The significance of the DUW 3001

[Faiz]

Nomos have unveiled their new ultra thin movement, the DUW 3001.
There's a great read on the movement here - http://www.nomos-glashuette.com/uplo...AZ_0315_EN.pdf




So this is 'strike 2' from Nomos.
Strike 1 was the Swing System which to be honest was perceived as being impossible for a company like Nomos.
It was the talk of Basel World 2014 and for all the right reasons.
Stereotypical excuses for reliance on ETA/Sellita and others were blown out of the water.



Well in my opinion this goes even further to blow those misconceptions out of the water.

It's a fantastic movement with all of the working parts fitting within the 1mm gap between the plates.
There's a braking system whereby the mainspring puts pressure on the mechanism to prevent the rotor from swinging when the mainspring is fully wound.
Plus its achieving COSC accuracy right out of the box.

We all know the great Manufactures in horology and they all feature like a who's who in the list of full rotor ultra thin movements;
JLC 920 With Date 3.4mm
JLC Cal 899 3.3mm
Zenith Elite Cal 680 3.28mm
Girrard Perregaux 3300 3.28mm
Nomos DUW 3001 3.2mm
JLC 920 Seconds 3.05mm
Lemania 8810 2.95mm
JLC 920 No Seconds 2.4mm
Frederic Piguet Cal 71 No Seconds 2.4mm

I'm sure there are others so please add or edit the list.

We can see that JLC, what I consider to be the greatest movement maker of them all, only has one equivalent movement thinner than the Nomos.
And by 0.15mm.

From RDenney's brilliant thread - http://forums.watchuseek.com/f2/thin...te-971521.html
We can see that the Lemania is in fact the thinnest full rotor caliber with seconds and a date.

Using Nomos's patented date mechanism where the date wheel rotates around the outside of the mechanism;



I'm sure this could become the second thinnest full rotor movement in the world with seconds and date.
And with the current Swatch Group's stance on supplying movements, the DUW 3001 if fitted with the date mechanism would become the thinnest full rotor movement with date and seconds that would be available for use by other companies.

With tooling in place to produce 100,000+ of these movements this could provide a significant percentage of Nomos's business.
When we consider that the Tangente Automatic will be available for E2600 it proves that the movement is not going to cost the earth for other manufacturers to purchase.

Nomos have put themselves in quite an incredible position and I must say that's 2.5 million very well spent.
This'll boost their income significantly and result in further R&D where we have seen that they are not afraid to go.
Remarkable from what is considered to be a small German Manufacture, they're certainly making giant strides in an industry where companies tend to stay in their brackets.
Personally I would love to have a different brand with a Nomos movement as opposed to an ETA.
Especially with all the tech in this one.



So if this is Strike 2, what will Strike 3 be?
I imagine it'll be something quite significant with just as much, if not more impact than strike 1 and 2.
Obviously it'll be movement related so perhaps a beautiful chronograph movement to replace the 7750.
I imagine the Nomos version would be more slick than the workhorse 7750.
The rotor brake to prevent swinging already eliminates the clunk of the 7750.

Who knows? I'd love to hear your predictions.

[geoffbot]

Great post - thanks Faiz.

[birdynamnam]

Prediction...
I'm not really good for prediction , but Nomos has never been really involved in chrono creation IIRC.
Not easy to realize a mass production of movements for other brands and offer an alternative to ETA.
But why not ?


A modernized Lemania 5100 to turn the page of the old (noisy) Valjoux 7750
Oh ,Swatch already did that
...
No idea

[Der Amf]

Do we know that Nomos intend to sell the movement to other companies?

[Faiz]

Yes from the PDF I linked it says that Nomos is capable and willing to supply the movement to third parties.

[Der Amf]

Yes from the PDF I linked it says that Nomos is capable and willing to supply the movement to third parties.

Thanks I missed that before. Short little sentence ("The owner-operated company is able and willing to supply third parties too") which leaves one with a lot of questions! Who, exactly, would be a suitable third party?

[birdynamnam]

IWL for a forum watch ...

[tribe125]

Thanks I missed that before. Short little sentence ("The owner-operated company is able and willing to supply third parties too") which leaves one with a lot of questions! Who, exactly, would be a suitable third party?

Wempe.

[watchdaddy1]

Great Post.Thanks

[Faiz]

I imagine quite a number of parties would be interested in taking it on.