3 o'clock lume. Life Saver? Or afterthought?

It's clearly both.

Assuming ISO were okay with it, perhaps a lumed date wheel would've been a better solution?

@Pablito Genius idea mate 👏🏻👏🏻

I wasn't joking. Standards are set for a good reason, it is a diving standard, it's supposed to keep you safe, it's a lifesaver. We can argue how significant it is, but that's about it.

And the watch originally came without the marker and they had to add it on top of the original design. So, not strictly an afterthought on Seiko's part, but a post-hoc addition to the design...maybe someone can argue the nuances of the words and I'm here for it. My arguments have been presented, let's see yours. :)

A missing lume plot is one of my pet peeves with watches. It makes reading time in the dark harder than necessary, and can easily lead to mistakes.

If you don't wear your watch to bed or wear it in dark environments often, I can see why it's not a big deal, but for those of us who do it's handy.

As @CheapHangover said, with the Seiko pictured it's an addition made to keep the watches compliant with ISO, but on the "Slim Turtle", Seiko did the smart thing by adding the date at 4:30, so all of the markers remail similar and the symmetry of the indexes isn't broken.

So. Imagine you're a diver. And you're running out of air. And it's mid afternoon, say 3pm 😜. And you're confused because there are eleven luminous markers on your watch dial. Just one of them seems to be missing. It appears to be missing exactly half way between the two o'clock marker and the four o'clock marker. And it's a life or death situation... OMG, where is the three o'clock marker?

Even with a lack of oxygen, I suspect most divers might be able to work out the missing marker. And if they can't, they should wear a dive computer. Or just stay at home and watch Jacques Cousteau videos.

I'm going to say something controversial. And I might get hate for this but I don't care. It needs to be said...

Seiko don't make dive watches for divers. They make them for people who like dive watches.

Don’t really care. Mine has it and I’m totally fine with that. I was actually happy when I got mine and it did have it. I think there are far worse things on various watches that interrupt symmetry than this little lume pip.

What would be far better for me on the 143, rather than getting rid of a lume pip, is getting rid of the date window entirely. Just my opinion, but I have zero use for a date.

This can be said for all watch companies. Truth is watches are obsolete. We live in a time where a watch is less of a necessity than a cellphone. Do we love them? Of course. Do we need them? No. It is functional jewelry. If my phone dies while I’m out at least I got the time still but that’s about it, still can’t call anyone if my car would break down or got robbed while I’m out. It’s nice that we can dive/fly/travel etc. with them, but better digital/electronic tools are made for each one of those aspects. That being said it is a nice back up in case of a malfunction.

This is such a common misconception. You aren’t timing your air quantity. There is a pressure gauge for that and you should be monitoring it frequently. There are so many variables to air consumption. Time is only a small part of that.

What you are timing is your time at depth, and time at each decompression stop as you ascend. There is a term “plan the dive, and dive the plan”. You monitor the time of the dive, particularly bottom time, then decompression stops.

Seiko don't make dive watches for divers. They make them for people who like dive watches.

I believe the term is “dive cosplayers” 😂

Don't care.