The Dive Watches That Changed Everything

Before the dive watch became a luxury staple, it was built for one of the harshest environments on earth. This is a story about time, pressure, and survival, and how the ocean helped shape one of the most recognizable watches ever made. I'm Mark Bernardo. I'm the director of editorial content for Teddy Baldassare. I'm also the co-author of Sea Time, watches inspired by sailing, yachting, and diving. Join me as I take you through the history, the evolution, and the undeniable cultural impact of watches made for diving, highlighting the most important time pieces in this popular category along the way. The ocean didn't just test these watches, it shaped them, and these are the dive watches that changed everything. A dive watch is a watch that's built to withstand water pressure, it's built to be seen easily underwater, and it's basically to keep you alive when you're down there. All dive watches have some similar identifying elements. Some kind of dive scale on the bezel, large readable hands and indexes, screwed down crowns for waterproof cases, extreme waterproofness in the case design, extreme legibility in the dial design, and most of them are built to be extremely robust in any condition. Watches and water have a long-standing love-hate relationship. Ever since mankind began exploring the seas and oceans, timekeeping has been an essential part of navigation. But watches and clocks need a lot of tiny metal parts to work properly in order to serve their function, and water, in addition to other factors like magnetism, is the arch enemy of this mission. The essential component of seafaring navigation in the 18th century was determining longitude. The first horological inventor to address this with success was a British former carpenter named John Harrison. His original marine chronometers were clocks and eventually pocket watches that enabled their users to compare Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT, with the position of celestial bodies in the sky. They were mounted on gimbals so they could be used on the deck of a ship, unaffected by the rolling waves that would have affected the accuracy of a pendulum clock. Other watchmakers took up the challenge of producing and improving marine chronometers. John Arnold, Ferdinand Berthoud, Thomas Mudge, and others. A Swiss watchmaker named Ulysse Nardin was the first to mass-produce marine chronometers, eventually followed by Hamilton Watch Company in the USA. Marine chronometers proved useful for sailors on vessels, but when navies began conducting operations under the water, an even more robust style of timepiece was needed. Waterproof watches as we know them today really began with a groundbreaking invention by a German watchmaker living in London named Hans Wilsdorf. Wilsdorf never put his own name on watch dials, otherwise more people would know his name. Instead he came up with a name that was short and sweet, easy to pronounce in many languages, and even sort of sounded like a watch winding when you said it out loud. Rolex. Unlike a lot of other watchmaking companies at this early point in the 20th century, Rolex was already all in on wristwatches rather than pocket watches as the future of the industry, and Wilsdorf set out very early on to solve the issue of water penetrating watch cases. His answer came in 1926, the first Oyster case. It was aptly named because the case consisted of two shelves that clamped tightly shut, forming a hermetic seal, protecting the movement from penetration by water with the aid of a rubber gasket and a screw-down connection. A few years later in 1931, Wilsdorf equipped the Oyster case with his other important invention, the self-winding perpetual movement, which would minimize the need for winding and ensure water had even less access to penetrating the case. That's why Rolex's professional watches still read Oyster Perpetual on the dial today, but a true Rolex watch for divers was still several decades away. Wilsdorf was not only a visionary when it came to improving watches, he was also a pioneer in marketing them through associations with famous people. Mercedes Gleitz was a secretary in London who had become famous as the first British woman to swim the English Channel. In October 1927, in a deal with Wilsdorf, she wore a Rolex Oyster watch on two subsequent attempts to swim the Channel, the second one successful. Famously, the watch stayed waterproof and in working order through the entire ordeal. Gleitz began appearing in ads for the Rolex Oyster watch, the first of many Rolex endorsements in the decades to come. But Rolex wasn't the only watchmaker trying to solve the issue of making a watch that worked under water. Another was its major competitor, Omega, founded in 1848. Because Rolex's Oyster design was patented, Omega had to come up with a different system to waterproof its watches, and what it led to was the first commercialized wristwatch actually built and tested for diving. The Omega Marine, which came out in 1932, had a patented design with a rectangular double case in which the outer case was sealed with cork to protect the movement in the inner case from water. With the 1940s came a Second World War and the need for a tougher, even more utilitarian style of watch. Diving was