The watch

METRO
 Symphony of a
metropolitan watch

NOMOS Glashtte has been working closely with the renowned

Berlin designer Mark Braun since 2012. Now the first watch he has
designed is ready: Metro.
A lavish watch, stylishly confident and urbaneand with its finger on the
pulse: Thats Metro from NOMOS Glashtte. For all its worldliness and classic
elements, this new timepiece is still Glashtte through and through. A special
movement, an exquisite in-house built NOMOS caliber from Glashttethe
capital of fine watchmakingticks inside Metro: DUW 4401.
As a cosmopolitan, Metro has little time to spare for flourishes, valuing clear
form and function much more. The power reserve indicator in mint green,
white, and red ensures that the wearer never forgets when its time to rewind
the watch. The datealso patentedis a helpful reminder too. And the
hands show not only hours and minutes, but also the way to new times: They
taper towards the end, and are so very precise.

The power reserve indicator: the watchs fuel gauge.

By power reserve, we understand the time that a
watch can still run without being rewound. It depends
on the tension of the mainspring, which in turn
depends on the rotation of the crown. In other words,
the power reserve indicator shows how much time
is left until the watch runs out of energy. Or to put it
another way: A motorist would probably be a little
nervous if his vehicle lacked a fuel gauge. Well, its
similar with a watch. NOMOS Glashttes power
reserve indicator makes do with only a few compo-
nents, therefore the movement is very flatwhich is
why its also patented.
 Archetypal
As a discreet symbol of powerwhat Queen Elizabeth II and indeed the
whole of England would do without a crown is quite unimaginable!the
small crown wheel beside the bezel injects energy into the movement:
Turning the crown will define how long the watch will keep on ticking
43 hours when fully wound. But because, unlike kings, Metro happily dis-
penses with pomp and circumstance, its crown is simple, functional, and
yet supremely elegant: Its dotted pattern (which connoisseurs know as
diamond knurling), is reminiscent of the finest precision tools, highly sym-
metrical and flattering to the eye, fingers, and wrist.
Even the lugs on Metro are reminiscent of archetypes from long gone
times and yet could not be more modern, clearer. Or more comfortable: In
contrast to their antecedents, theseas you only see at third glanceare
quick-change spring bars, unifying the beautiful with the entirely practical.
 Metro with swing

CROWN (START) MAINSPRING

MAINSPRING BARREL

CENTER WHEEL

THIRD WHEEL

FOURTH WHEEL

BALANCE BLUE
Metro is the first watch from NOMOS Glashtte to be equipped with WHEEL BALANCE
the companys own swing system. Here is an invitation to examine SPRING
how this system works exactly: The wound-up mainspring stores its ESCAPE WHEEL PALLET
energy in the barrel, from where it is transmitted via the three gear
wheels (the center, third and fourth wheels) to the escape wheel; this
is where the swing system starts. The pallet receives an impulse. The TICK-TOCK
long end of the pallet then relays this impulse to the ellipse of the
balance wheel, which rotates and stretches the blue NOMOS balance
springalthough only as far as the energy of the impulse suffices.
Then the balance wheel swings back and the energy now flows the
other way. This toing and froing creates a swinging movement, which
gives the NOMOS swing system its name.
 escape wheel

pallet

Team player: NOMOS Glashttes swing system, known as assortiment in

Switzerland, is the part of the movement that sets the pace: Without any
swing, there is no time. Only very few watchmaking companies around the
world can adjust, classify, and calibrate accurately enough to create such an
assembly, a perfect interaction of all the parts. NOMOS Glashtte is now able
to do this. At the heart of the entire watch industry, as well as each and every
mechanical watch, the assortiment (the swing system at NOMOS Glashtte) blue NOMOS balance spring
not only essentially defines the accuracy, robustness, and durability of a
watch: For NOMOS Glashtte, it is also a declaration of independenceand
a huge development for the world of fine timepieces.

To depict the pallet, escape wheel, and balance here,

we needed a macro lens to turn three mosquitoes into
elephants. balance wheel
How energy moves through a movement: Each mechanical timepiece ticks
with the energy that is stored by winding a spring; here it is hidden inside the
mainspring barrel (1). If the mainspring is wound inside it, it turns and trans-
mits its power to the largest of the three gears: the center wheel (2). From
here, the motion is transmitted to the other two wheels (the third and fourth
wheels; 3 + 4). This part of the movement controls the hour, minute, and
second hands. If you just wind up the watch, these wheels will spin rapidly (8) blue NOMOS balance spring
the energy for two days will be used up within seconds and the watch will
stop ticking. A very sensitive brake is needed to release the energy of the
mainspring evenly and in portions: This is the swing system. A fully wound (7) balance wheel
watch will manage almost a million ticks and tocks before it runs down.

So how is the energy from the mainspring divided into seconds, minutes,
and hours? Please pay close attention: A wheel with very specific cogs is
connected to the lowest gear wheel: the escape wheel (5). When you wind
up the movement, the rotational force is transmitted to this pointthe escape
(1) mainspring barrel wheel turnsbut is immediately stopped by a small red pin on the pallet (6).
This gives the pallet an impulse and the long end of the pallet fork swings
towards the balance wheel (7), or more specifically, towards a tiny ellipse
(2) center wheel
on the balance plateau. The impact against the ellipse produces a small
rotational movement in the balance wheel, thus winding the blue NOMOS
balance spring (8). When the energy of the impulse fades, the wound bal-
ance spring rotates the balance wheel in the opposite direction. The semi-
(3) third wheel
circular ellipse again meets the fork of the pallet and pushes it the other
way. All this happens very quicklyin the time it takes to read this text, for
example, it occurs 1800 times. Whenever the pallet sticks its left leg into the
(4) fourth wheel cogs of the escape wheel, it makes a tick. And when the right arm blocks
the escape wheel, it creates a tock. The two relate to each other at dierent
(6) pallet
angles, and you can hear it. That is why the watch goes tick-tock. Is every-
(5) escape wheel thing clear? If not, just read this paragraph again.
 Heartbeat
in peak form

The assortiment, or the swing system at NOMOS Glashtte, is the corner-

stone of every mechanical movement, as it sets the pace. In order to make
its own special aspirations clear, the movements of Metro and other watches
from NOMOS Glashtte bear the appellation Deutsche Uhrenwerke NOMOS
Glashtte (German watch movements NOMOS Glashtte), or DUW for
short. This designation stands for craftsmanship at its best and for the whole
range of fine watchmaking expertise, and for the fact that NOMOS produces
almost everything in-house in Glashtte. The beautiful hand-wound move-
ment DUW 4401 drives Metro. Like other NOMOS calibers, it was designed
in Glashtte according to all the rules of fine watchmaking and lovingly
constructed by hand in our workshops with a production depth of around
90 percenta watch for life.

Beautiful from the back as well as from the

front: Metro with the movement DUW 4401.
 2014. NOMOS Glashtte/SA, Roland Schwertner KG
Ferdinand-Adolph-Lange-Platz 2, 01768 Glashtte, Germany
Telephone +49 35053 4040, Fax +49 35053 40480
nomos@glashuette.com, nomos-glashuette.com

Text and design: Berlinerblau GmbH. Responsible under press law: Judith Borowski.
Images: Sebastian Asmus, Ragnar Schmuck, Holger Wens. Set design: Sarah Illenberger.
Lithography: Bildpunkt. Printing: Medialis. Consulting: the watchmakers and engineers
of NOMOS Glashtte. NOMOS Glashtte reserves the right to make technical changes.