Introducing: The Nomos Club Sport Neomatik Worldtimer 'Night Navigation' Editions (Live Pics)

What We Know

Hello from Glashütte, Germany! I’m writing from the sixth annual Nomos Forum at Nomos headquarters, where we’re previewing the upcoming releases for the year. While those remain under wraps for now, following tradition, a new release marks the Forum’s opening. This year brings us the Club Sport Neomatik Worldtimer ‘Night Navigation’ limited editions.

Some of you may recall last year’s extremely controversial launch at the Forum of the Tangente 2date, which featured a whopping two entire date windows. However, this year, we are fortunate to have no date windows at all for the new releases. Instead, we get this year’s very well-received Club Sport Worldtimer silhouette, now available in three ultra-Cyberpunk color schemes.

They are named equally as edgy as they look visually — Grid, Trace, and Vector. Nomos draws inspiration from details seen on cockpit instruments and views of cities at night from an airplane, with the three separate models featuring different high-contrast accents on a sunray-brushed black galvanized dial. Grid goes in on orange, accompanied by a brown city ring with ecru text, while Trace receives a turquoise treatment, and finally, Vector gets light yellow/ecru accents with the city ring in olive. All three in this series sport bright orange accents on the 24-hour home time subdial hand as well as a small strip on the top of the dial highlighting the current city, while markings on the minute track allow the wearer to calculate the relative time in any of the cities around the dial (daylight savings time withstanding).

Though these three dials are extremely unconventional by Nomos standards, the rest of the watch is the same when compared to the eight Club Sport Worldtimers launched back in the spring. The 40mm stainless steel case features the new, shorter Club lug design, as well as an impressively svelte 9.9mm case height. The screw down crown features a red ring in the crown tube that’s revealed only when the crown is unscrewed, reminding you to make sure the watch is properly sealed for the 100 meters of rated water resistance.

The wearability of it all is thanks to this year’s new, fully integrated worldtime movement, the self-winding DUW 3202. Featuring the Nomos Swing System, the brand’s in-house escapement, the caliber has a power reserve of 42 hours.

Each of the three new Night Navigation Worldtimers, in Grid, Trace, and Vector, are limited to 175 pieces each and priced at $5,190.

What We Think

It wasn’t so long ago that Nomos introduced the brand-new Club Sport Worldtimer to the stage, so it is surprising to me that a new trio of limited-edition colorways would be revealed so soon, just half a year after the first editions.

Frankly, it seems like perhaps the folks at Nomos had wildly underestimated how popular the six limited edition colorways would be at the fair — and that would be understandable, since the Club Sport Worldtimer represents a much higher price point than most of the brand’s other models. 175 times six, plus two non-limited colorways, is still quite a lot of watches. However, aside from perhaps a few floating around authorized retailers worldwide (anecdotally, I’ve seen people post about stumbling upon a few at Italian retailers online), the six limited-edition colorways have all sold out. I said this about April’s models, and I’ll say it again for these: at this price point (slightly higher than April’s models, given a recent price increase across the board), the Worldtimer manages to still feel like a value proposition, given its robust GADA specs as well as that in-house, fully-integrated worldtime movement.

So perhaps releasing a new trio so soon is a way to still capitalize on that existing demand, even if the dials of these are, well, night and day compared to the first six. In person, the combination of a black dial with highly saturated accents comes together in a way that the original renders may not have suggested, although the anti-reflective coating tends to give the dial a blue cast in certain lighting conditions. These are definitely watches worth seeing in person to grasp.

My pick of the bunch goes to the Vector. While I thought I’d love the orange Grid model the most, the Vector actually comes off quite subtly in person, with the greenish-yellow accents feeling less intense than those of the other two. And, it must be mentioned — the worldtime pusher on the case is one of the most tactically satisfying experiences I’ve encountered in watchmaking.

Although the fundamental design of the Worldtimer dial (and its inherent complication) appears to contradict many of the Bauhaus principles on which Nomos was founded, the color schemes of these three watches (and the story behind their inspiration) certainly stray even further away. I would have never thought to use this word with the brand, but these three “Night Navigation” designs are the most tacticool thing I’ve seen from Nomos. And that has me wondering — as the brand continues to evolve and grow commercially, is it perhaps necessary to shed that inspiration as it tries new things? 

These new watches will certainly attract a whole new customer base that never connected with the brand’s other designs, and only begs the question of what direction the design team in Berlin may possibly explore next.

The Basics

Brand: Nomos Glashütte
Model: Club Sport Neomatik Worldtimer
Reference Number: 790.S7 (Trace); 790.S8 (Grid); 790.S9 (Vector)

Diameter: 40mm
Thickness: 9.9mm
Case Material: Stainless steel
Dial Color: Galvanized black with colored accents
Indexes: Printed
Lume: Yes, Super-LumiNova
Water Resistance: 100m
Strap/Bracelet: Steel Club Sport bracelet

The Movement

Caliber: DUW3202
Functions: Hours, minutes, small seconds, 24-hour home time, worldtime
Diameter: 31mm
Thickness: 4.8mm
Power Reserve: 42 hours
Winding: Automatic
Jewels: 37
Chronometer Certified: No

Pricing & Availability

Price: $5,190
Availability: Nomos Online & Authorized Retailers
Limited Edition: Yes, 175 pieces each.

For more, click here.