Introduction of the Luminox XL.3351.SET
The long-awaited Luminox Mil-Spec series is finally here! Mil-Spec (short for Military Specification) refers to the military standard of the US Department of Defense. If a product meets these standards for sourcing, manufacturing, materials, quality and delivery, it can be designated as a Mil-Spec product or component. Luminox 3350 Series watches are manufactured to the MIL-PRF-46374G performance specification standard. This means that their water resistance, ruggedness and overall quality reflect the standards of the US Department of Defense.
Luminox uses an innovative carbon blend material - CARBONOX™ - for its ultralight watches.
CARBONOX™ is six times lighter than steel, three times lighter than titanium, non-metallic, anti-allergenic, lightweight and anti-magnetic. CARBONOX™ has strong chemical resistance, very low thermal expansion, and low calorific value.Luminox now produces a fairly wide range of different watches; the brand originally built its reputation by creating watches used by Navy SEALs, and tactical functional designs remain a staple of the company's model collection to this day. For its latest 2023 release, Luminox has leaned fully into its military heritage, creating a watch that meets the standards of the military performance specification MIL-PRF-46374G, which outlines the requirements for wristwatches by the US Department of Defense. The new watch, known as the Luminox Mil-Spec 3350 series, expands on the basic design of the fan-favorite Navy SEAL collection with extra-durable case materials and an enhanced Swiss quartz movement that offers additional protection against shock and extreme temperatures.
The watch is weather-resistant - creating a very tough and solidly crafted watch case that takes durability and resilience to a whole new level.
The overall shape of the case of the new Luminox Mil-Spec 3350 series is more or less the same as the brand's larger Navy SEAL collection, offering a square profile with a diameter of 46 mm and a thickness of 14 mm. The central part of the case is made of CARBONOX+, a premium version of Luminox's carbon composite material that consists of 40% long carbon fibers and offers superior performance compared to the standard type of CARBONOX material used on most of the brand's watches. The dial side of the Mil-Spec 3350 series features a flat anti-reflective sapphire crystal that surrounds a unidirectional rotating time lunette in sandblasted titanium, while the signed crown at 3 o'clock and the solid caseback are made of 316 stainless steel and screw down to the case, helping to create a sufficient water resistance of 300 meters.
The dial that this particular model features offers an overall design that is much the same as many other military-oriented models, with a matte black finish that features large white Arabic numeral hour markers and a date window at the 3 o'clock position. The dial is surrounded by an angled ring of grey-coloured chapters that includes both the minute track and indices with luminous tritium tubes, while the trio of centrally-placed hands are finished entirely in white for maximum contrast with the black dial surface. Both the hour and minute hands have a rounded syringe-like profile (similar to that found on many other Luminox models), while the oversized seconds hand offers an exceptionally wide and skeletal arrow-shaped design that is apparently quite unique to the new Mil-Spec range.
As with other Luminox watches, the various luminescent elements on the new Luminox Mil-Spec 3350 series glow different colours in the dark. The tritium tubes that appear on the hour hand, 12 o'clock index and zero marker bezel glow yellow; the tip of the seconds hand (which appears to be a traditional painted luminous element rather than a tritium gas-filled tube) glows green, and all the other tritium tubes that appear on the minute hand and the remaining hour markers glow blue, which helps to better orient the time when viewed in the dark. In addition, like all watches that use tritium gas-filled tubes for their lighting technology, the Luminox Mil-Spec 3350 series watches require no illumination to "charge" the luminescent light, and the small tubes built into the hands and chapter ring instead offer a steady glow for up to 25 years due to the radioactive nature of the material itself.
To enhance durability and timekeeping performance, the new Luminox Mil-Spec 3350 series watches are powered by an ETA F06.412 quartz movement, which offers a 7-year battery life (with end-of-life indicator) and HeavyDrive and PreciDrive technologies. HeavyDrive is ETA's intelligent shock management system, which features an integrated circuit that detects shocks and instructs the motor to send a force against the shock, locking the second hand in place and preventing it from skipping. The PreciDrive system is essentially ETA's name for thermal compensation and adjusts the motor pulses based on the ambient temperature, allowing the Mil-Spec 3350 series to offer +/- 10 seconds per year accuracy. It's hard to ask for more from a three-hand quartz movement, as in the three key categories of battery life, accuracy and durability, the ETA F06.412 scored an excellent choice for a performance-oriented military watch.
The Luminox Mil-Spec 3350 Series has a two-piece black rubber strap with a thick CARBONOX buckle on a 24mm lunette, and the watch also comes with an additional NATO textile strap in a grey-black camouflage pattern with matching black hardware. Thanks to the lightweight construction of the CARBONOX+ and titanium case and bezel, the total weight of the Luminox Mil-Spec 3350 Series is 90 grams when wearing the rubber strap and drops further to just 77 grams if users wish to wear the watch on the included NATO fabric strap. While the Mil-Spec 3350 Series isn't exactly the lightest model from Luminox, it is also a 46mm diving watch with a depth of 300 meters, so the fact that it even has a double-digit future weight measurement number should qualify it as "light" (at least as far as I'm concerned).
Despite the premium materials and movement, the new Luminox Mil-Spec 3350 Series isn't much more expensive than many of the Navy SEAL. Although the overall look of this new model is quite similar to a number of other watches in the current Luminox lineup, the new Mil-Spec 3350 Series features a few subtle but significant differences, and I'm personally quite curious to see how these minor improvements come together and whether they will ultimately have a tangible impact on either the perceived quality or the actual timekeeping performance of the watch. The new Mil-Spec 3350 series promises to be both more accurate and more durable than the standard Luminox dive watch, and it's refreshing to see a military-inspired watch being approached from a functional standpoint, rather than just as a new color variant or thematic design variation of an existing model.
For more information and a test of the watch, check out our next article.
© Ignatius Jacques Reilly