now an essential part of military missions, with navies using tactical divers or frogmen to do reconnaissance or deploy or disarm underwater explosives. So, they needed a watch that was not only reliable and waterproof, but one that could be read in the dark conditions underwater. Guido Panerai was the owner of a family business in Florence that sold watches as well as diving tools and other military equipment. One of his clients was the Royal Italian Navy, which were gearing up for World War II by the mid-1930s. Panerai developed a substance called Radiomir, a radium-based paint that could be applied to objects to make them glow in the dark. In 1935 to 1936, Panerai developed a wristwatch that used the substance on the dial, specifically built for combat divers who'd need to read it underwater. This was the first Radiomir watch, referenced 2533, with a unique cushion-shaped case made by Rolex. These watches, in fact all Panerai watches for decades, were exclusively sold to the military rather than civilians. After the war, the need for these military-aimed watches was reduced. So, Omega, which had made some military divers' watches for Britain during the war, took the bold step of applying waterproof technology to a dress watch. This was the first watch called an Omega Seamaster and came out in 1948, with the added benefit that it was more waterproof than your average gent's dress watch. Thanks to a technology Omega had developed with a rubber o-ring gasket, the type used in wartime submarines to seal the case, this dressy version of the Seamaster would pave the way for a more memorable version about a decade later. But the dawning age of true modern watches for diving was close on the horizon. The 1950s was really when scuba diving came of age as a sport, as a hobby, as a cultural touchstone. Much of this centered around a French naval officer and oceanographer named Jacques Cousteau, who, along with his partner Emile Gagnon, had invented the Aqualung in 1943. This device made it easier for and also made it safer for civilians to take up diving, as long as they had some way to time the duration of their air supply. For Cousteau, it was about filming his underwater exploits, and in many cases, his films brought this fascinating undersea world to the general public for the first time, further stoking interest. Cousteau became a star of that era, and all of a sudden, there was an interest in watches that weren't just waterproof enough to wear in the rain or the bathtub, but watches that were actual tools for diving. Blancpain was one of the oldest watch brands in existence, founded in 1735, and it had never really been known for sport watches or tool watches. But during the 50s, the company was run by a man named Jean-Jacques Fichter, who was himself an avid scuba diver, and who had a relationship with the French Navy, and specifically, an officer named Robert Melubier. Melubier wanted a watch that could be worn by his unit of underwater commandos, and the watch that Fichter, Melubier, and their team came up with was a breakthrough in many ways, with lots of firsts for the dive watch category. 42 millimeter case, big for the era, a black dial with high contrast luminous coated numerals, and a water resistance to 91.45 meters, also known as 50 fathoms, hence the watch's name. It had a self-winding movement, not a common feature in dive watches before, and a patented double-sealed crown. The most important and influential feature of the 50 fathoms, one that's almost universally adopted by dive watches today, was its dive scale bezel that turned in one direction rather than both. Why was this important? The scale was set to calculate how much oxygen a diver had in the tank, and any accidental jarring of the bezel in the wrong direction could reset the scale with an inaccurate reading, say 25 minutes of air left when a diver actually only had 15, which could be hazardous or even fatal. Cousteau famously wore the 50 fathoms in his award-winning movie The Silent World, and actor Lloyd Bridges wore it on the TV series Sea Hunt, cementing its cultural presence in the era. But a dive watch with an even bigger cultural impact, called the Submariner, was the first watch tested to a water resistance of a full 100 meters, or about 330 feet, just a little deeper than 50 fathoms. The Submariner not only set a new record for underwater toughness, it established a distinctive look that is today considered quintessential dive watch. The first one, reference 6204, was 37 millimeters in diameter with a plain black dial, no date, a combination of bubbles, batons, and an inverted triangle at 12 to mark the hours. The movement was automatic, and the bezel was marked in 10-minute increments, though it wasn't yet unidirectional. The Sub would begin evolving almost immediately, with the next edition adding the famous Mercedes handset and increasing the water resistance to 200 meters just a year after the first model's release. Another important dive watch came out in 1953 from another very old Swiss brand, whose contribution has been largely overshadowed by the previous two legendary models, but which deserves a mention, which is the Zodiac Seawolf, today being sold as the Super Seawolf. It had similar qualities to the 50 fathoms and the Submariner, but it