Fortis built the Novonaut N-42 TR around a base dial cast from Lumicast X1, so the whole face glows instead of applied markers. It reads clean at noon.
Three colorways share the layout, Halo Black, Halo Blue and Halo Green, and each one runs its color through the counters, the bezel and the hybrid strap. The price sits at CHF 5,450 whichever of the three colors you pick.
Fortis Novonaut N-42 TR on Hybrid Strap, in Halo Black, Halo Blue or Halo Green
Lumicast X1 full-lume dial · Werk 17 TR column-wheel chronograph · 70-hour reserve · 200 m water resistance · day-date · smoked sapphire case back · quickset pushers
Price: TBD
Where to buy: More details at Fortis
A dial cast from lume, not printed with it
Lumicast X1 is a solid luminous material, and Fortis casts the entire base dial from Super-LumiNova X1 rather than applying separate indices above a standard dial plate, the way most luminous dials are built.
By day the trick hides in plain sight, because the pale base reads like a clean panda layout while the dark counters carry the chronograph registers cleanly. The glow is the dial itself, front to back. Fortis pairs it with a luminous ceramic Sirius bezel, so the minute scale stays readable long after dark.
The dark is its home turf.
Three colors, one contrast layout
Halo Black keeps its counters black, Halo Blue turns the counters and bezel blue, and Halo Green does the same work in green, matching its strap and its day-date discs to the bezel. Black is the safe pick. The day-date sits at three, its discs tinted to match.
Each version rides on the hybrid strap, with Fortis’s own FKM rubber underneath for comfort against the wrist and a textile fabric across the top side. A stainless steel pin buckle and the Fortis Screw Pin System hold the strap on, and the textile color matches the bezel on each version, so the color runs unbroken from bezel to strap and back again without a break.
Werk 17 TR stretches the reserve to 70 hours
The Werk 17 TR is a space-tested automatic manufacture calibre with a column wheel chronograph and a day-date, developed together with La Joux-Perret. The reserve climbs to 70 hours.
Regulation runs through a free-sprung variable-inertia balance, and the balance bridge is fixed at two points with an oversized traversing bridge for stability under real-world stress, a layout Fortis built for extreme conditions. The older Werk 17 ran 60 hours, so the TR version gains ten full hours.
Space testing sits behind the name.
The case runs big on purpose
The recycled stainless steel case measures 42 mm across and 51 mm from lug to lug, and it stands 15 mm tall with a watch head weight of 115 grams. Subtle, it isn’t. The smoked sapphire case back shows the Werk 17 TR movement under glass.
Water resistance runs to 200 meters behind a screw-down crown with a triple gasket system, Performance FKM gaskets and a sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on both sides, and quickset pushers sit beside that crown for the chronograph. The size buys dial legibility and presence on the wrist, though it also shuts out anyone who wants a chronograph that slips under a cuff and vanishes in a crowd of slimmer chronographs. The hardware brief stays serious throughout.
Fortis Novonaut N-42 TR on Hybrid Strap
Recycled stainless steel case · ceramic Sirius bezel · FKM and textile hybrid strap
Price: TBD
Where to buy: More details at Fortis
Buy the Novonaut N-42 TR if you want a mechanical chronograph whose low-light display is built into the dial itself rather than painted onto it, at CHF 5,450 on the FKM and textile hybrid strap. Skip it if 42 mm and 15 mm of height already feel like too much watch, because the case gives nothing back once it’s on your wrist.
