Are Diver's "Style" Watches Imposters?

Agreed for the most part Hef. But I know there are those of us who wonder about the accuracy of our watches, to the second...

The don't care type, I assume, would not be on this or any other watch forum.

So I ask, who looks for, and strives to use the functions of their watches and does this affect your choices?

Show yourselves!

They are, but so are most wearers of "real" dive watches, so it's barely worth mentioning. It would be better to make slimmer watches with bezels a al Turnograph so that people could be spared the black dials and oversized indices and all.

I feel this is giving people what they want. People want busy ass dials with needless complication? Sell them something with nonfunctioning chronograph subdials. Everyone's happy. Normal humans think "water resistant" means you can belly flop in the pool and shower with it on, so whatever.

Compressor-style divers irk me. Sure they look great. How about making an actual compressor?

No, they aren't impersonators to me, and I wear a backup G-Shock or analog diver (style or not) diving. The ISO benchmarks of the lume marker at 3, extension clasp and lume pip on the bezel make no difference in reality if the visibility isn't horrible.

I have an ISO certified Seiko that I own out of coincidence from liking the design, not seeking out the certification. My "diver style" watches are just as capable as a backup tool if they have the water resistance.

To me it's a nod to style and history, just like keeping a classic car or steam engine running. A Tesla or a modern gas engine is "better," except that misses the point. You can't get a throaty carburator V8 sound out of any modern engine. A wrist watch is an anachronism beyond telling the time, but if that was the point we'd all wear a Casio F91 and be done.

They are largely inoffensive to me.

The original dive watch, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, was depth rated to 91 meters, the maximum recommended depth for scuba divers and a bit light for a general purpose sports watch today. But those original 50 Fathoms saw a lot more diving than any Rolex Deepsea does today.

So a lot of this diver vs diver style controversy is of recent manufacture. Frankly, you can certainly dive to recreational depths with the divers style 5KX.

But why take a watch at all? Dive computers are 10x better for the purpose. And if you're worried about it failing, do what I do and take two. From that perspective, all watches are.merely fashion statements.

As the owner of several watches with power reserve indicators, pointer dates, and second time zones....I guess I'd view subdials as something that is beyond the sole province of chronographs.

I love Dive watches. Really handy for timing that doesn't have to be to the millisecond.

For the most part, I don't give this much thought. Virtually no one - percentage-wise - uses tool watches for their intended purpose. How many people do you know who go diving? How many field watch owners are in the military or scaling mountains? I don't know anyone planning a trip to the moon!

Now, if it's styled a certain way and can't come close to the spec, that's another thing. I own two otherwise great little Chinese watches that were sold as "retro divers" but only have 50m resistance. That's silly, and I wish they'd picked a different selling angle.

I have quite a few divers in my collection but I'm not at all offended by divers style watches.

As many have said very few of us actually dive with a diver. I go snorkeling so my maximum depth is may be 4 metres. On that basis all of my divers are ridiculously over engineered.

If its a diver style with 50m of WR what does it matter really?

It's funny but thinking about it I never wore a diver watch when I was actually diving. I had a cheap Casio and I don't even remember what was its WR rating but it certainly wasn't even close to 200n.

i feel like you can say all mechanical watches are imposters. there are more technically accurate time telling solutions nowadays but we choose to wear these outdated machines on our wrist. does that make them an “imposter”? why are we posing with a timepiece that technically doesn’t tell time as well as our phones can?

i’m being slightly sarcastic here and taking the argument to a ludicrous conclusion. but there’s some validity here.

in the end, watches are a pieces of jewelry and we wear whatever sparkly bobble makes us happy. i wouldn’t read too much into styles and purposes. if it makes you happy to wear a Ploprof to a black tie event, all the more power to ya.

Diver style watches are just another type of watch. The wearer just needs to be cognizant of their capabilities or lack thereof. I would say that a diver style watch with zero or 50m of WR is weird. Conversely, a dress watch with 200m of WR is overkill. Wear what you want but appropriate for the event.

Dive style watches are realistically no different from dive watches for 90+% of dive watch owners. Most people barely get their watch wet, let alone take them to the bottom of the sea.

As for the silliness of "nobody needs a watch, a phone is more accurate/everyone has a phone"... Think about what you are saying. Wrist watches came about entirely because taking a device out of your pocket to check the time was considered annoying/inconvenient. Why in the world would phones change anything compared to pocket watches?

Yes 100%. My tool and field watches get wet and banged around at work. I love checking the time in the dark. Eggs, chips, exercise all get timed on a chronograph. I love the functionality of the different pieces in my collection.

Yep, but I'm an even bigger imposter especially because I mostly like and own tool watches.

I have true Dive watches none of which have even been in the Ocean let alone dive (except my Helm when I capsized on 1 of the 2 times I kayaked in San Diego). I have Dive style watches too but it doesn't matter whether they are true ISO divers or dive style watches, they are all desk divers for me and I am the imposter (or Walter Mitty).

For that matter, I also have my grail that is certified by NASA for Space (desk Astronaut) and field watches (desk naturalist/ explorer).

Like a lot of things we collect or buy (e.g. sports cars and rugged 4 wheel drive vehicles for daily commute in traffic on concrete), it's all for fun and enjoyment. Love the history, feeling, association, looks or whatever. It's all good. Now it's off to looking at watches Steve McQueen wore because, you know, wouldn't that make me more like him?

Around the same time as the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms and the Rolex Submariner a third watch emerged.

The Rolex Turn-O-Graph. It was arguably the first imposter dive watch (except that the genre was not yet established and it came before the Submariner and I believe even before the Blancpain). So any dive style watch could be seen as a descendant of that lineage (which was integrated into the Datejust family and discontinued about 15y ago). The bezel functions as a chronograph substitute in this case, Breitling still makes a classically styled watch with that feature, the Chronomat.

I hear it all the time, "Why do you wear a watch?" Apple or otherwise, just pull your phone out of your pocket. The SAME people tell me its silly to wear a pocket watch. WHY? Because I have to pull it out of my pocket to check the time.

"Cosplay" is the number one reason people buy Rolex.

Each to theirs. I'm a vintage motorsport aficionado, and do a lot of travel, so I'd opt for chrono/GMT. My next is looking like a Lorier Gemini.

I'm so glad I'm out of the rat race. My Grails are unreachable dreams, so I'm looking for my one last watch and I'm done.

By out of the rat race, do you mean watch collecting, or society?

I'm building a collection of 10. And that's it. There's 2 Hamiltons that I want, and a Lorier Gemini, and I think I'll be done.

Amusing to see where I started, and where I am now..

I always figured the number one reason was to let people who aren’t into watches know how much you spent on your watch, but diver/race-car-driver/adventurer cosplay is definitely a strong theme….

My most expensive watch was about $450, so not much flex there.

To me, three months ago, a $450 watch was a flex

I only managed to get that one because of the stimulus check

To me, a stimulus check watch purchase is a flex 😁

I had my bills paid, my roof over my head was secure, cc debt zero. its like I can get a brand new grown up watch just this once.

Then I say, well done, well deserved!

I felt like I was not being responsible with my stimulus check at the time. But a lot of people did far dumber things.

The actual tool watch nowadays is the apple watch... which i wear more often than not...but that does not mean we cant enjoy other styles and complications which still remain relevant and useful

I just can't bring myself to own any apple products. No thank you. I'm being silly, look at this clip:

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxsoyQ_lf6p39padgbgImuWS7gy2ahLwU6

But to each his own I guess. 😉