when I want to see my watch it might be many hours after dark and tritium will let me do that. I have a couple of very well used Luminox watches that I bought for low prices. They aren't much to look at but they run and I can see the tritium in the middle of the night. I wear one of them every night, no matter what I've worn during the day. I also like the larger flat tritium tubes that Deep Blue uses, they are even brighter late at night.

I was tought that, when it comes to lume, it's not only about the strength. More precisely, it's about the following 4 things: 1. The strength of the lume. 2. The duration of the lume, once low light conditions kick-in. 3. Most important: continuity. Is the very low light condition also enough to keep it going, keep it charged? 4. Longevity. Is it going to be that strong in 2, 5, 10, 20 years? For me, number 3 is the most important. Number 3 goes infront of number 1 and also automatically means number 2 condition is satisfied. Being a collector, number 4 plays a role also. Example: for some reason, you'll find a lot of people complaining about Invicta's lume strength (similar with Casio Duro), but what they've never done is to test it, PROPERLY. Longevity beats the strength any day, unless combined, than it's a better deal.

Great test - very useful

Very cvool test - Thank you Dave 😊👍

Nice comparison video. I love strong lume, but tritium is probably the best option.

Nice made video! Interesting comparison.

Thanks for this review do you know what type of lume that's on the invicta pro diver 47mm automatic watch. I cannot find it in the downloaded manual and Invicta is not answering their phones.

Tritium rocks! Honestly there is no substitute for me. Luminescent paint is never charged when I need it to be & most LED backlights require a free hand to press a button (I know, there's Casio's auto-EL as well, but that comes on way too often if you move around a lot like I do so it just drains your battery superfast, even the solar ones). My Traser P67 has kinda ruined most watches for me sadly, or at least in winter-time when daylight is scares over here.

Brilliant comparison

Thanks for answering a basic question in a concise manner

Great stuff. You really need to see the lume on the Wayfinder. It is a flashlight.

Also do you know how long yhe lume will glow on the invicta watch model 35717 it's a pro diver 47mm case.

Awesome comparison/review Dave, and yes I agree you deserve more. Tritium is great, I only have 1 piece with it, a Ball which I bought 10+ years back. It is a radioactive substance hence not willing to buy anything else with it. C3 is great and provides more than sufficient lum. Thank you for one more great review, enjoy watches in good health and looking forward to a new review:)

Thanks Dave, helpful video. I need a tritium watch in my collection!! 👍🏻

Just bought an invicta t100 dive watch. Brightest tritium tubes yet. It even blows away my Aragon charger with flat tubes. It is an homage of the Armida a1 white dial and bezel.

Which is the best digital electronic formal watch?

A question I had was how long will traditional lume last until it can't be charged? Probably depends on the number of layers coated. But will its longevity outlast tritium? Because once tritium runs out, it's gone for good, unless you refill it.

Would’ve been fun to see the 2 and 3 and maybe like 6 hour differences too. But great video nonetheless

Since I work nightshift... I literally bought a nail UV light at dollar tree to charge my lume on my bertucci before I leave for work. Not a watch snob but bertuccis work well for my uses.

Great review . No nonsense and no begging for subs. Well done

Great review

Great video, thanks so much!! It seems I need to learn about whayt to expect from the lume of my watches... I have much cheaper watches (Steinharts), but I was thinking that "lume" means "you can read the time on your watch in teh dark at any time, without preparations"... I have since discovered that my Steinharts are completely unreadable in low-light conditions...I've read somewhere that "you need to charge the watches in the light), so I've tried to flash a bright torch (normal, as well as UV light) onto the watches... I have then noted that indeed firing a torch on my weatches really light them up, however this effect only lasts about half an hour...so 30mins after having charged the lume, no lume at all, and can't read the time in dark... does anyone have a different experience to mine? My assumption is that "lume" is something that always works in the dark, so if I am out and want to read the time in the dark, shouldn't need to carry a UV torch with me.....am I missing something here on what to expect from my "lume"? Thank you!! PS: so far, my only watches that seem to ALWAYS have lume -even in day time, without a need to fire a torch (and are ALWAYS visible in the dark), are my two Luminox watches (I am not affiliated with them, or paid from them, ar anything like this)...

