Watches

I have a bronze Glycine Combat Sub that when coming from outside you can see the glow in a normally lit room. Crazy bright at night.

They are too Big, it's not beautiful

I mean what other brands are you thinking of lol. This is very common for dive watches. My tissot sea star looks almost exactly like this in the dark

I have some micro brand watches using Super-Luminova that burn brighter initially and have more applied (all indices, all over the bezel, etc.). Nothing is as legible for as long as Seiko though, and that’s ultimately what matters. I’m not sure what they do either but they definitely out perform much more expensive brands in that category.

I have an Orient Ray II and recently picked up a Steinhart Ocean 39 GMT. The lume on my Steinhart is nowhere near as bright or long lasting as the Ray II. It's one of the small disappointments I have with the Steinhart.

Thing is, even if using the same lume compound, Seiko's hands are thick and deep, so more compound can be fit. Citizen diver's' are very comparable (and usually two-toned).

The only criticism I have with my Khaki Auto is the lume. You’d think for a field watch the lume would be at least a little better.

I’m really curious about the point of lume, besides the obvious. What I mean is that through casual wear it may charge but also goes dark again within 3minutes of being in the dark. Any profession that required lume hands almost certainly switched to digital/wrist computers, but what was the original process? If I know I’m going to be saturation diving in the afternoon, do I have to put my watch under some lamp all day. It’s just all a bit silly compared to something like tritium tubes with an actual constant glow.

Seiko lume is excellent, but a lot of micro brands are heaping on the BGW9 and C3 and give Seiko Lumibrite a run for their money. At the end of the day tho, Ball Watch tritium tubes bests them all

I would say most people don’t care about lume!?

As others have said there may be some placebo effect going on here, or blogger/reviewer influence.

My Seikos were my lume kings until I picked up an NTH Devilray, which utterly blew the Seikos away. But the same lume. I think it's just a thing that the other big brands don't care about. AKA "good enough"

Style.

If you are making a traditional dive watch, then sure, there are many brands loading up on lume that is comparable.

Other styles however? A lot just comes down to aesthetics - a lot of styles just won't suit such big, bright hands, so a field or pilots watch with much thinner, framed hands will naturally glow less. Similarly a brand that is a bit more particular about colour may want lume that is more of a neutral white in daylight rather than the greenish hue of a Seiko.

There are also brands who just don't prioritise lume and will save a few pennies on the build cost bynsoecxing something generic and basic rather than searching out a superluminova or equivalent

I've yet to come across any watch at any price whose lume lasts any useful amount of time (quoted power reserve times are "ambitious" too, to say the least). Timex's indiglo feature is the best illumination system out there.

The lume on my Seiko Kinetic is terrible, so not all Seikos are good LOL, plus the hands are tiny so it’s pretty useless in the dark.

My dad gave me his 6105-8000 that he bought in Japan in 1970 on his way home from Vietnam. It's lume is as good as some of my newer (cheap) watches.
I don't have a pic of the lume here at work, but here is a pic cuz it is an awesome watch!!

https://preview.redd.it/8z1k178j5dwb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=05f17b1c0515ea2315ad81960efa4cdad104830f