If you’re not massively into watches, there’s a decent chance that NOMOS Glashütte isn’t one of the first names that comes to mind. Rolex, sure. Omega, probably. Cartier, absolutely. But spend enough time around people who are really into watches and, sooner or later, someone will start telling you all about this small, independent German brand.

“Once you become a watch enthusiast, you’ll hear other watch people whisper about NOMOS,” says watch collector Bill Adler. “And when you put one on, you’ll understand what those quiet accolades are about.”

The company has only been around since 1990, which, in watch years, is basically yesterday. It was founded by Roland Schwertner shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and set up in Glashütte, the small Saxon town that’s been making watches for more than 180 years. A good place to start, then.

In the three-and-a-half decades since, the brand has become very good at doing its own thing. Its watches are clean and minimal, but not boring. They’re distinctive, but you won’t find a massive logo splashed across the dial. And while nobody’s going to call a watch that costs a few grand cheap, the prices start looking pretty reasonable once you work out what you’re actually getting for your money.

The Tangente is probably the NOMOS most people will recognise. Introduced in 1992, its thin bezel, skinny numerals and small seconds dial have barely changed since. But there’s also the dressier Orion, the colourful Club, the slightly weirder Metro and the Zürich World Time, which somehow manages to show 24 time zones without looking like a departures board at Heathrow Terminal 5. “NOMOS has a very distinct design language that doesn’t look like it’s trying to imitate anyone else,” says the watch writer Vivian Morelli. “A lot of those big brands are leaning into their heritage, but NOMOS has built its identity around Bauhaus-inspired aesthetics and understated elegance.”

The design is what gets your attention. Then you start reading about what’s going on inside. And this is where things get very nerdy, very quickly.

For its first couple of decades, the company used movements based on Swiss architecture, which it modified and increasingly produced itself. Then, in 2014, it introduced the Swing System, its own escapement. Unless you spend every second of your free time reading about mechanical movements, that probably doesn’t really mean much. But making an escapement is hard. Very hard. It’s one of the most important bits of a mechanical watch. And, by producing its own, the company no longer had to rely on a Swiss supplier for it.

Today, NOMOS designs and manufactures its own calibres, including the very slim DUW 3001 automatic movement. That’s the sort of thing you’d expect from a much bigger watchmaker charging a lot more money. And it’s where all the love for this watchmaker starts to make sense.

“Designing and manufacturing your own movements is expensive, time-consuming and technically demanding,” Morelli says. “Seeing that at NOMOS’s price point is really impressive. You’re getting a level of quality that’s often associated with watches that cost a lot more.”

The watch writer Thomas Brechtel agrees. “They are simply so good, so different, so Glashütte,” he says. “And this feels unique in this price range.”

But the geeky stuff is only part of why watch people think the brand deserves its flowers. “NOMOS is not mainstream,” Brechtel says. “NOMOS is a watch for individualists. And, unlike a lot of companies out there, it doesn’t seem particularly interested in behaving like a hype machine, either. Core models stick around. There isn’t the same constant churn of limited editions and you don’t need to spend the next six months worrying that the watch you’ve been eyeing up will disappear before you’ve talked yourself into buying it.”

“NOMOS doesn’t make a watch expecting it to be discontinued,” Adler says. “You don’t feel like you have to rush to buy a particular NOMOS because it might sell out and never come back.”

Then there’s the very basic matter of actually wearing one. Watch people can spend an awful lot of time talking about movements, finishing and what you can see through the sapphire caseback. However, eventually you do have to put the thing on your wrist. Adler describes the watches as “feathery”; his first Tangente didn’t stay his only one for long. After a couple of years, he went back for a Metro, complete with its off-centre mint power-reserve indicator.

And this seems to happen a lot with NOMOS. It probably isn’t where you look the first time you decide you want a proper watch. But then you get a bit deeper into this stuff. You start caring about where movements are made. You learn why Glashütte matters. You start looking at finishing. Things like escapements somehow become interesting. And suddenly this quiet German brand starts making a lot of sense.

Morelli has a pretty convincing story about just how deep that respect goes. A few years ago, she interviewed Philippe Dufour, one of the most respected independent watchmakers on the planet. She couldn’t afford – or, for that matter, find – one of his Simplicity watches, so she asked him what she should buy instead. His recommendation? A NOMOS. “If you have Dufour’s approval, that means more than anything,” Morelli says.

So, which one should you actually buy? Well, our three experts couldn’t agree on that. Morelli picks the Tangente, calling it “slim, versatile and instantly recognisable”. Brechtel goes for the Orion, which he describes as the “poshest and most elegant NOMOS”. Adler skips both and goes straight for the Zürich World Time, thanks to the way it squeezes a genuinely useful complication into a very NOMOS-looking watch.

Maybe that’s why people don’t stop at one. You come for the Tangente, then you notice the Orion. You start looking at the Metro, then convince yourself that actually, yes, a world timer would be quite useful. Before long, the little German watch brand you might not have known much about a few weeks ago is the one you’re spending far too much time looking at.

And maybe that’s the thing about NOMOS. It doesn’t shout for your attention. But once you get properly into watches, it has a funny way of getting it anyway.