Reply With QuoteI'd agree that one is bad as it is practically illegible in broad daylight never mind in the murky depths, but the other two seem pretty good, or at least fit for purpose.
http://www.apetogentleman.com/travel...-dive-watches/
seriously? those are 3 of the best dive watches? 2 of those choices are so wrong i dont even know where to start!
Have you ever gone deeper than the bottom of the gene pool you sprung from? Eejit.
I'd agree that one is bad as it is practically illegible in broad daylight never mind in the murky depths, but the other two seem pretty good, or at least fit for purpose.
Agreed on the Alpina. I can't see serious disadvantages in the other ones though, other than the cost.
Don't hold back Josh - tell us what you really think!
I agree though, very strange choices and whilst everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I'm not sure if any of those three would be the first choice of a serious diver, (I'm no diver at all - maybe the IWC would sneak in? I prefer the Deep 1 personally)... seemingly very random choices and no real content explaining much reasoning behind them.
If the question was asked on here, I'm sure we'd get over 50 different watches suggested for the 'top three diving watches - with the Sub / Seadweller pretty near the top. Don't divers all use Computers now, with the watch for emergency back up?
Rob
Last edited by AIDM; 16th August 2013 at 00:11.
I wonder which three brands sponsored that article...
Jim
I don't know much about dive watches, so am puzzled by the irate post -.... and am genuinely interested in which two are "so wrong" and why, because two of them seem fine to me. Please educate me.Originally Posted by Josh B
The Bell & Ross appears to have the shape and form of a pilots watch rather than a divers or some strange combination of both (Considering the "Decompression valve") Not sure what significance the sapphire glass is. The Alpina just doesn't seem to have any function at all as a divers watch.
I don't personally go diving but a friend of mine does and generally wears a quartz watch with a Citizen movement inside that cost about £80. As he pointed out, why on earth would you wear an expensive watch to go diving when there is a good chance you could loose it?
Divers tend to choose a work-horse, Seiko's and Casio's, are popular, big and easy to read, good lume and need not be expensive, accuracy such as Rolex isn't required as dives tend to be at most an hour, dive computers do most of the hard work, a watch is now back-up, I haven't seen anyone diving wearing a Submariner for over twenty years, mechanical watches with built in depth gauges are for desk divers as are 95% of all the so called dive watches with extra buttons and dials, the bezel should be easy to use whilst wearing gloves and should only be able to rotate anti-clockwise.
I'm sure at some time a poll has been done on here as 'What dive watch do you actually dive in.
Personally I use an Orange Monster, but that would be classed as too cheap and unglamorous to be included in a diving watch review.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
Probably to do with being further down the Social watch diving food scale.
You get people that dive with
http://www.simplyscuba.com/departmen...Computers.aspx
People who tell you
" why on earth would you wear an expensive watch to go diving when there is a good chance you could lose it"?
Then people who will only consider certain brands to dive or swim in, AP, Blancpain.
Then a whole bunch in the middle who want to dive with there Rolex sub or SD.
It's about what you want to do which is driven by cost, there's a massive gap in the small change diving watch group say £1.5k £2.5K because people just don't want to risk getting there dive watch wet.
I don't dive in my watches but I snorkel and everything from AP to Accurist with 100m on the dial as been for a dip at onetime or another.
Last edited by Fords; 16th August 2013 at 06:50.
Let's face it: no serious diver ever wears one of the so called diving watches, they wear dive computers. There are WIS who dive and they wear Seadwellers or something similar. Nobody on this planet has ever dived with a Fifty Fathoms unless he got paid for it. Which brings us to this article: this is a blog which writes friendly articles against remuneration. He probably got the watches to keep and if you are really quick you can buy them on Ebay (or they might pop up on Sales Corner).
Breathe.
So many experts on diving on here it's good
Its hilarious!
Cheers..
Jase
Rolex divers are mechanical, the Casios and Seikos almost exclusively post modern quartz so those are vastly more accurate. Rolexi are only COSC for mechanicals which is seventies ´good enough´, not even seventies state of the art accuracy. Just about all modern main stream mechanical movements can éasily be adjusted to wéll within COSC specs. Rolex accuracy is marketing.
Wrong. You really think that IWC give away 10 grand watches free to anyone who will write a friendly comment on a blog?
If you offer to review a watch for a magazine or a blog you get to borrow it for a week or so; after that you either send it back or pay for it.
Well, suppose it depends on the reach of the blog. There are some fashion blogs who have really large following and get paid very well. But I suppose you are right in this case, they will get other benefits or straight cash though.
