Hands-On Review: Seeing Double with the Nomos Tangente 2Date

Germany’s Nomos Glashütte has built its avid following on an adherence to minimalist, Bauhaus-style simplicity in its watch designs, and it has the Red Dot awards to prove it. In all of its similar but subtly distinct product families — particularly the Tangente, the brand’s acknowledged flagship — Nomos has approached complications with great care, mostly focusing on the understated and utilitarian. Sometimes, however, even the most restrained watchmaker wants to have some fun, to make a watch with an added function that isn’t really necessary or even practical but adds an indisputable cool factor. Such is the case with the Tangente 2Date, unveiled earlier this year, which, as its cheeky name implies, is the first Nomos watch that displays the date in two different ways. And even though that sounds like an idea from the Department of Redundancy Department, don’t knock it until you’re tried it — as I had the opportunity to do recently, with Nomos sending me a review model of the Tangente 2Date with a sunray-brushed blue dial.

Case:

Like all Nomos watches, particularly those in the flagship Tangente collection, the 2Date is recognizably Bauhaus in its aesthetic. The 37.5mm case is practically bezel-free, with just the narrowest hint of one framing the wide dial opening. At just 6.75mm high (6.65 on the version without a sapphire caseback), the case weighs lightly on the wrist and slips easily under a shirt cuff. The lugs are thin and angular, from the front almost reminiscent of the soldered wire lugs of some of the earliest wristwatches from the early 20th century — apropos, I suppose, of a watch design that Nomos says is inspired by models from that era. The crown is small and understated, with fluting on the sides. The finish is predominantly polished for a touch of luxury. A subtle but intriguing element, at least to this reviewer, is the pleasant cranking sound the crown emits when winding the movement, audibly more “mechanical” than the quiet, buzzier sound of many winding crowns. 

Dial:

Centrally mounted on the dial, the thin, stick-like hour and minute hands echo the bezel’s polished finish, as does the smaller hand in the 6 o’clock small seconds subdial, which is recessed into the main dial with a snailed texture. The beautiful, galvanized midnight-blue dial sports a sunburst finish that radiates from the center and catches light through the flat, nonreflective sapphire crystal. The hour markers are a combination of Arabic numerals and thin baton indexes, all printed in contrasting white. The typography of the numerals evokes fonts from the 1930s heyday of Bauhaus influence that inspired the Tangente’s design; also in keeping with that retro vibe, there is no lume to be found anywhere on the dial. Separating each hour marker (numerals at 12, 2, 4, 8, and 10, indexes for the rest, except for the date window at 6) are smaller, oriented hash marks for the minutes,

Getting back to that 6 o’clock date window, we come to the gist of what makes this watch special and what gives it its name — the double date indication that pairs Nomos’s clever, understated peripheral date indication with a more traditional numeral disk for the same display. A close look at the outer periphery of the dial reveals a white-printed 1-to-31 numeral scale, with each numeral separated from the others by small, pellet-shaped apertures. Pulling the crown out to its first (middle) position allows you to set and change the date in both its forms: as the white-on-blue numeral (in the same retro font as the hour numerals) shifts into position in the window, a small sector of white simultaneously moves around the 31-day scale at the rim, flanking the correct date numeral on either side. Manually turn the date in the window from 29 to 30, for example, and the little windows between 29 and 30, and between 30 and 31, will instantly fill in with white to frame the “30”in the center. 

Movement:

The sober subtlety of the dial finds a dazzling contrast in the rear view of the movement, framed by another narrow, polished bezel in the back and covered by a clear pane of sapphire. Made in-house at Nomos’s atelier in the German watchmaking hub of Glashütte, Caliber DUW 4601 is a hand-wound, high-performance, luxuriously decorated movement whose attractive finishing can easily distract from the technical accomplishments packed into its dainty parameters (34mm diameter, just 2.8mm thick). 

Nomos kept Caliber DUW 4601 impressively slim in profile by positioning the date ring around the main movement rather than stacking it on top as in more conventional constructions. The date ring borders the traditional Glashutte three-quarter mainplate, which is strategically cut away to reveal the screwed balance cock, itself designed for an optimal view of Nomos’s proprietary “swing system” escapement, with its pulsating balance wheel and blued balance spring. Fittingly, this watch with “two dates” boasts a power reserve of “two days” — actually a little more than that, at 52 hours when the mainspring is fully wound.

Embellishing this micro-mechanical vista is the "sunbeam" ribbed pattern that radiates outward from the center of the swing system, extending all the way to the edges of the date-wheel plate that occupies the outer perimeter of the movement. This decorative motif has, up until now, been strictly relegated only to the exclusive movements inside Nomos’s relatively rare models in gold; the Tangente 2Day is the first steel watch in serial production to receive this elite treatment. 

Strap and Buckle:

The Horween Genuine Shell Cordovan leather strap is a hallmark of Nomos, chosen no doubt because of its easy-wear comfort, its clean, no-nonsense surfaces, and its supple thinness. I was a bit surprised that the holes for the buckle’s tongue didn’t extend a bit further along the length of the non-buckle segment to allow a more snug fit on a thinner wrist — especially since anecdotal evidence has indicated to me that Nomos is a favorite of people with slimmer wrists. But perhaps the brand itself has evidence that its enthusiasts tend to wear their watches more loosely; in any case, the 2Date will look perfectly sized on most wrists, especially because the large dial/thin bezel combo creates the illusion that this relatively small watch has more of a physical presence than it actually does, but I must admit I would have actually worn it more during the review period if I had the option of tightening it up a bit. 

The Nomos Tangente 2Date is available in both the blue-dialed execution reviewed here (Ref. 136) and another version with a silver-plated white dial (Ref. 135); the latter version has black-printed numerals and indexes and uses a splash or red, rather than white, for the indication on the outer date disk, as well as a bright red date numeral in the window. As hinted at above, Nomos is offering the watch either with or without the sapphire exhibition caseback, priced at $2,760 and $3,020, respectively. 

Nomos started the year, you may recall, with a cavalcade of colors — the wholly unexpected and almost universally lauded Tangente 38 Date - “175 Years Watchmaking Glashütte” series — and now brings it to a close with an impressive yet playful feat of technical innovation. I am sure I am not the only one eager to find out how the brand flexes its muscles in both creative directions in 2025.