Furthermore, the novel use of “lume” has become something of a power play in luxury watchmaking: just a couple of weeks ago, for example, IWC announced a concept watch that is completely glowing, while cases of lume as an aesthetic mediuminstead of something functional, have abounded in recent years.
But where Panerai is going with the Elux Lab-ID Supermersible, we don’t need lume. Instead, a series of LEDs illuminate the watch’s functions, powered by electricity generated in the movement.
A push button on the left side of the box turns on the lights; When you press it again they turn off. And that simple concept is something the brand’s special projects team, which operates under the name “Laboratoriao di Idee” (abbreviated as Lab-ID), has invested in. eight years specify, says Pontroué.
“They have a mandate that can basically be written on a stamp: it has to tell the time and it has to have patents,” he says, stating that the patents themselves are the end goal, as much as the product that emerges. “It is the only project for which we have no idea of the deadline. We know that it can be very expensive and that the failure rate is very high. But it is not simply about introducing something new for Panerai, it must also be innovative for the industry.”
The first of four patents for the Elux Lab-ID submersible (we’ll call it Elux for short) relates to its activation button: a safety device protects it from both impact and water pressure. “Without this, the water pressure when you’re diving could push it down without you realizing it, so a component underneath protects it,” says Anthony Serpry, head of R&D at Panerai, who heads the Lab-ID laboratory.
Serpry says his team has around 150 projects underway, but only a few will see the light of day. Another one is the blued material of the watch case, which is also patented. A form of ceramized titanium that the brand has called Ti-Ceramitech, it comprises a titanium alloy that undergoes plasma electrolytic oxidation (applying a high pulse of current within an electrolytic bath), generating a thick layer of blue ceramic scratch resistant. along the surface. “The patent covers the development of the material and especially the composition of the titanium alloy, to achieve the blue color,” says Serpry.
But the real deal here, of course, is the light show. A handful of high-end watchmakers have previously experimented with mechanically driven light-on-demand, including HYT, De Bethune and jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels, but with limited results: a dull glow for a few seconds.
Panerai’s technology, on the other hand, illuminates dozens of micro-LEDs across the watch’s display, with a claimed capacity of 30 minutes of illumination time. In fact, the illumination should last as long as the wearer keeps moving: The Elux is a self-winding watch, and the oscillating mass that winds its movement also winds the mechanism to make it shine.
To do this, it includes additional barrels, which are the cylinders that contain a watch’s mainspring, its energy reserve. Most mechanical watches have one of them; the Elux has six. Two drive timing; the other four generate electrical power through a tiny but powerful dynamo device.