Diving Deeper: Dive Watches For the Record Books

When it comes to dive watches, depth rating is always a talking point. Though recreational divers never breach the 100m mark, every dive watch manufacturer under the sun has a tendency to build things that vastly exceed the range of any normal human (or even professional divers, for that matter. It’s a weird and interesting world of over-engineering for the sake of it, but it adds a cool factor to the category that goes unrivaled when talking about just any other segment in our industry. Pilot’s watches aren’t rated for altitude, and shy of a few examples, very few watches boast resistance to speed and acceleration. As with any industry, when one brand sets a benchmark, another aims to topple it, and the dive watch category is no different. Rather than solely looking at the specific record breakers throughout history, we’re going to look at a cluster of watches in the 1000m plus range that you may or may not be familiar with.

Omega Seamaster Ploprof 1200m

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The Ploprof–short for plongeur professionel, or professional diver–is and has long been the most hardcore dive watch in the Omega catalog for decades. First launched in 1970 and rated at 600m, the chunky watch features a unique locking mechanism for its bezel that is unlocked via the large button on the top right corner of its case. This design ensures that there’s no risk of accidentally moving the timing bezel during a dive. Its incongruous case design is mostly designed for function, on one side housing the bezel linkage, and on the other providing a massive guard for its crown.

Reborn in 2009 after a bit of a hiatus, the modern Ploprof upped its water resistance to 1200m, added a sapphire bezel insert, and of course, an Omega Co-Axial self-winding caliber. Presently Omega offers the Ploprof in either titanium or steel, and having worn the steel version I could easily see the appeal of swapping to a lighter case material. These things look bulky on paper, as their case dimensions are listed as 55mm x 48mm, don’t let the spec sheet fool you. Because the 48mm measurement is lug to lug, these wear surprisingly well on small to medium sized wrists. It’s by no means an ultra-thin dress watch, but trust me when I say it’s worth giving it a try.

Hublot King Power Oceanographic 4000

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Leveling up a hefty amount, when Hublot first took a stab at building a dive watch they took the same approach to it as they do with everything else–”how far over the top can we go?” was clearly the mantra at play. That said, it’s quite the handsome watch if you’re a fan of a more rugged and industrial-influenced aesthetic. As their testing fittingly proved, the Oceanographic puts its money where its mouth is. Fitted to an outer arm of a submersible, it’s said that this piece survived a jaunt down to the 5000m mark. Not that any of us will ever test this ourselves…  The other noteworthy details are its case materials and scarcity. Hublot opted to craft two versions of the piece–one in titanium and one in carbon fiber. All told, 1000 of the titanium variants, and 500 of the carbon fiber variants were brought to market when launched back in 2011. They’re pretty tricky to track down, but you do see them come up for sale from time to time.

Sinn UX GSG 9

In clear diametric opposition to the brash and over-the-top aesthetics of Hublot, our next contender that crests the 5000m depth rating mark comes to us from the lovely Germans over at Sinn. There’s so much to love about the engineering of the UX GSG 9 right out of the gate. Even at this depth rating it’s not even remotely oversized, coming in at 44mm in diameter and 13.3mm thick. For context, I’ve seen 300m dive watches with those stats. How Sinn beats the pressures is by building the watch partly oil-filled. While its movement is free of oil, the area between the dial and the crystal is oil filled, which serves two unique purposes for diving. First, it rids the watch of reflection and readability issues underwater, and second it combats the severe pressures that are applied to the case crystal when submerged at significant depth. Where other conventionally designed watches require incredibly thick crystals to combat pressure, the oil is doing all the work here. Sinn opted to build this version with a high-precision ETA quartz caliber, as it proved more effective in operating hands in this oil bath, and quite frankly we don’t hold it against them one bit.

Rolex Sea-Dweller Deepsea

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After James Cameron’s epic dive to the bottom of Mariana Trench, Rolex became the creator of the deepest diving watch on the planet. Granted the piece that was created to live on the arm of the sub was nowhere near a production model, but that’s still a groundbreaking claim to fame if we’ve ever heard one. In production guise, the deepest diving Rollie is the Sea-Dweller Deepsea–a 3900m diver measuring 44mm across, crafted of Oystersteel, and fitted with the brand’s latest-and-greatest caliber 3235. This caliber change came last year alongside a couple of other minor tweaks, including a widening of its bracelet to give the watch a more balanced feel than its predecessor. If you’re in the market for the ultimate “tool” Rolex and you’ve got the wrist size to support it, this is pretty much your best bet.