was much more excessively priced for diving hobbyists. It was also the first dive watch with the first 15-minute sector highlighted on the bezel, which was the most crucial segment for scuba diving, and is now a common feature on many dive watch bezels. Because Blancpain had a patent on the unidirectional dive bezel as a safety feature, other watchmakers in the 1950s pursued other designs for their dive watches, the most widely adopted of these being the so-called compressor case design. Instead of a rotating exterior bezel with a dive scale, these had that scale on a movable ring on the dial's flange. These inner bezels moved in both directions, operated by an extra crown on the outside, and could lock in place when that crown was screwed in. The case itself was differently designed than the Oyster and the various cases that adopted that structure, with a spring mechanism that compressed the case back tighter into the o-ring gasket as water pressure increased. Essentially, the deeper you dove, the more watertight the case became. The compressor design, and its even more robust version, the Super Compressor, with a bayonet-style case back and an even higher depth rating, was patented by a Swiss casemaker called Irving Picoret, and used by a handful of that company's clients, including Jaeger LeCoultre, Anacar, and Longines. Few watches actually use the compressor case anymore, but some still use that classic inner bezel design, like the modern version of the Longines Legend Diver, which is one of the brand's most popular vintage-style dive watches. This Milanese bracelet version is rather new to the market, and it's just gorgeous. It's one of the very few that does away with the big outer rotating bezel with the dive scale, and instead uses that old-school compressor-style inner bezel that you can activate with this extra crown on the side of the case. Another big year in the decade of dive watches was 1957. The Omega Seamaster Professional 300 that debuted that year was one of the famous Master Trilogy, which consisted of the Seamaster, the Speedmaster, which was eventually the Moonwatch, and the Railmaster. The Seamaster, reference CK2913, was an entirely new take on Omega's 1948 Gents watch, styled specifically for divers, tested to 200 meters of water resistance, though Omega boldly called it 300 because it was convinced it was even tougher. It was also in 1957 that Breitling, a brand at that point more known for chronographs and pilot's watches, dipped its toe in the water with the first Superocean watch, reference 1004, and also with one of the first diver chronographs, the reference 807, which is also believed to be the first chronograph to adopt the high-contrast reverse panda black-and-white layout. Both watches featured a rotating bezel with a new twist, a concave design that made them easier to manipulate with diver's gloves. Both were also water-resistant at 200 meters. The quest went on not only to make dive watches more and more waterproof, as we'll see in the decades to come, but also more utilitarian in their functions. Jaeger-LeCoultre was one of the first watchmakers to make a mechanical alarm watch which could be set to buzz a reminder at a predetermined hour. They called this watch the Memovox, or Voice of Memory in Latin. The first of these was in 1951, marketed to businessmen, but by 1959, Jaeger-LeCoultre took this wrist alarm from the boardroom to the ocean depths, with the Memovox, also known as the Deep Sea Alarm Automatic. It was the first purpose-built dive watch with an alarm function. The reason behind it being that the vibrations of the alarm on the wrist would remind a diver when it was time to resurface, when his oxygen supply was getting low. Alarm watches are still a very niche product today, made obsolete by technology, but this was a big breakthrough at the time, and it ushered in a spirit of challenging what was possible in the coming decade. Rolex was, predictably, at the forefront of making dive watches even tougher at the start of the 1960s. The company made an experimental version of the Submariner that it called the Rolex Deep Sea for an expedition into Challenger Deep, the deepest underwater valley of the Marianas Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. It was the deepest part of the ocean that had ever been explored by a man-made vehicle, and the U.S. Navy had developed a submarine called the for the record-setting attempt. The watch's oyster case was extra thick with a huge dome crystal to withstand the water pressure, and was strapped to the exterior of the bathscaphes hull. The Deep Sea was intact after the Trieste, piloted by French oceanographer Jacques Piccard and Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh, descended to nearly 36,000 feet below the ocean. The well-publicized feat certainly emboldened Rolex to keep pushing the boundaries, and the record itself would stand for decades until Rolex itself challenged it with another expedition. The evolution of the dive watch would continue through the 1960s in the areas of both utility and design. The Submariner, already a popular watch, reached a new level of awareness and stylish cool when it was worn by Sean Connery in the earliest James Bond movies, the first of which was in 1962. Connery's preferred