A History and Guide to Dive Watches

Jacob Van Buren

Feb 26, 2025

There is perhaps no watch that conjures more mythology and romance than the dive watch. Introduced as a tool for working and sport divers, it has since transformed into a multi-faceted signaller, prized by enthusiasts for its easy-wearing charms and rugged good looks. From Jacques Cousteau to James Bond, the dive watch has become a staple in enthusiasts’ collections and the catalogs of nearly every brand, with companies releasing new ones all the time. With that, welcome to the Windup Watch Shop’s Dive Watch Guide — let’s dive in.

The 1950s saw the early practical devices for breathing underwater of the previous decade commercialized to launch an entire sport and revolutionize naval warfare. These untethered devices, known — after much revision — as self-contained underwater breathing apparatuses, or SCUBA, allowed divers to be free of the constraints of prior diving equipment, causing co-inventor of the Aqua-Lung, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, to call the experience that of being a “manfish.”

These early divers, more popularly known as frogmen and skin divers, faced two distinct problems with this emerging technology — bottom time. Bottom time — that is, time spent under the surface — is important for one critical reason: nitrogen. Breathing compressed gas mixtures underwater causes nitrogen to build up in a diver’s blood supply. Should this not be off-gassed appropriately, it can build up and cause what is known as decompression sickness, or “the bends.” This vivid nickname comes from the way it impacts the joints, causing the afflicted to experience immense pain and contortions. Reliable dive tables showing the max time at depth without the need for decompression were in existence following pioneering work before and during the Second World War; with these, divers were able to estimate their total bottom time — how long they could remain underwater given their maximum intended depth — but they needed a way to track it.

In situations where dive time is more limited by air supply rather than max bottom time, the issue is similar. With SCUBA, compressed breathing gas is held in tanks typically carried upon the diver’s back. (For the sake of this discussion, sidemount and stage bottles are not being covered.) Divers of the period knew to calculate their approximate air usage based on experience. With tanks available in only a few volumes (i.e. double 38 cu ft tanks, single or double 72 cu ft tanks, and triple 44 cu ft tanks), a diver could readily know approximately how much air they would have before it was time to end their dive and surface. Safety stops, a modern practice where divers wait an additional period of time at a more shallow depth before surfacing, were not standard practice.

WATCHES FROM ZODIAC

In a world before reliable submersible pressure gauges could relay this information back to the diver, an innovation still some years away, the dive watch (and a depth gauge) provided a functional remedy to both of these issues. By allowing a diver to reliably track how much time had elapsed since the start of a dive, countless divers were able to observe safe practices over dive after dive.

But what makes a dive watch a dive watch? The trio of dive watches released in the early 1950s by Rolex, Blancpain, and Zodiac codified the feature set we now identify with the genre: high water resistance, luminous dials, and a rotating bezel for tracking elapsed time. This last point is perhaps the most important. Other watches of the period, like the Enicar Sea Pearl, were popular with recreational and military divers alike, yet lacked this now-essential feature. By rotating the bezel’s pip to a desired start time elapsed time is easily tracked from that point.

Luckily, the International Organization for Standards (ISO) provides a perfect starting point for determining what makes a dive watch. Per ISO standard 6425, a dive watch must: a) be water-resistant to at least 100m, b) possess a method of tracking dive time, and c) must show that time in resolution of no larger than minutes over the span of an hour, in addition to a litany of other tests to achieve the ISO 6425 certification.

The distinction between what many enthusiasts consider a dive watch and a dive-style watch, by contrast, muddies the waters somewhat. Though not strictly necessary for certification, a screw-down crown, unidirectional bezel, and at least 200m of water resistance are often stated as requirements to take a watch into water. For example, while the popular Seiko 5KX Series of dive-style watches does not feature a screw-down crown or 200m of water resistance, they are still more than capable of enjoying recreational dives. While not requirements, these are nice-to-have features that are big selling points for enthusiasts looking for a new dive watch.

Photos of Jacob diving with his Nivada Grenchen Chronomaster, taken by Brock Stevens  

Dive watches continued to progress throughout the 20th century, adding a litany of complications from chronographs — some even featuring pushers that functioned underwater — to integrated depth gauges to make dive tacking even easier. But perhaps the most mythologized is the helium-escape valve. Co-developed by Rolex and Doxa in the late 1960s during the U.S. Navy’s SEALAB saturation diving project, the valve served to prevent the build-up of helium gas inside the watch that would eventually cause the crystal to pop off.

For many enthusiasts, the Citizen Aqualand represents the ultimate form of the dive watch’s evolution as a tool for divers, the high water mark where functionality reached its zenith before it was supplanted by the dive computer. Combining analog time keeping, a digital chronograph, and — most importantly — a built-in depth gauge, it saw widespread use amongst civilian and military divers following its introduction in the 1980s.

Ultimately, however, it is this the advent of the dive computer that marked the dive watch’s final transition from an essential piece of underwater kit to an accessory even many divers leave topside. Though it is now more a luxury than anything else, dive watches have seen use from countless divers across the globe (and its fair share of military and fictional secret agents). The dive watch is a design icon, crafting an image as a rugged, functional, and good-looking companion for adventures above and below the surface. And even though it is no longer mission-critical underwater, don’t let that stop you from taking your favorite dive watch with you on your next underwater adventure.

For a look at some of our favorite dive-style and dive watches, check out the DIVE CATEGORY in the Windup Watch Shop. As always, the Windup Watch Team is available via consultation to answer any questions you have. In addition, all of these products are eligible for free domestic shipping across the US.

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