News · Glashütte Original

Glashütte Original takes 1.1mm off the Senator Chronograph, and splits it in two

A new 41mm case and the calibre 37-24 bring the Senator Chronograph down to 12.90mm, offered as a silver-dialled nod to Glashütte's marine observation watches and a black-dialled Navigator drawn from 1940s pilot's watches.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 5 min read · 22 August 2026

• Glashütte Original has moved the Senator Chronograph into a slimmer 41mm steel case, offered in a silver-dialled version and a black-dialled Navigator.
• The new automatic calibre 37-24 brings the case to 12.90mm deep, against 14.00mm for the Senator Chronograph Panorama Date already in the catalogue.
• Both are permanent-collection models rather than limited: the Senator Chronograph lists at A$23,800 and the Navigator at A$25,150 on the folding clasp.

My honest position on the Senator Chronograph, held for years and stated out loud to anyone who would listen, was that Glashütte Original had built a movement I badly wanted and bolted it into a watch I did not. The calibre was gorgeous. The case was fourteen millimetres deep. You can admire a thing like that in photographs indefinitely and never once reach for your wallet, which is roughly what I did. So I have been recalibrating this week, because the two watches Glashütte Original introduced on 20 August, the Senator Chronograph and the Senator Chronograph Navigator, have quietly removed my only real objection.

One millimetre out, and rather more than one off the top

The numbers first, because they are the story. The new case is 41.00mm across and 12.90mm deep. The Senator Chronograph Panorama Date already in the catalogue is 42.00mm and 14.00mm. A millimetre of diameter is a rounding error you would struggle to see across a table. A millimetre and a tenth off the height is not, because thickness is what decides whether a chronograph slides under a shirt cuff or catches on it every single time you reach for something.

That reduction comes from the calibre rather than from clever case machining. The new watches run the automatic 37-24, which measures 34.2mm across and 8mm deep, in place of the 37-01 in the older Panorama Date. Glashütte Original has kept the functions intact through the swap: central stop-seconds, a 30-minute counter, small seconds, the flyback, and the Panorama Date, which is the house signature and the reason the movement has to be as tall as it is in the first place.

The silver one is arguing about ships

The Senator Chronograph takes a galvanic silver dial made in Glashütte Original's own dial manufactory, with an embossed surface that catches light in fine grain rather than in a broad sweep. Solid gold Roman numerals sit on top of it under a blue coating, matched by blued hands, and the two sub-dials carry a delicate motif of concentric grooves that the brand likens to a vinyl record. The flange takes a tachymeter printed in glossy black. The Panorama Date gets a white gold frame, black figures on an ivory ground.

The reference point is not aviation but navigation at sea. Glashütte built observation watches in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, high-precision pocket instruments used for maritime work, and this dial is drawn from that rather than from anything with a propeller attached. It is a slightly unfashionable thing to reach for in 2026, when every second chronograph is chasing a racetrack, and I think it is much the more interesting decision.

The black one is arguing about aeroplanes

Turn to the Navigator and the argument changes completely inside the same case. The dial is matt black lacquer, finely textured, with Arabic numerals made from solid luminescent material rather than printed and filled. The hour and minute hands are generously coated with Super-LumiNova, while the chronograph, counter and small seconds hands are lacquered white so they read as instruments rather than as timekeeping. The tachymeter on the flange is printed white for contrast, and the Panorama Date flips to white on black.

The furniture changes too. There is a fluted pilot's crown carrying the double-G, and mushroom-shaped pushers at two and four that you can find and operate without looking down. The lugs take a quick-change system, so alligator, sand-coloured synthetic and steel bracelet swap without tools, and the double folding clasp does the same trick. Both watches take 21mm at the end link, which is an awkward number if you were hoping to raid your own strap drawer.

Seventy hours, a column wheel, and a flyback you will actually use

The 37-24 beats at 28,800 vibrations an hour and holds 70 hours. Switching is done by column wheel, which is the expensive way and the one you feel in the pushers rather than see. The balance spring is silicon, so magnetism stops being something you think about, and Glashütte Original describes the rate adjustment as regulator-free, made on the balance itself rather than with an index arm.

The flyback is the function worth pointing at. Stop, zero and restart all happen on one press, which sounds like a party trick until you have tried to time consecutive things with an ordinary chronograph and found yourself doing a three-press fumble while the thing you were timing carried on without you. Through the sapphire back you get the Glashütte three-quarter plate with stripe finish, bevelled and polished edges, blued screws, and a skeletonised rotor carrying a 21-carat gold oscillating weight.

Both dials carry a tachymeter reading against a base of 1,000 metres, which is a scale for people who have a measured kilometre and a passenger willing to shout at the far end. I have never met one either.

Here is where I will plant a small flag: the vinyl-record grooves in the silver dial's sub-dials are the best thing on either watch. They are the sort of detail that reads as fussy in a press shot and turns into the reason you keep looking at the thing in the metal, and they matter more than the one millimetre everyone is going to write about.

What this pair really shows is a brand that has stopped treating slimness as somebody else's problem. Glashütte Original has spent a long time being admired at arm's length. Coming in at 12.90mm is how it gets picked up.

Glashütte Original Senator Chronograph and Senator Chronograph Navigator pricing and availability

Both watches are in the permanent collection rather than limited, and are sold through Glashütte Original boutiques and authorised retailers. The Senator Chronograph, reference 1-37-24-01-02-64, lists at A$23,800, US$16,100, €15,900, £13,600 and CHF 14,300. The Senator Chronograph Navigator, reference 1-37-24-20-12-71, lists at A$25,150, US$17,100, €16,800, £14,400 and CHF 15,100. Those are the figures for the folding-clasp versions, and both models are also offered on Louisiana alligator, on synthetic and on the steel bracelet. Glashütte Original introduced them on 20 August 2026.