I had a Traser/H3 and once it gets dark enough to make the hands & indices, the tritium takes over, without that initial flare of brightness. Don't forget that with lume it's losing energy BEFORE the watch becomes illegible. Hence why even the best lume struggles with longevity.

The Laco fully lumed dial is not your best lume? I'd love to see how it compares!

obv i'm late to the party but many thanks for this test. knowing the relative brightness of tritium VS standard lume is very helpful. i want a watch that i can use outdoors through hours of extended darkness -- part of the joy of living in a Northern area -- and i've slowly realized that i should be looking for active lume. tritium looks like a good candidate. just need to find a good field watch with tritium -- or suchlike -- that won't cost a fortune. anyway, thanks again. 👍✌🖖

Thanks ❤️.

Anyone please suggest me best lume watch on a very low budget in Casio. Analog please. Thanks in advance.under $20

I thought tritium dials will dim within seconds? Or is it because this is fairly a new watch thats why it last much longer? The lume on my 25+ years old tritium panerai last only few seconds after directly exposed with uv torch...Please advice

Cool video. Thx.

If used for an actual dive the brighter lume is probably more useful (but most everyone just checks the dive computer nowadays) In practical use i am never running around "charging" mu lume so it just has whatever light i have been around to charge it and has always been dimmer than my tritium watches. Especially in colder enviroments when i have a jacket or coat cuff that covers my watch 😥

hi is there any cure to get the lilumination better ?

There seems to be a lot of confusion between T25 and T100 tritium. There is no difference in brightness. The T100 just allows them to put more tubes of tritium in the watch. Most watchmakers have to send their watches out to a place that's certified to install tritium tubes. The hands on this watch appear to glow dimmer than the face because the face has flat tritium tubes in it which come across as being brighter. Trust me you can see tritium just fine whether it's T25 or T100 in the dark. Light charged lumes are nice to look at initially but they're pretty useless for any length of time as this video showed. With that being said, I still feel that the Timex Indiglo is the best lume on the market.

One thing I worry about on these lume comparisons type videos is a modern cameras tendency to automatically adjust things like white balance or ISO's as lighting changes. Is this something you take into consideration when filming? Do you manually lock settings to prevent such changes over time as the lume fades? Anyway another great video, personally in spite of some obvious issues, I wish they'd bring back radium lume. I absolutely love an old cream dial with radium burns, it almost saddens me to think we arent making watches that will age with as much character and charm as we used to.

Brilliant video. So, as I understand it, it all comes down to night vision. Tritium tubes are superior in application where night vision is critical; and not really beneficial in environments where one is in and out of the light. How long does it take for the eyes to adjust to total darkness? When that adaptation is broken with a flashlight, how long does it take for the eyes to re-adapt to darkness? I would think that tritium would be ideal for hunters, snipers, woodsmen, and the unibomber. ;-)

Holding tritium under UV would make it easier to illustrate on camera just how bright it really appears in the flesh in the middle of the night. So long as you make it clear what you’re doing so the C3 gang don’t get too bent out of shape!

I had a watch long tine ago worth about $10 in todays dollars that had hands glow in dark and no light needed to charge it. My first watch. I might still have it.have to look in storage

Interesting. Although I'd be more curious to see this repeated every year to track the change.

Tritium half-life is 12.5 years, after that time it will be half has bright, and at 25 years it will be a quarter as bright. I kind of see that as a draw drawback (though in practice I don't know how likely I am to be using the same watch; I'm just getting started, so my watches haven't been around nearly that long). But then I wonder how that compares to the longevity of standard lume. How quickly does the effectiveness of regular lume deteriorate?

Best T lume is Ball Watch Co., their speciality

So Tritium for longevity and lume for briteness . BOTH side by side WILL BE A WINNER. Watch makers take note .

great vid!

Great video!

Great video. How did you do that?

