Dive Watches Still Rule...

“Does anyone still wear a dive watch?”  This question regularly appears on scuba diving social media sites, such as scubaboard.com and divebuddy.com.  The responses are usually “no, I use a diving computer” followed by the reasons scuba diving watches are obsolete.  The demise of the scuba diving watch, dive watch, or diver’s watch is premature. 

Dan Henry 1970 Automatic Diver Compressor Orange. 
One of the new brands of inexpensive quality watches.
It is rated to 200 meters water resistance.

About 10 years ago, the watch industry was concerned by a trend that found fewer people, especially millennials, buying and wearing analog watches.  Why would they? After all, cellphones had the time and later smart phones that had all sorts of time keeping applications that rendered analog watches quaint, redundant, or obsolete.  The ability to “tell time” one of the first life skills we learned as children would soon be archaic knowledge since time was presented digitally. Then, about two years ago, articles started appearing that indicated millennials did want analog watches under certain circumstances.

If it looks like as dive watch and acts like a dive watch...

First of all, what is a diver’s watch?  Prior to the adoption of the International Standards Organization ISO 6425 standard in 1996, a dive watch was anything that looked like a dive watch, that is, it was big had a rotating bezel and rubber strap, and was worn by someone who participated in scuba diving.  The conventional wisdom was that any dive watch had to be marked “waterproof” or be marked “water resistant” have a depth rating in 200 meters or more.  But if a watch looked like a dive watch and survived a scuba dive, it was a “dive watch” In order to clear up this confusion, the ISO 6425 standard for diving watches specified that, among other things, a diver’s watch:

• The presence of a unidirectional bezel (a bezel that can be turned only one way) with at least at every 5 minutes elapsed minute markings and a pre-select marker to mark a specific minute marking.
• The presence of clearly distinguishable minute markings on the watch face.
• Adequate readability/visibility at 25 cm (9.8 in) in total darkness.
• The presence of an indication that the watch is running in total darkness. This is usually indicated by a running second hand with a luminous tip or tail.
•  Magnetic resistance, Shock resistance. Chemical resistance.
• Strap/band solidity.

Watches meeting this spedification will indicate DIVERS on the face of the watch or case with a depth rating of 100m, 200m, etc.  Watches which meet the Water resistant 200 meter depth certification are considered suitable for skin diving but not scuba diving.

Even with the specification, because testing diving watches for ISO 6425 compliance is voluntary and involves costs, so not every manufacturer presents their watches for certification according to this standard.  Bottom line, many perfectly good watches may be used for scuba diving (and more than a few counterfeits which probably should not be dropped in the water, much less submerged). 

Next:  Dive watches are a means of self expression--Me and my Seiko