Rolex's Official Word on AR

[freddy333]

Taken from TZ thread posted by a reliable Mod

Q - Will Rolex introduce AR coatings on the glass?

A - No, except on the cyclops; if AR coating is used the glass essentially disappears, this is not something Rolex wish to do. In all Rolex watches the glass is an integral part of the design of the watch, which is why it sits above the bezel.

[takashi]

I would say that I respec Rolex decition. It is true... Just wear your watch as daily beater (the one with double AR), I bet within a year or even less, it would have collected scratch marks on the coating.

Double AR coating looks great but may not be practical for all watches.

Anyway, I love the plexiglass on most vintage pieces.

[bruce79]

I have to say though that single AR would make the black dial on my SD pop that much more. Heck, I may even just get it done in chief's next AR run.

[_brian_]

Please someone enlighten me: Isn

[freddy333]

Yes & I have to admit that in all of my years of collecting watches, I was totally unaware of Rolex's reasoning (that they consider the crystal to be part of the 'design' of the watch). But now that I see where they are coming from, it makes perfect sense why their crystals rise above their watches' bezels & why they choose not to AR them. Kudos to Rolex for sticking to their principals.

[_brian_]

Yes & I have to admit that in all of my years of collecting watches, I was totally unaware of Rolex's reasoning (that they consider the crystal to be part of the 'design' of the watch). But now that I see where they are coming from, it makes perfect sense why their crystals rise above their watches' bezels & why they choose not to AR them. Kudos to Rolex for sticking to their principals.

If I understand correctly, it means that Rolex is saying: "It

[krustybrand]

It tends to be much cheaper to replace the crystal than the bezel. Protecting the bezel with a protruding crystal does make some sense.

[gioarmani]

I say, "good for them".

Personally, I like the shine. No one's ever had to get rid of a watch because the glare was so bad it was impossible to tell the time on it. I've never been a fan of watches that look like they don't have a crystal; save it for the reading glasses. Hiding the fact that there's a crystal takes away from the fact that the crystal's there not only for a practical purpose, but an aesthetic one as well. It is part of the design, imho. Flat, convex, concave, raised, domes, tapers, recessed, with or without a cyclops eye, etc.--the crystal should be incorporated as an integral part of the overall design & look of the watch.

[mjmurphy926]

Please someone enlighten me: Isn

[_brian_]

If the crystal is sapphire, it's the hardest, most scratch resistant surface on the watch. It makes perfect sense to me to put it out there to actually protect the bezel.

EDIT - krusty beat me to it.

And IMHO, although I love the look of double AR, it does kind of defeat the purpose of scratch resistant sapphire glass to put a coating that is relatively easy to scratch (I mean as compared to glass).

If you hit the watch from the top, the glass may indeed protect the bezel. However in the majority of cases someone hits a watch from the side. As there is a sharp edge, you hit both the bezel and the glass. This is exactly what happened to my Ti watch with the same glass design as Rolex: Now there is a scratch on the case AND a small scratch on the glass, because its sharp edge was hit. If the watch surface was flat, I

[Demsey]

It tends to be much cheaper to replace the crystal than the bezel. Protecting the bezel with a protruding crystal does make some sense.

Agreed, and that goes too for the efforts we all go to make sure the insert(s) sit below the bezel lip on Rollies during 'mods'. Quite often, mostly on the door set strike plate in the jamb going from room to room, I smack my watch. Every time I think; "That's it, there's no way i'm getting away with it this time........" Still, no marks on the insert!

[mjmurphy926]

If you hit the watch from the top, the glass may indeed protect the bezel. However in the majority of cases someone hits a watch from the side. As there is a sharp edge, you hit both the bezel and the glass. This is exactly what happened to my Ti watch with the same glass design as Rolex: Now there is a scratch on the case AND a small scratch on the glass, because its sharp edge was hit. If the watch surface was flat, I

[Newdoc]

I can understand having the bezel protected by the protruding crystal...kind of.... +1Demsey

but I still think having AR under would make sense

[ammandel]

The whole idea of Rolex is that the piece is meant to have ultimate long-lastingness. They say themselves; they "created timepieces which are meant to be passed down generations." AR is yet just another one of those things that will spoil over time, I've always understood this as the reason they don't use it.

[rogerthat]

I disagree with rolex on this one

[ThinkBachs]

If your crystal scratched, I doubt it's sapphire. I'm pretty sure about the only thing that will scratch sapphire is a diamond.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

No correction necessary...

[egindele]

Having worked for a number of years in the business of manufacturing large space-based telescope optics, I was surprised to learn that watches have AR coatings at all. We always considered the AR coating on glass to be fragile to abrasion - more fragile than the glass substrate.

The simplest coating, but least effective from the anti-reflection performance perspective, is SiO2 ref The Mohs hardness for SiO2 is 7 which is better than for glass (6.5) but less than for sapphire (9). This means that coating a saphire crystal with SiO2 would have about the same abrasion resistance as a glass crytal.

Better AR performance can be achieved with multi-layer coating designs. I have more experience with these multi-layer designs which is probably why my impression of AR coatings equates to fragility. The multi-layer coating designs would be more approapriate for the inside of the crystal. Here is another reference on coatings ref

Personally, I'm not as interested in watches with double AR coatings because I wouldn't expect the outer coating to last. Scratches in the outer AR coating can not be polished out the way glass can.

However, an AR coating on the inside surface of a crystal should last a very long time. The inner surfaces of SLR lenses are AR coated and last for many years. I think the best explanation for why Rolex doesn't use AR coatings is that they haven't in the past. I also don't accept the longevity argument. Rolex charges about $750 to refurbish a watch which includes polishing the plastic crystals they have sold for years.