Top 6 Dive Watches From the 2016 Swiss Watch Fairs that Caught Our Eyes

Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Chronograph - splash

As in past years, this year’s fair brought an abundance of interesting new dive watches from a variety of brands, several offering new in-house movements, chronograph functions, and new case materials such as bronze. Let’s have a look at below dive watches from the 2016 Swiss Watch Fair !

 

1. Breitling Superocean Heritage Chronoworks

Breitling has re-engineered its automatic chronograph Caliber 01, launched in 2009, and incorporated the improved version in a limited-edition (100 pieces) watch called the Breitling Superocean Heritage Chronoworks.(Chronoworks is the R & D department at Breitling that made the improvements.) The new movement, Caliber 01 Chronoworks, has a power reserve of 100 hours, compared to 70 hours for the original movement. Breitling achieved this increase by making a bevy of changes aimed at reducing friction and eliminating unnecessary weight in the movement components. Like the original 01, the new version is certified by COSC. The changes included incorporating a baseplate and gear-train bridges made of high-tech ceramic. The gear arbors can pivot directly in the baseplate and arbor holes without any loss of energy and without lubrication, Breitling says. The company also makes the center wheel, third wheel and fourth wheel out of silicon so that they will be lighter and therefore easier to set in motion. The escape wheel and lever are also made of silicon. The watch is 46 mm in diameter. It has a matte ceramic case with a transparent caseback and is water resistant to 100 meters.

Breitling Superocean Heritage Chronoworks - front

2. Eterna KonTiki Chronograph

The Eterna Super KonTiki Chronograph, a larger version of the re-engineered KonTiki from last year, has a case in polished and brushed stainless steel, measuring 45 mm in diameter, with a screw-locked crown and rotating bezel. It has a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal and is water-resistant to 200 meters. The watch will be available on a rubber strap (as pictured; $4,700) or a Milanese steel bracelet ($4,900). Below you’ll find some photos we snapped of the watch at Baselworld. These new models in the Eterna KonTiki collection, which is famously named after the wooden raft used in Norwegian explorer

Eterna KonTiki Chronograph -Blue Dial

 

3. Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Chronograph

The Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 45.5mm Chronograph has a large case made of 18K Sedna gold and stainless steel and a bicolor bracelet combining the same materials. Both the dial and the unidirectional rotating bezel are in polished, deep blue ceramic; the numerals and diving scale notations on the bezel are in Omega’s own Ceragold material. The screw-down caseback, as on all the new Planet Ocean watches, is enhanced with an alveol wave pattern design. The movement in the watch is Omega’s Master Chronometer Caliber 9900, an automatic with a column-wheel chronograph function and a power reserve of 60 hours. Like all Master Chronometer calibers, it features a silicon balance spring and a co-axial escapement and is antimagnetic to 15,000 Gauss. The case is water-resistant to 600 meters. The hands and applied indices are in Sedna gold and enhanced with Super-LumiNova.

Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Chronograph - splash

 

4. Oris ProDiver Chronograph

Oris launched the first ProDiver Chronograph, designed as a tool watch for professional divers, in 2009. This year, the company released a revamped, upgraded version. The new model retains many of its predecessor’s features and attributes, including a 51-mm-diameter case made of lightweight titanium; a black ceramic bezel insert with a white minutes scale (Oris claims to be the first watch brand to use this material in a divers’ watch); an automatic helium release valve that protects the watch from damage during saturation dives; and a unidirectional diver’s bezel with Oris’s patented Rotating Safety System, which locks the bezel in place once the dive time is set, ensuring that it won’t move in either direction and thus preventing accidental, and possibly life-threatening, timing errors by divers with a limited air supply.

Oris ProDiver Chronograph - strap - front

5. Panerai Radiomir 1940 PAM00655

The Panerai Radiomir 1940 3 Days Automatic Acciaio is the first in the Radiomir 1940 collection to feature a white dial — a rarity in the Panerai portfolio overall. The watch — which comes in the familiar Radiomir 1940 cushion-shaped case, measuring 42 mm in diameter and made of polished 316L stainless steel — strives for clarity in its dial, with large, black Arabic numerals at the hour markers and small seconds set aside on a subdial at 9 o’clock. Dots at each hour position (two at 12 o’clock), treated with luminous paint, aid in nighttime legibility. The case, whose proportions and shape are faithful to those of the original 1940 model for which the watch is named, is only 10.93 mm thick and has a polished. stainless steel winding crown bearing a relief “OP” (for “Officine Panerai”) logo.

 

 

Panerai Radiomir 1940 PAM00655 - front

 

6. TAG Heuer Aquaracer 300M

The 2016 versions of the TAG Heuer Aquaracer 300M for men have stainless steel cases measuring a stately 43 mm in diameter, up from the 41-mm diameter of the previous models. The studded, 12-sided unidirectional bezels are made of polished ceramic and now include engraved, silver-lacquered numerals whose contrast with the bezel aids in legibility. Like last year’s Aquaracer models, they feature a magnifying date window over the date at 3 o’clock. In classical dive watch tradition, a Super-LumiNova-coated dot marks the 12 o’clock position on the bezel. The watch, as per its name, is water-resistant to 300 meters (1,000 feet), and features a screw-down caseback engraved with a divers’ helmet. Inside the Aquaracer beats TAG Heuer’s automatic Caliber 5, with a 28,800-vph frequency, a rapid date-correction function, and a power reserve of 38 hours.

TAG Heuer Aquaracer 300M - blue dial