SPB313, photo by Hodinkee

Go for it. It's a fun watch, the colours are great. The case is a bit simple but the overall package is worth it's price. Would prefer this to many Seiko divers in the 800-1200 EUR range.

It makes sense

• to reduce glare / give away your position
• to better see the watch without turning your hand over (eg doctor timing patients pulse)
• to protect the crystal (pre-sapphire)

It is not comfortable to do these days, because back when these points were relevant, the watch would have been 28-34mm with a leather strap. No way to do it comfortably now with a full steel diver.

Sold off my original Black Bay. Saw the Week on Wrist by John Mayer in 2015, sold 2 other watches and drove to Dresden for a trip with my dad to buy it.

Wore the s***t out of it over 6 years, thought I would keep it forever, in the end it just started to feel a bit too large and heavy compared to other watches that I started wearing.

I think that part of the problem is the high expectation, but part of it is also that the archetypical tool watches (especially Sub, Speedy) are boring by design. They have been iterated upon very slowly and carefully.

They should tell the time and last for a long time. Ideally, you should forget that you are wearing one until you need it.

It is only the last few decades that they have become luxury goods, and unless you are attracted to their history, or purity of design, or status, or their aspirational price points, they can fall a little flat.

Maybe try a Doxa next time?

It used to be my GMT Master, but with the market hype and perceived increase in watch crime, I started feeling uncomfortable with it.

Now it’s either the new Seiko GMT (vacations) or Union GMT (business trips). I still find that a little ironic because the Union was one of my first watches, so over the last 10+ years I just sort of ended up where I started.

I am shocked that 1/3 so far said No.

100 WR is fine even for diving, as long as the crown is in and the seals are not old and cracked.

As to the crown being pulled out by accident - how often does that happen on land? Once every few years? Never? Only times I had a crown out was when I set the watch and forgot to push it back in, but that’s an easy check before jumping in.

I repeatedly swam with a 50 WR Hamilton, no issue. Same with a 30 WR Casio, unserviced for years. Fell into a pool with a 30 WR IWC. My 100 WR Seiko went shark diving.

The only watch I wouldn’t take swimming is a 30-50 WR non-screwed down chronograph (like a Speedmaster).