NOMOS Glashütte Metro watches

The Nomos Glashütte Metro is a slim watch line designed by the Berlin product designer Mark Braun. Nomos, which Roland Schwertner founded in Glashütte in January 1990, two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, introduced the Metro in 2014 as a hand-wound watch. The same year brought the DUW 4401, the first calibre with the Nomos swing system, the brand's own escapement; it is hand-wound, runs for up to 42 hours, carries patented date and power reserve mechanisms, and powers one Metro model.

The Metro Date Power Reserve 1101 is the 37 mm steel original. It has a white dial, a date window at six o'clock, a power reserve indicator in mint and red, and a red seconds hand. The current version runs on the hand-wound DUW 4701, with up to 52 hours of reserve.

From there the Metro split two ways. The Metro 38 Datum (1102) and its Urban Grey sibling (1103) take a 38.5 mm steel case, as do the Metro 38 Silver (1108) and the grey-dialled 1112, while the Metro 33 (1170) is a 33 mm watch in rose gold. The Metro Neomatik is the automatic branch. The 35 mm Neomatik (1106) uses the DUW 3001, a self-winding calibre just 3.2 mm high with up to 43 hours of reserve, in a case 8.1 mm thick. It comes with white, champagne or Nachtblau (night blue) dials, and the 1104 and 1105 are the 1st Edition versions of the white and champagne watches.

The Neomatik 39 moves to the 38.5 mm case, in steel with white, Silvercut or Nachtblau dials, or in rose gold (1180). The Metro Neomatik Update (1165) is the outlier: a 40.5 mm steel watch with the automatic DUW 6101 and a patented ring date in neon orange around the edge of the dial. Two orange markers frame the current date, and the ring sets quickly in either direction.