Good comparison

If you really need lume, tritium is a good choice but it will require you to replace the tubes or the watch at some point. For me I could not keep using the watch past the 12 year half life. I think that’s why the Marathon Navigator is made with a cheaper case: so that it’s disposable/replaceable after the lume fades. I couldn’t see myself buying an expensive tritium watch unless there was good customer support to replace the tubes when needed.

Very interesting! I am not looking for a super bright lume, just one that will last throughout the night. Tritium may be the answer.

Great video!!! 👍👍

I was spoiled with my tritium lum watch for 6yrs and I forgot that traditional lum will disappear in time. What a bummer, don’t know why more watch manufacturers don’t use the tritium.

Tritium for any tacticool or First Responder applications. some watch makers use both to cover every light level. T25 works fine. T100 way more than enough

He ended the video like a phone call 😂😂 love it. I own several tritium “products” love them too.

i have the Ball III with the Tritium and there's nothing better for darkness when you need it.

Question, does tritium fade over time or does it die suddenly at 25 years?

After 25 is the glow completely gone? Looking to purchase a early 90’s Rolex explorer with tritium

Same tubes that are in the Deep Blue Commander

I can tell u that the lume from the tritium tubes is bright enough in a condition where it is dark enough to need it. So the only valuable reason I imagine where a brighter lume at the beginning is helpful is when you switch quickly from a bright to a dark room (switching off the light) so the eye can adapt.

Dave.... Your the man !! I was always thinking about the different lumes vs tritium My only question is.... Is the tritium watch your using.... Have the T100 tritium or T50 Or... the most popular selling that most tritium watches have T25 My thinking is the tritium watch you were using was not the T25 Tritium T100 is simply the absolute best lume you have have..and it’s crazy fantastic.. T25 not so good.. So.... what strength of Tritium was your watch that you used.... Dave, I enjoy everything you review... I absolutely love the $300-1,000 dollar segment of quality watches that are now available.. I think my next purchase might be the Ball Marvellight 3 (tritium) Street price is up there ($1,100) but it’s probably the best watch around the $1,000 price range you can buy... Blessings Greg

The reason I’ve gone to tritium is the fact that it’s always on. I don’t need to worry about it charging or getting enough light. I work nights so I need something I can look down at that will always be on. Sure, I could turn on the light on my G shock, but it only lasts a few seconds.

Is anybody going to talk about the ghost sound at 0:37 ?

So bronze is ok as a watch but not a bussdown cuban link?

I still prefer ultra bright C3 that slowly fades over dull lume that lasts.

I know sunlight or UV light from a torch or bulb works best, I wonder how lumes perform from say the light of a full moon ⌚🌝

Tritium is definitely the more useful, if you need your watch visible for a long period of time in the dark.

The thing is. . . .if you are inside and then go into the dark, normal lume will seem brighter but by the time your eyes have adjusted to the darkness, the tritium will appear to be much brighter as the other lumes fade away.

0:37 that animal-sound scared the hell out of me (headphones) 😂

All my carry and bump in the night firearms have Tritium sights, let your need to tell the time be your guide

Love my Luminox nighthawk T100 but they can’t replace with T100 tubes only T25 very disappointing. The watch is over 20 yo

Awesome 😎👍

You can buy the tritium tubes for $8 each and glue them in place on your watch dial.

The brightness of the Tritium in the Aquatico doesn't appear to be evern remotely close to as bright as a Ball, or even more so, a Marathon. The Tritium in Marathons is a thing to behold.

Make a video Tritium vs Radium :D

Something rarely mentioned, tritium has a half life of 12 years, so it’s at 50% brightness after a decade or so. I have one that is 8 years old and is already quite dim. The watch is effectively useless when this drops to a level where it can’t be seen clearly. I love my mwc but don’t want to buy a new watch every 8-10 years when the rest of the watch is perfect but the main visual feature has dissipated to this extent.

try armourlite isobright watches) there tritium t100

Tritium all day, initial brightness doesn’t matter when it lasts barely half an hour & the tritium stays consistent even if the others stayed brighter for several hours consistency is where id go to

Safe?.. Radiation??