Diving into dark abysses and treacherous territories isn’t a common hobby, even for watch folks. Yet surprisingly, diving watches are one of watchmaking’s most popular categories. Engineered to withstand oceanic extremities with a century's worth of technical innovation, nearly half of all diving watches don’t touch a drop of water in their lifetime – worn to sunset soirees, red carpets, and tennis courtsides, but rarely the boat!
Despite being sported as a hedonistic accessory, diving watches inherently represent the epitome of resilience in the watch kingdom - some are suited for recreational scuba dives, others can touch the bottom of the Mariana Trench. So, if you’re looking to purchase a diving watch, there are a handful of details to look out for before making the dive.
Firstly, What Is a Diving Watch?
Rewinding the clocks by a century, Cartier’s ‘water-resistant’ Tank Étanche was making a splash. It wasn’t initially intended to be dive-capable, but instead to make the wearer less anxious about his timepiece around water. A few years later, in 1932, this splash turned into a wave with the OMEGA Marine – cased in gold and stainless steel, it was tested to depths of 73 metres in Lake Geneva and in a pressure chamber at a laboratory in Neuchâtel to a pressure corresponding to a depth of 135 metres. This was the beginning of diving watches.
Per contemporary standards, diving watches are designed to cater to the needs of aquatic explorers under extreme conditions. These utilitarian timepieces are built upon principles of accuracy, robustness, and reliability. Common features of diving watches include water resistance, rotating bezels, high legibility, and rock-solid build quality.
The Benchmarks
Anything built for safety keeps contingency in mind. So even if we run into problems, fail-safe systems are in place. It’s the same reason diving watches designed for casual scuba diving offer twice or thrice the required depth capability. While most of us may dive to maximum depths of 30-40 metres for recreation, only elite professionals dare to dive deeper. They require specialized training to perform such manoeuvres as well as higher-grade divers built for harsher thresholds. For the rest of the folks, 200 metres of water resistance is sufficient. The TISSOT Seastar collection offers a water resistance of 300 metres, which is perfectly suitable for recreational dives.
What is ISO 6425?
Another great scale of depth measure is ISO 6425 – a standardized certification for diving watches observed by the International Organization for Standardization. This certification checks for condensation under the crystal, capabilities under temperatures of 66 to 100 degrees F, and being underwater for 50 hours. While this isn’t an industry compulsion or a diving watch law, it’s certainly a shiny badge to have on your diving watch.
Get A Grip
If you’re purchasing a diving watch with the pure intention of diving into the deep, you’ll need to ensure your bezel works efficiently and is well controllable. Bezels in diving watches typically run unidirectionally and counterclockwise—ensuring that even accidental adjustments won’t interfere with dive timing—and are used to measure time spent underwater to observe oxygen levels and activity. Whether wearing gloves or not while diving in, ensure you can efficiently grip and set your bezel. The last thing you need is your bezel delaying your dive, forcing you to resurface. While this seems like a tiny, potentially ignorable detail, it matters when a dive demands efficient timing. Since diving watches are designed for functionality and utility, it’s important that things work when they need to!
What’s Your Diving Purpose?
Well, diving watches are quintessentially designed for the sea, yet James Bond wore one with a tuxedo.
With the recent rise of the ‘desk diver’ sub-category, many diving watch owners purchase this type of timepiece for its utilitarian and industrial beauty, but with no intention of going anywhere near water bodies. In essence, every dive watch qualifies for this category, but our favourites will be the TAG Heuer Aquaracer and Panerai Submersible collections. This also allows you to own a diving watch with all the technical characteristics and aesthetics at various price points.
What’s an HEV?
We’re entering the big boy league here! HEV or Helium Escape Valve is a specialized diving watch feature which employs helium-enriched air in saturation chambers. During saturation dives at great depths, diving watches often use pressurized environments filled with a mixture of gases, including helium, which can infiltrate a watch case over time. When divers return to the surface, and the surrounding pressure decreases during decompression, the helium trapped inside the watch can expand faster than it can escape. This creates a pressure differential that may cause the crystal or case to pop off, compromising the watch.
While this is a must-have feature for professional divers, it’s absolutely redundant for anyone else. But for those daring to dive into the abyss, we’d highly recommend the OMEGA Seamaster Professional Diver 300M collection, which features an HEV ergonomically positioned at ten o’clock.
Can You Read Time in The Dark?
Lume is one of watchmaking’s most fascinating subjects. What started off as a droplet of radium on a dial during WW1 has now become an experimental avenue for watchmakers. Take IWC’s Ceralume Pilot’s concept, draped buckle to bezel in lume.
When it comes to diving watches, lume and legibility are critical aspects of functionality. While most watchmakers use photoluminescent materials like Super-LumiNova, standard LumiNova and LumiBrite in dive watches, they commonly last between 30-60 minutes, after which they need a quick recharge. If you’re diving to depths where sunlight is hard to reach and for prolonged periods, we’d suggest paying close attention to this characteristic.
What’s it Made Of?
The ocean is unforgiving, so your diving watch must be built to last. Stainless steel is a go-to for its anti-corrosion properties and durability. However, titanium offers a lighter, hypoallergenic alternative. In theory, ceramic watches offer both but as well as scratch resistance. A sapphire crystal with a thick profile guards against deep-sea pressures and physical impacts. Beyond the case, ensure the internal components—especially gaskets and seals—are high quality to withstand repeated underwater use.
A great practice after use is rinsing your diving watch in clean, fresh water, especially if you’ve just taken a dip in salt water. Finally, after appropriate intervals, ask your watchmaker to run pressure tests in case your timepiece needs extra care.
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