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Showing 1 of 22 conversations about:
beenthere
91
Oct 23, 2016
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This is a good buy for a military 'field' style watch. The ETA 2824 has a very good reputation for being a robust and accurate movement. ETA does make a chronometer grade 2824 movement so that should tell you something. I'm thinking of buying one of these just because it's a pre-Invicta watch. As for water resistant ratings, the numbers don't mean very much. 50m means you can wear it in the shower, 100m means you can wear it swimming. 200m is where real dive ratings start. For example, if you see a Seiko diver with a glass back, it's not a real dive watch. It's a diver style watch. 50m vs 100m is a moot point in this type of watch. I would take this watch over a Hamilton field watch.
beenthere
91
Oct 26, 2016
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SkipPeOmega Planet Ocean (MSRP $6200) is a display back and has a dive rating of 600m/2000ft. So yeah, there are dive watches with display backs. I personally wouldn't trust it if I actually dived that deep (and I don't dive at all). Dive pros who might actually go that deep wouldn't wear that watch anyway. If they would take an Omega that deep they would use something like a Ploprof, 1200m/4000ft rating and look how much of a wrist beast that watch is. No silly display back on that watch. Nobody would buy a Rolex Submariner or Sea Dweller if they had display backs. Even the Seamaster 300 doesn't have a display back. In the typical price point of the watches sold on Massdrop (~$150 to ~$550), I'd take a Seiko Diver (~$250 to ~$350) with a 200m rating. The take-away is yeah, a watch with a display back can be pressure tested in a lab to a very high pressure, and one can safely dive with them, but real divers don't use them.
SickMeds
200
Oct 26, 2016
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beenthereGuys, no one would ever take any watch diving below 30m, 40m is recreational diving and it's already considered a deep dive, Ive done 83m on air, any diver would know what that mean, and there is no way I would take a regular watch to help me calculate time or even depth, any deep diver going to decompression and doing deep dives, especially below 60m mark, even (especially) if using try mix would have two dive computers in case one of them fails, going that deep require precise decompression, especially if you limited on air/tri-mix !
By saying that would still buy blue dial Sea Dweller ;) with 3000m rating
Edit: If MD had good price on it
By saying that would still buy blue dial Sea Dweller ;) with 3000m rating
Edit: If MD had good price on it
beenthere
91
Oct 26, 2016
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beenthereSnorkeling is about as deep as I go, and for that I would wear a watch with a 200m rating and no display back. There is a lot of good information on wiki about the water resistance rating of diving watches. To summarize:
'water resistant' category
50m: swimming (light splashing in a pool really), fishing, shower. NO DIVING
100m: surfing, swimming (extended lap swimming), snorkeling, sailing and water sports. NO DIVING
200m: serious surface water sports, skiing, wake boarding. SKIN diving only, NO scuba diving.
'DIVER' catagory.
100m: Minimum ISO standard 6425 for scuba diving at depths NOT suitable for saturation diving. (there are no modern diver watches with a 100m rating)
200m or 300m: Suitable for scuba diving at depths NOT suitable for saturation diving.
>300m: Suitable for saturation diving (helium enriched environment).
The take away is the term 'water resistant.' It doesn't mean what you think it means.
beenthere
91
Oct 27, 2016
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beenthereHeh, I stand corrected. The Omega Ploprof Dive watch does indeed have a display back. What is Omega thinking?
greensngravy
0
Sep 13, 2019
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beenthereWe can at least agree that high end watch companies have figured out how to have a waterproof display FRONT. It's not a huge reach to believe that they have figured out how to design a waterproof display BACK... is there some super-secret technology that differentiates the two? Educate me.
beenthere
91
Sep 13, 2019
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greensngravyFront and rear crystals use the same technology, glue. My point is that a rear crystal on a REAL dive watch adds a point of failure, a seam sealed by glue. A case-back is threaded and has a gasket. Crowns and pushers are threaded and use gaskets. The science for sealing a dive watch crystal is simple, water pressure pushes the crystal against the case. This also flexes the crystal which makes it an eventual point of failure. Omega doesn't bother with a display back with its 300m Seamaster but does use one on its 600m Planet Ocean and 1200m Seamaster Proprof? A display back on a serious dive watch is done for vanity, not practicality. But then probably 95% (or more) of the high end Swiss dive watches never go diving so that's why they do it. I own an Omega Speedmaster Chronometer. It has a 100m 'water resistance' rating. I don't even wear that watch while I shower.
greensngravy
0
Sep 13, 2019
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beenthereI have to say, that argument against a display back is not convincing. I would ask the designers (not the owners) of the Planet Ocean if they would dive with theirs. I think they would say "yes". It is only the fear of messing up their expensive pro dive watches because of proximity to water (an unfounded fear) that most just take out their trusty Seiko 007's during a dive. They wear the Planet Ocean at the post-dive lobster dinner.
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