watch, the reference 6538 Big Crown version, is still known as the James Bond Rolex, and one of the most collectible vintage Rolexes. These big screen appearances made it clear that dive watches like the Submariner were graduating from tools to style objects. Nevertheless, watchmakers were still determined to improve upon their tool aspects. Around the same time, Tudor was a bit more quietly making its own version of the Submariner, the Oyster Prince Submariner, and supplying those watches to French combat divers and special forces. Tudor's Submariner was a more accessible version price-wise, which made it a great choice for military buyers, and while it took definite stylistic cues from Rolex's more luxurious version, it developed several design elements of its own that, decades later, would be wildly popular with a civilian watch-buying public. In 1964, Breitling decided to improve upon its Superocean model by doing what that brand had always done best, find new and interesting interpretations of its specialty, the chronograph. Up to that point, the few dive chronographs that existed were basically laid out like any motorsport chronograph you could name, with small sub-dials to read elapsed times. The trouble was, small dials are hard to read deep underwater. Breitling's solution was a large, luminous central minutes hand for the chronograph instead of a central seconds hand. The hand made a complete rotation around a 60-minute scale, once per hour instead of once per minute, which meant it was easy to read how many minutes you recorded underwater, in addition to the main time. The slow-moving hand gave this model, reference 2005, the nickname Slow Motion. It was a design that was retired shortly after it debuted, but the spirit of it lives on in the most recent redesign of the Breitling Superocean, introduced in 2022. These watches don't have the slow-motion chrono. They're basically three-handed divers watches, but they revive the vintage elements that made the watch such a cult classic. The most recent version of the Breitling Superocean owes a lot of its design elements to the slow-motion model from the 1960s, including the hand style and these large, chunky indexes, as well as the rotating coin edge bezel. This is the most recent update of the Breitling Superocean, and it's a really sharp-looking dive watch. It's got a very vintage look to it that sets it apart from the rest of the Breitling line, as well as the Heritage Superocean models that derive their design more from the 50s, and it adopts the usual dive watch staples, the rotating unidirectional bezel, and the super-luminated hands on the dial, and it's available in a variety of styles. The modern version of the Superocean is outfitted with a Breitling in-house automatic caliber, one of the first for their three-hand watches, and it's built to be water-resistant to 200 meters. It's Breitling's contribution to the dive watch history, and a brand that's more known for pilot watches and chronographs really deserves some credit here for developing this watch. Japan had a watchmaking tradition that went back to the late 1800s, but the first dedicated dive watch from Japan didn't arrive until 1965. Appropriately, it was the nation's oldest watchmaker, and at the time, its most well-known internationally, Seiko, that made it. The 62MAS had a steel case, an automatic movement, and 150 meters of water resistance, and it kicked off a long tradition of Seiko dive watches that would really kick into gear in the 1970s. A very old Swiss watchmaking company called Favre-Leube made what's believed to be the first diving watch with a mechanical depth gauge that could alert a diver to how deep he was underwater. This mechanism actually needed to let water seep into the case through a tiny inlet. The increasing water pressure activated a lever that moved a hand along a scale on the dial to record the depth. One of the few watchmakers that still uses this technology is Oris and its Aquus depth gauge. This is a robust beast of a watch, rated to 500 meters, and it's got a patented system that allows the water to penetrate through a channel in the extra-thick crystal that sends the water to a chamber and compresses the air to activate the scale. There aren't many watches that actually have this type of a depth gauge that's activated by water seeping into a tiny inlet in the crystal that flows into this kind of pocket that pushes the air inside the case that reveals the diver's depth on this meter scale on the side of the dial. It's not the most wearable watch for many, certainly not the most wearable size or thickness or weight, but as a dive tool there's just really very little like it out there now. By 1967, dive watches had become a popular genre, but there were still relatively few that were targeted at hobbyists rather than deep-pocketed professionals. A Swiss company called Doxa answered this call with the Sub 300, which was developed with the input of divers, including some who'd worked with Cousteau. It had a thick turtle-shaped case from a single block of steel, and more historically, it introduced a bright orange dial, a first for the industry, because research had shown that it was the most easily visible color in the deepest water. The rotating bezel featured not only the standard 