It's always amazing how many people who dive turn up if you mention a divers watch.
I'm happy to admit that I've never even been swimming in my Submariner. I haven't swum for probably ten years anyway!
The FF *was* sold to non-military divers.
TBH .. I'm even careful when I'm out in a heavy dew these days ....
" The above and more Dive Watches are available from The Watch Gallery."
There is your answer - its a piece of promotional advertising puff.
Why is it amazing that divers would be interested in diving watches??, they are probably interested in diving gear as well.
Nothing wrong in taking a watch as backup.
I used to wear my Orsa Pro Diver Quartz or PRS-18 when I dived as backup to my Suunto Vyper - along with an depth gauge on my console and a set of deco-tables in my pocket.
If my computer crapped out I'd be able to know time, depth and a when/where to stop for deco.
It was never about being a WIS diver - it was about being prepared!
Does anyone really dive with these things nowadays anyway? Have never seen anyone put anything on but a digital diving computer.
I have been diving since 93 professionally and have NEVER used a computer, what some gentlemen on here seem to think that the worlds diving populace is made up of scuba divers on little holiday dives looking at coral, wearing three computers and two watches for back up.
[QUOTE=seadog1408;2828225...what some gentlemen on here seem to think that the worlds diving populace is made up of scuba divers on little holiday dives looking at coral, wearing three computers and two watches for back up.[/QUOTE]
Well, it is not the full population, but surely the "holiday divers" represent a rather large proportion vs. the hard core professional divers?
Yes of course, just pointing out there are different areas of the industry that's all.
Indeed.
You'd be amazed at what some people will do for a free hat.
As a distinctly more informed counterpoint to the article, what would your professional pick be for the three 'best' dive watches Mike?
Rob
I now have an image in my head of Gingham check or pin stripe wet suits with cuff-links holes ..... :)
I'm quite surprised that people believe divers don't wear watches.
Whilst nearly all the divers I know use computers these days, at least half also wear a watch when they dive.
As someone who sounded as if he knew what he was talking about said earlier, it's about backup.
I thought the B&R looked very legible, but none of them struck me as '3 of the best dive watches' unless you mean the 3 dive-style watches the reviewer likes to wear below his shirt cuff and happened to have for review that week...
The IWC would do the job, but the dial and bezel are a bit confusing imo, although I'm sure there's an explanation for all the different coloured sections.
The murky one is an absolute joke, I agree.
There's no such thing as 'the best' dive watch, but it should be clear and easy to read with a bezel that's easy to operate in gloves and reasonably tough as you tend to bang into things on boats.
I've got a Citizen Eco Drive 300M diver specifically for diving, but I wore my Longines Hydroconquest on holiday for 6 dives and it was fine for the job.
Personally, I don't think Digital Quartz watches work as dive watches, but then I don't really like them anyway (and never did - I did once own a very cheap Casio to wear when windsurfing, as it was the cheapest waterproof watch I could find at the time, but that's the only one), so I'm sure some experienced divers will disagree.
M
Last edited by snowman; 16th August 2013 at 13:08.
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
Wow this has stirred up a fair degree of controversy! Personally I never for one moment said I was an "Expert" On diving or that I even went diving for that matter all I said was a friend of mine who did never wore more than a £80 quartz divers watch. Personally I couldn't care less what someone wears to go diving they can wear a dead cat strapped to their wrists for all I care (Doubt it would help with the time though but then not sure a dark colour PVD watch would either)
If someone (Meaning the person who wrote this article) Is going to suggest that the only 2 specifications for a watch to be a divers watch is good water resistance and luminous hands then that will include possibly the majority of watches out there. My Seiko SARB 033 has a water resistance of 100m and apparently (According to the instructions) Good for diving.
Can't any legible watch with say 200m WR be used as a dive watch - as back up to a dive computer? I've never dived but if I did I'd be tempted to wear my sub before I did the sensible thing and stuck on a g shock - probably a gw6900 which would surely be fine? I'm sure the sub (which gains about 15 seconds a month so just as accurate as a quartz) would be fine but why risk a £5k watch when a £50 is fine?
Hilarious! I've been scubadiving for many years, and never seen anyone wearing a "diving" watch... But only "dive computers" (so bigger than a watch, with all useful data like deep, time, and other technical data). The most important data is "the decompression stages".
Then do you know a lot of people wearing a (luxury) dive watch when swimming in the sea? Salt water damages everything...
