Reactor Watches are a relatively new watch brand, arriving on the scene in 2003, but you may have seen this increasingly popular watch brand a lot lately if you are into sports and diving watches. The watches have even been worn in recent movies like Transformers. They’re cool trendy watches that serious sports addicts love and watch collectors appreciate for their aesthetics and technical design, but why are they called Reactor Watches?
It’s a brand name that is designed to play off the concept of nuclear reactors and sound techy, futuristic and rugged. Reactor carries through the theme in their model names, too. Just about every collection within the Reactor line has some tie-in with nuclear physics, including the Ion, Critical Mass and MC2 Collections. Reactor fans love the concept because it’s just really cool to say “it’s a Reactor Critical Mass watch” or “I’m wearing a Reactor Meltdown” when someone asks what you have on your wrist. And ask they will, because all the lines in their collection have an out of the ordinary, trendy look that tends to catch the eye.
But it’s not just a buzz-worthy name and trendy looks that make Reactor a good brand to choose when you want a rugged sport or diving watch. When Jimmy Olmes, one of the founders and former owners of Freestyle watches decided to start the Reactor Watch company, his mission was to “build the best performance sport watch on the planet,” regardless of cost, and to develop a distinctive styling that was unduplicated, yet wearable on a 24/7 basis.
Following through on the mission, the company designed Reactor watches to meet very demanding standards in order to survive the active lifestyle of their target customer. For example impact-resistant hardened mineral glass is used rather than sapphire and an entirely new case-to-band fastening system was devised, to keep these watches firmly in place during the worst of “unplanned events” that a wearer may encounter pursuing an active lifestyle.
One of the great features of Reactor Watches from a consumer standpoint is that they offer a two-year buckle-to-buckle warranty. Many, actually most, watch brands and many other consumer products only cover the “moving parts” inside, i.e. the watch movement. Reactor covers everything including the bracelet, strap, and any other parts. Reactor also has the unprecedented policy of turning around any watch sent to them for service within 48 hours. This is really speedy for any repair or warranty service, and as far as we’ve been able to find, unique in the watch industry.
Where is Reactor going in 2007? Their latest innovation is their Never Dark technology. This will combine tritium gas tubes for all-night illumination and Super Luminova for immediate enhanced brightness when the watch first encounters darkness. Many sports watches utilize one technology or the other, but Reactor designed it this way because of the way the human eye works. When the human eye initially is in a low light situation, it takes some time to adjust, which varies with the individual and can be a relatively lengthy period of time. Super Luminova is very bright at first because it accumulates light during the day, but it fades over several hours. The tritium gas tubes will glow all night, but not as brightly as Super Luminova glows at first. By the time the Super Luminova starts to give out, your eyes will have adjusted to the dark and will be able to easily see the illuminated tritium markers. This is just the latest example of the thought and design expertise that Reactor brings to the watch arena.