60-minute ring, but also a decompression scale used by the U.S. Navy that enabled a diver to ascend to the surface safely. The Doxa Sub 300, which eventually adopted complications and other colorways, was an affordable option compared to Rolex, Blancpain, and others. It also brought the dive watch into another area of pop culture, namely the Dirk Pitt adventure novels by Clive Cussler, who discovered the watch when he was still working a nine-to-five in a dive shop and made it his hero's go-to timepiece. Matthew McConaughey wore one in the role of Dirk Pitt in the movie Sahara. In the modern day, Doxa has embraced this literary connection with special Cussler limited editions. I think the Doxa Sub 300 is really one of the most recognizable watches in the industry, certainly one of the most recognizable dive watches. It was always very distinctive looking, and it was always a legit dive watch that really, really could hold its own underwater. While the Submariner continued to grow as a coveted luxury item, thanks to its association with James Bond, Rolex was ready to take the next step in record-breaking water resistance, and also introduced another new useful feature for a new breed of divers. The first Sea-Dweller, reference 1665, was nearly identical to the Submariner in design, but boosted the case's water resistance to a punishing 500 meters. The next version in 1969 added another new feature for its intended audience, saturation divers who worked for long periods inside a pressurized diving bell deep underwater, and breathing the mixture of oxygen, hydrogen, and helium inside it. The case had a built-in helium release valve, which could expel the built-up helium atoms inside the watch that could penetrate it and make its crystal pop free of the case. The most famous collectible Sea-Dweller is the reference 16660, or Triple Six, from 1978, which ushered in the even more extreme water resistance levels the watch boasts today, 1,220 meters, or 4,000 feet. The Sea-Dweller, the ultimate tool watch at the time, would remain in the collection to this day, and be executed in nearly as many luxurious versions as the Submariner. The Rolex Sea-Dweller is also a very cool watch in its own right. The fact that it was the first to include this helium escape valve in the side of the case really makes it an important piece of dive watch history. It's somewhat thick, it would have to be to be water resistant to over 1,200 meters, but it's really a watch that feels good on the wrist, and it certainly won't let you down if you happen to be wearing it deep underwater. The invention of the helium escape valve was a sign that watchmakers were going to continue pushing boundaries in the next decades, even as technological leaps in both watchmaking and diving technology threatened to render traditional watches obsolete. Watch manufacturers continued to push the limits of water resistance for their dive watches during the 1960s and 70s. In 1970, Omega partnered with Comex to produce its most extreme diver's watch to date, the still very polarizing Seamaster Ploprof, also known as the Seamaster 600. Ploprof was an abbreviation for the French phrase plongeurs professionnels, or professional divers. The Ploprof, with its hulking asymmetrical monobloc steel case, doubled the Seamaster 300's water resistance to 600 meters. Omega followed that up with a sequel that could descend to 1,000 meters. The Ploprof never became a mainstream hit, but it developed a cult following among hardcore diving enthusiasts, once again including Jacques Cousteau, who was filmed wearing it on some of his expeditions. Omega revived it in 2009 with an increased water resistance of 1,200 meters, and a version of it remains in the collection today. The 1970s were big for Seiko dive watches, with some of the brand's most unusual and historic models debuting. One was the reference 6105 nicknamed the Captain Willard. The watch came out in 1970, but it became famous in 1979. Its nickname came from the character played by Martin Sheen in the Vietnam War movie Apocalypse Now. It was a good choice for the role because troops and sailors during the Vietnam War actually did wear these Seiko dive watches on their deployments. It was a chunky steel watch with an asymmetrical case and a four o'clock crown with an automatic movement. In 1975 came the so-called Grandfather Tuna, referenced 61597010, which had a titanium case with a ceramic-coated outer shroud that protected it from intense water pressures. The nickname came from its odd shape that reminded you of a tuna can. Seiko launched another unusually shaped dive watch with another now-legendary nickname, the Turtle. The name was a reference to the cushion-shaped case that looked like a turtle from above. This one had a 150 meter water resistance and it led to other Turtle iterations over the years. In fact, it was a go-to style for Seiko dive watches until it was displaced in popularity by the now-legendary SKX-007 models in the 90s. Seiko, of course, was one of the leaders of the quartz revolution that really came into high gear in the 1980s. The most important revolution in the development and marketing of dive watches was the invention of a now-common device called a dive computer. A dive computer, which can be thought of as an early