On no longer presents Panerai, a brand founded in 1860 by Giovanni Panerai on Ponte alle Grazie in Florence, known at the time for the manufacture of precision instruments meeting the demand and requirements of the Italian military navy. The watchmaker’s first model was also designed on special order from the Transalpine army for its combat swimmers. It was for the latter that Panerai used radiomir, a compound patented in 1916 based on radium and developed to make the dials and aiming mechanisms luminescent. The Panerai Radiomir became the official watch of Italian divers during the 1930s before being marketed to all amateurs and collectors at the end of the 1990s.
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Luminescence has, in fact, become a privileged area of expertise for Panerai and its “Laboratorio di Idee”. The house’s quest for innovation has contributed to the creation of experimental watches packed with new technologies like Elux. This technique, an abbreviation of the Italian word “elettroluminescenza” (“electroluminescence”), was patented in 1966 by Panerai. It consists of illuminating electroluminescent panels via an electrical supply without any radioactive substances. With foolproof reliability and resistance, Elux technology quickly caught the eye of the Italian military navy which wanted to improve the luminescence of its maritime navigation instruments. It also laid the foundations for the new watchmaking UFO unveiled by Panerai: the Submersible Elux LAB-ID. An ultra-exclusive watch since it is limited to 150 pieces, produced at a rate of 50 pieces per year over three years.
A summary of patents
This conceptual timepiece is the result of eight years of research and development by watchmakers at LAB-ID, the brand’s creative incubator. It is the fourth in a series of innovative and completely new watches exploring Panerai’s luminescence work one step further, such as the LAB-ID Luminor Carbotech (2017), the LAB-ID Luminor equipped with SuperLuminova X1, a state-of-the-art luminous material (2020) and the Submersible eLAB-ID (2021). The new Submersible Elux LAB-ID is thus the watchmaking synthesis of all these watches. Aesthetically speaking, it has a solid 49mm case (with closed crown and back for water resistance to 500 meters) made from Ti-Ceramitech. This material, 44% lighter than steel and ten times stronger than traditional ceramic, was developed by Panerai. It is made of ceramized titanium for a unique shade of dazzling blue that is also found on the rotating and graduated diving bezel which features a new patent-pending lighting system.
The main innovation of this Submersible Elux LAB-ID lies in its movement which allows the watch to light up on demand, a first. This, thanks to a system storing energy exclusively mechanically. Concretely, by activating the push button located between 8 and 9 o’clock, the dial of this Submersible lights up for 30 minutes by means of four barrels (of the six which make up the caliber) solely dedicated to energy storage and designed to transmit the latter to a microgenerator transforming this mechanical energy into electricity.
The luminescence thus produced is then redirected towards the dial radiating several indicators including the linear one of the power reserve (of three days) Power Light at 6 o’clock, the hands, the indexes, the bezel as well as the small seconds sub-counter at 9 o’clock. For extreme readability of information, Panerai completes everything with green SuperLuminova Let there be light, and there was light!
