⏰Alarm Watch Review ⏰

I’ve always been fascinated by the alarm complication but suitable options are few and far between. The modern JLC Memovox (Polaris or otherwise) is eye wateringly expensive. New Vulcain Crickets and the Tudor Advisor aren’t exactly at the price I want to pay for a complication I want to experience for fun. So I’m left with vintage Poljots, Vulcain Crickets, super ancient JLC Memovoxs and Seiko Bell-matics. I’m not too keen on watches that are too old or too beat up as the extent of my watch repair skill and experience is limited to changing straps and the odd watch battery.

This led me down a search on eBay and the like and was headed firmly in the direction of a recently serviced Seiko Bell-matic. As things would have it, as I searched, the Montblanc Meisterstück Reveil popped up a few times, and I soon managed to find one at a good price. It’s relatively modern compared to the Bell-matics (00s vs 70s) and the condition was much better than the Bell-matics available. Of course it’s not as iconic and finding information on it was so difficult. Weighing the pros and cons, I decided to take a leap of faith and tried my luck with one.

On to the watch. The watch has the design language of the Meisterstück series of watches of the time. With it’s shiny braguet style numerals, “Meisterstück”/“4810” engraved into the side case and onion crown capped with the Montblanc logo. It has a retrofuturistic vibe which I like. As you can see with my other watches, I do quite like conservatively quirky watches.

The watch is made of 316L steel and is a sapphire sandwich with decent AR costing on the top crystal. WR is a paltry 3atm, but it’s fine for my use. Sweat resistance is enough for me.

The overall size is good for most wrists with a diameter of the watch is 38mm (37.8mm measured), lug-to-lug of 46.7mm and a not so thin 14.1mm height. The lug width is 19mm, which I’m fine with. What bugs me is the strange buckle width of 17mm! Good thing is that you can fit the pin buckle on a 16mm buckle width strap with no major issues.

The watch has 4 hands. Leaf shaped hour and minute hands with lume, a stick shaped seconds hand with the Montblanc logo as the counterweight and the alarm hand that is skeletonized and have a red lumed triangle at the end.

The dial is ink black with shiny braguet style Arabic numerals and tiny lume pips above each number. There is a silver inner ring with markings at 10 minute intervals with medium length markings every half hour and longer markings for the hour. The inner ring has fine concentric circles giving the dial some texture. The red arrow of the alarm hand gives a nice pop of colour to the black dial.

The day is at the 12 o’clock and the date at 6 o’clock both in stark white, drastically contrasting the ink black dial. I thought that would be a negative, but it surprisingly works well when you see the watch in person.

The case is all polished with crowns at the 2 o’clock and 4 o’clock. The 2 o’clock crown is onion shaped and is for setting the day, date and time. And the 4 o’clock crown is for setting the alarm. Both crowns are push pull crowns that are knurled and are easy to use at a comfortable 5.8mm diameter.

I won’t go though setting the time. It’s pretty standard for a 3 handed day date movement. The movement has hacking seconds and quick set day date.

Setting the alarm is easy, winding the 4 o’clock crown winds the barrel for the alarm. Pull the crown out and turn it anti-clockwise to move the alarm hand to the desired time for the alarm, leave the crown out to engage the alarm and push it down to disengage.

The alarm will go off around the set time, usually about 3 to 5 minutes before the set time, depending on how precisely you set the alarm arrow, which might be a challenge for old eyes. The alarm is a dullish buzz that lasts for about 15 seconds and the vibration is surprisingly muted on wrist. You can feel a mobile phone like vibration if you touch the case when the alarm is buzzing. It’s a very fun complication and I’ve found myself setting the alarm to remind me for my next meetings. The alarm going off early does help in this use case. All in, the alarm works as intended, though I wouldn’t use it as a primary alarm for critical reminders.

The movement is Montblanc 4810.904 movement which is basically a decorated La Joux-Perret LJP5800 movement. The movement works fine and keeps time very well, though the winding is not the smoothest I’ve felt. You have to give Montblanc marks for trying with the decorations. They have put in a lot of effort to make the watch look more expensive by embellishing the movement with lots of decorative details. There is perlage on many components, blued screws, Geneva striping near the rotor bearings, engraved pattern on the rotor made up of Montblanc logos, with engraved wordings and spiral patterns on the outer edge of the rotor, almost everything you can think of, and probably all done by machine. Old hands can tell it’s nothing to shout about, but at least they tried and didn’t do a Seiko.

All in, it’s a surprisingly handsome watch (if you like the look) with a fun and somewhat practical complication that can easily slip under a cuff despite its thickness. I actually find myself wearing it more regularly than I thought I would.

This one is staying with me. I’d definitely recommend getting it if you are like quirky watches and are looking for a reliable, new-ish watch with an alarm complication that wouldn’t break the bank.