dive-centric smart device, did everything that a mechanical dive watch could do and more, and it did so electronically. Decompression rates, ascents, time underwater, hydrogen absorption, even water temperature. Traditional mechanical dive watches, like most mechanical watches, were increasingly being pushed from necessary tools to something else. Some watchmakers, however, embraced new technologies in their dive watch development. One was Japan's other big watchmaker, Citizen, which had actually introduced Japan's first waterproof watch, the ParaWater, in 1959, and which was already making some impressive dive watches in the early 80s. In 1985, Citizen introduced the Aqualand, the first quartz diving watch with a digital depth gauge, with a water pressure sensor that could measure depths and display them on an LCD screen. One of the oldest dive watches got a major update in 1993, and it trumpeted a changing of the guard in the now-famous role of official James Bond watch, long claimed by the Rolex Submariner. When Pierce Brosnan became the latest actor to play Bond in 1995's GoldenEye, he ushered in a long-standing tradition of equipping 007 with an Omega Seamaster on his wrist. In a bit of serendipitous timing, Omega had given the Seamaster a major facelift a few years earlier, adding a blue diver's bezel with a scalloped edge, skeletonized hands, a five-link bracelet, and an engraved wave pattern on the dial. It was also water-resistant to 300 meters. This is the closest thing you're going to find to the watch that Pierce Brosnan wore in his James Bond movies, the Omega Seamaster Diver 300 meters with a blue dial and blue bezel. The watch Brosnan wore for GoldenEye, which was very similar to this one, had a quartz movement, though this would be the last quartz Seamaster worn by 007, as the mechanical luxury watch was mounting a comeback in the market. For the Seamaster family, however, the Diver 300 was a harbinger of many stylistic expansions to come. As the new millennium approached, it was time for one of the oldest dive watchmakers to rather aggressively muscle its way back into the spotlight. Panerai, for much of its existence, had made watches exclusively for military clients and was practically unknown to civilians. This began to change when the last of the founding Panerai family passed away, and leadership passed to Dino Zay, a retired Italian Navy Colonel who was the first non-family member to head up the company in its history. Zay had the foresight to see the end of quartz dominance over the market, and in 1993 he finally released Panerai watches, including the successor of the original Radiomir, the Luminor, to the public. What made the Luminor different was this edition of a patented bridge-shaped locking device that sealed the crown. This is the only watch in the universe that has this function, and it really, really helps define Panerai as a brand. The Luminor, it should be said, is not technically a dive watch because it does not have a rotating bezel. Panerai's dive watch is the submersible. But this watch actually not only helped define what watches would become, but also played a major role in the culture of the 90s. Sylvester Stallone wore a Luminor in the action movie Daylight, and the watch's prominent placement in that movie helped it catch fire with the public. Then Arnold Schwarzenegger wore one in his movie Eraser, and as if out of nowhere it seemed, a new hot watch brand, one that was actually more than 130 years old, had burst on the scene. The stage had been set not only for Panerai's rebirth as a luxury brand, but also for a whole new bigger is better era that would define the early 2000s, only for the pendulum to eventually swing back again. In 2003, 50 years had passed since the dive watch genre as we know it today was born, and the most important models celebrated in style. One of course was the Rolex Submariner, which had seen sustained success over the years, but had never released anything like that year's anniversary edition, which is now famously nicknamed Kermit. Reference 16610LV was noteworthy in several respects, most notably its bright green diver's bezel insert. This was matched with the traditional black dial. The green colorway was no doubt shocking to some at the time. It was the first use of the color for any element or detail on a Submariner watch, and it would turn out to be a harbinger of things to come. After the Kermit was discontinued in 2010, Rolex followed it up with an even greener Submariner. This was the bezel and the dial, which was nicknamed the Hulk. That one gave way to another green bezel black dial combo, which has been nicknamed Starbucks. All of these are among the most coveted versions of one of the most consistently coveted watch models of all time. Unlike the Submariner, which had never gone out of production, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms had been hibernating since the early 80s. For the 50th anniversary in 2003, Blancpain launched a limited edition that combined the vintage look dial of the 1953 original with 300 meter water resistance and added a sapphire insert for the dive scale bezel. Though 150 pieces of the anniversary edition quickly sold out, making it clear that the for more Fifty Fathoms was out there. Blancpain, now owned