Issue 187: Nomos Club Sport neomatik Worldtimer review
Does one of the most widely praised watches of 2025 live up to its billing?
Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter - and now podcast, I guess! If you missed it, on Tuesday I debuted an idea that has been on my mind for a while.
It’s how I’m going to approach news coverage, something that was never really a priority in the Friday newsletter (despite being right there in the word newsletter): a short podcast every Tuesday that just brings you up to date with the big stories you need to know, a few little snippets you might have missed, and of course my reaction to them. It’s never going to be more than 20 minutes long - perfect for getting up to speed during your commute, over a cup of coffee or, let’s be realistic, as you procrastinate and browse vintage watch listings at about 11am when you should be finishing that report, or some such. Wherever and whenever you listen, I would really like to know what you think. I’m just getting started, the first episode is particularly hastily put together, but your thoughts on the idea in general would be invaluable.
This email won’t be changing - every Friday I will still bring you a deep dive on a subject or subjects that interest me and/or feel vital to the world of watches right now. Today, a review of a watch that I borrowed late last year. Enjoy!
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Here’s a little taste of what you might have missed recently:
Review: Nomos Club Sport neomatik Worldtimer
This time two years ago, I wasn’t feeling as positively towards Nomos Glashutte as I once did. These things are all relative; I hold Nomos in high regard, so when I say my opinion had dipped, consider it akin to thinking that one of your favourite bands hasn’t had a really great album in a few years.
I had started to think that Nomos, once such a darling of the watch press and one of the first brands to realise that a light-hearted persona could serve it well in a world of overbearingly pompous luxury, was drifting somewhat. I felt that it had lost momentum, and that despite its creative bona fides, was stuck trying to tell stories about in-house manufacturing and engineering just as the pendulum of popular watch appreciation was swinging back towards funky design.
Within a few months, at Watches & Wonders 2024, it had launched the Tangente 38 Date in 31 colourful editions, each dial a bright little pill of positivity washed down with a cute (to my British ear, anyway), kitschy name. Laid out on the brand’s stand in Geneva, it was an artfully immersive experience; Willy Wonka’s factory as directed by Wes Andersen in Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy. If Bremont hadn’t been enthusiastically sacrificing its brand identity on a Rocky-Mountains shaped altar just across the hall, it might have been the most discussed launch of the fair.
Last year, it followed the Tangente set with a watch that my fellow writers and I have been hailing as one of the standout launches of the year almost since the moment we clapped eyes on it: the Club Sport neomatik Worldtimer. The initial launch set of three references was accompanied by a run of six 175-piece limited editions, and two more drops followed before 2025 was out; the three-piece ‘Night Navigation’ set (Grid, Vector and Trace1) and the ‘Scenic Route’ duo (Reverie and Roam). Fourteen versions of the same watch in one year - it’s safe to say Nomos knows what a hit it has on its hands. And I, for my part, have taken my medicine and reminded myself to bear in mind the risk of criticising a brand without knowing what’s around the corner.
I still think the company has let others copy a bit too much of its playful playbook, and that it remains under-appreciated by mainstream customers and serious watch geeks alike, its value proposition an open goal in the face of staggering price hikes for technically underwhelming models from bigger luxury brands, but as one of its appreciators maybe I should stop complaining and enjoy the fact that the whole world hasn’t woken up to it yet.
So, I suppose the question to answer with this review is: does a couple of weeks on the wrist support the verdicts that have already been glowingly delivered? And secondly, is this watch a sign that the brand has successfully staked out a presence in the commercially important steel-bracelet-sports-watch market?2
Here’s what I said when I wrote about Nomos for QP magazine last year, with regard to the Worldtimer.
The new models are water-resistant to 100m, have display casebacks and interchangeable straps and - impressively for their general class - measure just 9.9mm thick. In watch geek parlance, it’s a very literal definition of the ‘GADA’ watch; go anywhere, do anything. As befits the watch’s complexity, it’s more expensive than the other Club models, with a launch price of €3,990 - but a lot cheaper than other world time or many dual time watches out there. It will be interesting to gauge the performance of a watch that combines one of its most commercially important designs with complicated watchmaking - arguably, in both technical and aesthetic senses the furthest the brand has travelled from its minimalist roots. If Nomos is going to maintain the “continuous growth” that Ahrendt says it has enjoyed under his tenure, however, it needs to embody the ‘GADA’ spirit. Having established a beachhead in the world of everyday sports watches, this could be the perfect push into new territory.
It isn’t easy to review something that everyone already loves. Were I to slate it, you’d suspect me of being contrarian, but if I simply nod along and confirm that it’s a jolly decent design, what have you learned? Spoiler: we are a lot closer to the latter than the former, but luckily (for my reviewing process; less so for the watch itself) without any gymnastic contortion whatsoever, I found it cursed with one surprising flaw.
