Longines Pulsometer Chronograph – for the medical professional

Longines is reissuing the Pulsometer Chronograph. It stands out for its retro-styling dial that features an unusual chronograph scale. Although a tachymeter, used for measuring speed over a known distance, is a common chronograph scale seen on sports watches, there are other types of scales that look more at home on the face of a dress watch.

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The Longines Pulsometer Chronograph is a reissue of a watch once used by medical professional to test a patient’s heart rate. The design is based on a watch from the 1920s, putting its faith in bold, contrasting colors.
The steel hands are Breguet-style and they are looking beautiful against the clean background of the dial and the dial printing in black and red makes this watch legible despite having a lot of information displayed in a small space.

The scaled-back design makes the Pulsometer Chronograph elegant; the designers have removed extraneous components. The chronograph counter must be eminently legible for medical use, so the 3 and 9 hour markers have been removed to give the sub-dials space. The 6 o’clock marker gives way to a date window.

The pulsometer function is easy to use – you start the chronograph and count 30 seconds heart beats. After stopping the chronograph the blue chronograph-seconds will be pointing at the correct heart rate.
Inside is the L188.2 movement working, a self-winding colum-wheel chronograph with a 54 hour power reserve. The movement layout is that of an ETA 7750, but Longines has made a couple of major alterations to it.

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The watch is smart and simple, made of stainless steel. It is water resistant to 30 meters. The case is 40 mm in diameter not including the crown at 3 o’clock. So the Pulsometer is designed to fit smoothly under a sleeve without grabbing much attention. The strap is made from brown alligator leather which compliments the color palette of the dial.