by the Swatch Group, put its muscle behind a full-scale revival in 2008, led by a huge 45 millimeter automatic with a new in-house movement. It was a watershed moment for Blancpain and the Fifty Fathoms, which after years of being the forgotten stepchild was now the flagship of the brand, with complications ranging from chronographs to tourbillons and a slew of new sizes and materials. I wore for this shoot today the modern version of one of the most important dive watches in history, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms. This watch has gone through many, many different evolutions since this version came out. This is still enormous at 45 millimeters and you really feel like that you're wearing some history when you have this watch on your wrist, whether or not you're using it to dive or just sitting at a desk. Omega wasn't done with expanding the Seamaster family. In 2005, the brand introduced the Seamaster Planet Ocean. The Planet Ocean was positioned from the start as a modern dive watch that embraced both sporty utility and luxury. The Planet Ocean was distinguished from the Diver 300 in several respects. The coin-edged bezel with an aluminum, later ceramic insert, Arabic numerals at 12, 6, and 9, and a set of arrowhead hour and minute hands. From a robustness standpoint, it was also an upgrade, featuring not only a helium release valve, but also doubling up the Seamaster Diver's water resistance rating to a substantial 600 meters. In a bit of history repeating itself, the new Seamaster found its way to the wrist of the next James Bond, Daniel Craig, as the Seamaster Diver had with Brosnan. The Planet Ocean got a sleek, streamlined revamp in 2025, which is this watch here. What's significant about this one is that it no longer has a helium release valve, which really speaks to how the Planet Ocean has evolved from being Omega's toughest tool watch, basically, to being more of a style item. It certainly still can be worn for deep-sea diving. It's still water resistant to 600 meters, which is no joke. It's just no longer role-playing as something that a saturation diver is going to wear inside of a diving bell. But to wear it to the beach, to wear it to the Oc Club, certainly a great choice. High-end dive watches were definitely back on the scene, leaving the field fairly open for a brand on the more affordable end to stake its claim as the grail watch for that segment of the market. And there was no better candidate for that honor than Tudor, which returned to the U.S. market in 2013. Tudor, still owned by Rolex, but now firmly on a mission to establish its own identity, introduced a watch called the Black Bay. The Black Bay, originally sized at 41 millimeters and now in a variety of sizes, hit the sweet spot for many enthusiasts, not just for its price, but also for its design. It's an elegantly melded hodgepodge of elements from several generations of the Oyster Prince Submariner. These include the so-called snowflake hour hand from the famous 1969 model, the engraved Tudor rose emblem on the crown, and the crown itself being a derivative of the one on the 1958 Big Crown model. Black Bays increased in desirability as they evolved to include Tudor's own in-house movements and also started adding popular complications, like a chronograph and a GMT. If the Tudor Black Bay is analogous to the Rolex Submariner, the other dive watch Tudor put out in the 2000s, the Pelagos, is its answer to the Sea-Dweller, with a helium release valve, a 500 meter water resistance, and all titanium cases across the line. The Pelagos and the Black Bay are strikingly similar in design and from the same origin, but the Pelagos is more of a niche model as it really leans into that throwback tool watch territory. The Pelagos even references Tudor's past as a supplier of dive watches to navies, with special editions for left-handed wearers and with cases designed only for pass-through NATO straps. It's significant that this watch is always going to be in titanium because it really kind of sets it apart, titanium being lightweight but really strong and robust, which is what a dive watch needs to be. It's comfortable on the wrist and yet, you know, extremely water-resistant, twice as water-resistant as the Black Bay. Panerai introduced, or really reintroduced, its submersible model in 2019. This is a watch that traced its design inspiration back to the Legiziano, which was a prototype made for the Egyptian navy in the 1950s. Up until that point, it was a subfamily of the Luminor, equipped with the same patented crown-locking device, but also with the one element the Luminor was lacking, a rotating dive scale bezel, which qualified it as a true dive watch. The original submersibles were huge, 47 millimeters in diameter, which was still not as titanic as the 60 millimeters of the Legiziano that inspired it, but Panerai has since added 44 millimeter models as well. The submersible in its modern incarnation is really a proving ground for a lot of high-tech materials that Panerai has come up with, like Carbotech and BMG tech, which stands for bulk metallic glass, and it's also a stage for high complications, like this skeletonized GMT model that shows off Panerai's high horology chops. The 21st century also brought a new chapter to the eternal