It's purely marketing. Newspaper/magazines are happy to publish "special diving" pages... It's been a recent trend. All brands wanted to be part of the "diving" watches (even JLC...).
It's like 4x4. Who really use a Cayenne/X5 off-road?
On top of this, the title of the article is clearly mis-leading. Talking about "diving watches" without mentioning Panerai, Blancpain and Comex is clearly a non-sense!
Unfortunately not... The only back up for a dive computer would be a watch who show depth and can be used as a chronograph for the decompression stages. If you don't respect the decompression stages at the end of your dive, you are dead... You need to stay at a certain depth for an amount of time (dependant on the lenght of your dive and how depth you've been).
Richard Mille has been working for years on (what he wanted to be) the most sophisticated dive watch, showing the decompression stages. Unfortunately he did not want to take the risk that something got wrong and play with life! After 2 years he dropped his project.
To clarify, I meant that if it ever comes up in a conversation there's always somebody who'll say "oh yeah, I bought that for diving" despite the fact that you can be fairly certain they don't dive.
I meant that I haven't swum in it because I bought it since I last swam!TBH .. I'm even careful when I'm out in a heavy dew these days ....
I would have no qualms about swimming in it.
Pretty sure that these ppl can't even swim!
Definition From Wikipedia, also there is an Iso standard
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_watch
I think that the only thing that is clear from this thread is that the word "diving" has two distinct interperetations :
1) going underwater in murky conditions / to a depth where things get dark whilst wearing a proper wet suit, tank and gloves.
2) going for a underwater splash in warm, shallow waters or a swimming pool with just a snorkel or basic air tank set-up.
I have done neither, other than snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef on holiday ( wore my TAG diver - it didn't leak - phew :)), but I used to go sea fishing a lot and my watches picked up quite a few dings and scratches just being topside in a boat at sea, so I guess watches used in proper diving off boats can expect a tough time of it.
Anything an individual wants to wear rob, we have a few wis at work who wear SD, PO, SMP etc, however there are loads who wear Casio, g-shock seiko etc.
I wear my SD purely by choice but a 12 quid Casio would still do the same job.
Cheers
Mike
I'm not trying to blow smoke up your ass - but the shots of your SD at depth are great. It's nice to see a watch, (any watch) being used truly in the manner it was intended - rather than under the shirt cuff of someone sat at a desk. (As mine was worn when I had it, I hasten to add!)
Cheers Mike,
Rob
Last edited by AIDM; 16th August 2013 at 13:50.
I have a BR02, and whilst I like it, there is no way in hell it is one of the best 3 divers watches!! I'd put my Samurai above it for a start, and then I'd probably put the 8500 PO XL above that!
Thanks rob, it's quite hard to get the shots as you have to be nice to the rov pilot who watches you working for the client, you have to persuade him flying in and taking a shot of your watch is going to help the job along!!!!
LOL I can imagine the conversation, I have a similar one occasionally with the wife...
'Lets not have the same debate about just how sad I am. Just take the damn picture will you, please'.
;)
Rob
Talking of legibility, how easy is it to read the digital display of, say, a 'ten quid Casio' or even a G-shock at depth? Do you need to use the backlight, in which case telling the time becomes a two-handed operation - hardly progress.
^^^^
we have light and video on our helmets Simon so it's just a case of pulling back the sleeve of your hot water suit and looking at it as per any watch..
Oh righto, but what about for recreational or even pro' scuba divers, without a light how easy is it to read an LCD display?
Depending on vis ability but you would usually use the back light to read them, I remember doing scuba work in Saudi oilfields working around 200' on air I used a digi watch for timing the dives, always had to light it up.
You don't need a watch that has a chrono, depth gauge and loads of other stuff - as I said earlier a back-up depth gauge on console, watch with bezel set at start of dive and a set of deco-tables.
Have used the above on several occasions in the past whilst training.
No no no. You must have a depth gauge. Every dive watch has one...
Absolutely... A watch is just to time your bottom time (so to speak! It's amazing how many diving terms raise not an eyebrow in context and yet seem like Carry On innuendo out of it!), all you really need is something you can read that shows minutes!!!!! The bezel (which should only move one way, anticlockwise) is to set the start time in a nice clear way, rather than trying to remember whether it was 5 past or 10 past when you jumped in.
Even the type of diving Sebastien's talking about (which an even tinier percentage of divers than those that aren't holiday divers do) can be measured in the same way, as long as you can remember all the different deco stages, which you probably have written down anyway...
M.
Last edited by snowman; 16th August 2013 at 14:44.
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
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