My Radioactive Watch (Luminox)

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Luminox watches are known for a few things, but really one thing in particular. Tritium radioluminescence. They're also Swiss made and very light weight often made from modern composite materials like Fiber reinforced Carbon or Titanium. Lastly, they're supposedly popular with Navy Seals, Air Force pilots and other "operators" or at least that's what their advertising would have you believe. I know there's some truth to that but I can tell you if I had to take just one watch into a war-zone it wouldn't be this, it would be a Casio G-Shock 5600E! This watch is likely very durable considering that it is an analog watch but as such it has moving parts and moving hands and compared to a G-Shock 5600 or 5610 there's just no way it can match that. I guess the watch would be classified as a dive watch as it has a 60-click uni-directional rotating bezel and 200M water resistance. I thought I read somewhere it was 42.5mm but the website says 45mm and Amazon says 44mm. I dunno it looks more like 42.5mm to me. The band width on Amazon also says 23mm. But anyway, I mainly bought this for one reason only. That sweet sweet Tritium lume! Tritium is a radioactive material (gas) that emits very weak beta particles as it decays. This beta radiation is so weak that it can't penetrate the glass vials it's stored in. Really this watch wouldn't be dangerous unless you like, I don't know, ate the whole thing? Anyway the particles hit phosphors coated on the glass and causes them to glow in various colors (usually orange or green) as seen here on this watch.

The half-life of Tritium isn't 25 years, it's only 12.5! This watch will loose half its brightness in 12.5 years. Luminox watches have a 2-year warranty in general but the Tritium vials are covered for 10-years.

Tritium is of course a rare substance and thus these watches don't come cheap. Luminox isn't the only watch brand to use Tritium as a light source. There are actually a lot of smaller watch brands that also do this. Luminox is just the most well known for it and probably one of the cheapest options if you wan't Tritium lume. They start at about $200 USD and go up from there depending on the model.