rivalry between Rolex and Omega for the title of the world's most waterproof watch, bringing a new level of underwater toughness to the market via two new timepieces, the Rolex Deepsea and the Omega Seamaster Ultra Deep. It started in 2012, when Rolex finally decided to break the record it set back in 1960, partnering with the movie director James Cameron. Rolex had already resurrected the Deepsea name for a watch it launched in 2008, which achieved water resistance just shy of 4,000 meters with its patented ring lock case construction and super thick sapphire crystal. The prototype watches it supplied for Cameron's expedition, which was the first solo descent into the bottom of the Marianas Trench by a one-man submersible, were affixed to the hull and the robotic arm that probed the bottom, and all of them survived the new record plunge of over 10,900 meters. Omega responded in 2019 with its own initiative and its own record-breaking watch from its Planet Ocean collection. It partnered with explorer Victor Vescovo on expeditions to the deepest points in the world's oceans. Vescovo's submarine had mounted on its robotic arms two prototypes of a watch called the Planet Ocean Ultra Deep Professional, when it probed a slightly deeper point at the bottom of the Mariana Trench at 35,853 feet, claiming a new record for deepest depth achieved by a wristwatch. Omega now offers a commercial version of the Ultra Deep in its lineup, substantially smaller than the massive 55 millimeters of the prototype and water-resistant to 6,000 meters rather than the original's astounding 10,000 meters. Today the watch industry offers a full gamut of dive watches that bring both style and toughness to the table. For a thousand dollars and under, there are a wide range of options. Seiko continues this tradition of affordable divers like the Prospex Automatic Diver SRPE93, the modern version of the classic 70s Turtle, and the Samurai models with their sword-shaped minute hand. Citizen of Japan also has dozens at this approachable price range, both automatic and echo drive, including the Fugu models named after a Japanese puffer fish. From Switzerland, there's the Certina DS Action Diver with the Powermatic 80 movement and the Tissot Sea Star with that same weekend-proof automatic caliber. Bulova, a classic American brand now made in Switzerland, brings the vintage 70s vibe with its Devil Diver models. And for a down-and-dirty, high-tech beater, you can't beat the Frogman from G-Shock. Moving up to $5,000 as our price ceiling, there are still a lot of options, some of which we've already covered here, including the still fan-favorite Doxa Sub 300 range, the core Oris Aquus Date models, and the vintage-inspired compressor-style Longines Legend Diver. Longines also offers its more modern divers in this range, the recently revamped Hydro Conquest. Other Swiss brands available in this range include Hag Heuer with its Aqua Racer. From Germany, the legendary tool watchmaker Zinn makes a number of models, from the EZM to the U50, all with that brand's proprietary waterproofing technology and steel hardening process. If you want to go full military, there's Marathon, designed in Canada and made in Switzerland, which actually supplies dive watches and other types of watches to the U.S. Army. If you're looking for a micro brand, there are numerous options in this reasonable range, one of which is the Formex Reef, which has the brand's special proprietary shock absorption system for the movement, as well as a chronometer certification. Of course, for some enthusiasts, only the blue-chip brands will do. The Rolex Submariner and Sea Dweller, the Omega Seamaster Diver and Planet Ocean, maybe even the Ploprof, the Panerai Submersible series, the Breitling Superocean and Superocean Heritage, numerous versions of the Black Bay and the Pelagos. And Grand Seiko offers dive watches on the high end, like the new UFA Ushio, named for its beautiful wave pattern dial. Of course, even at the highest end of high horology, the dive watch is an irresistible go-to model. Blancpain has built out the 50 Fathoms to become a core flagship collection. Audemars Piguet goes big with its Royal Oak Offshore Diver, the toughest, sportiest offshoot of its legendary Royal Oak. Jaeger LeCoultre has built its sports luxury Polaris collection on the pioneering divers alarm watch that it made in the late 50s, the Memovox, all with in-house movements. And the German haute horology brand Glashütte Original reached into its Cold War era archives to resurrect the CQ series, an ultra high-end revival of a dive watch sold in East Germany before reunification. As we finally surface from our deep dive into this fascinating and endlessly evolving category of timepieces, it's clear that dive watches, even the vast majority of luxuriously designed models that never see moisture more challenging than a rainstorm, are as relevant to the public and to culture as they ever were. And it says a lot about the people who make these watches that despite their undeniable elevation from tools to style objects, dive watches are still built to challenge the depths. And who knows what record they'll break next? The sky, or perhaps the ocean floor, is really the limit. I hope you've learned something, and thank you for watching.