I'm gonna tell you a secret 🤫

I'm 100% there with you... except I'm the kind of crazy that would worry about swimming with only 100m WR.

300m+ and I would feel I could really relax.

I could go for a shallow dive with a 50m from a brand I really trust, but my strap would still get wet.. Life is suffering 😅

I had a problem with my Swatch Irony (which has a 50m wr) after surfing with it so I’m completely with you. My collection is now up to 20 watches and 100m is the minimum wr I have.

I'm with you regarding the perceived ruggedness, but WR is realistically a poor indicator of it obviously. Shock jewels, robustness of parts & more are more responsible for determining ruggedness than WR, but I think of WR as the last thing in a watch that was solved so it's kind of a shortcut in my mind.

But short story why I really value WR; wife bought me my smartwatch for Father's Day a few years ago. Later that summer we planned on a day of floating down the local river with her family. Too late in the process of getting prepped, I realized I was wearing it. Thank God it was made with 100m of WR or I would be dead.

As regards the wr of a watch I'm informed by my AD that explorer 2 are ok to 100m so I will be testing it in the pool on holiday (obviously not too 100m)as regards jumping into a frozen lake you must be mad 🥶

Close call 😅 My biggest issue is still with the nasty wet straps

I wear mine a little loose and it is not a problem for me, but that's my overall preferred way anyway.

I swim in the North Sea off the east coast of England regularly with all of my watches that have 100m plus WR from Orients to A Tudor. All fine. Don't go near the water with any vintage stuff though for obvious reasons!

100% with you my man 🤘!

Give me excellent WR or give me a dead watch!

I generally trust 100m (or more) but it must have screw crown.

I just can’t bring myself to trust a seal 🦭

I’m one who dives in anywhere with reckless abandon, so never want to be unsafe!!

All pix are from seconds before diving in, except where I’ve already dove in. Hot girl is wifey so didn’t take wrist shot in that case!

For me, it’s about peace of mind. I don’t NORMALLY swim with or get my watches wet. I’ll take them off if I expect I’ll be doing activities like that. With a higher WR though, I feel more comfortable getting them wet during unexpected events.

Hear hear!!!

This is true, but the technical term isn't "mad" according to my papers 🤪

True. There is also the issue about lack of standards for testing, unless we are talking ISO. So it comes down to trusting the company in many cases...

I scuba dived with my Seiko Baby Tuna (20ATM) down to 40 meters many times, and I was pretty relaxed. 😎

100m water resistance rating is sufficient for an ISO certified diver’s watch (the ‘s is key; only ISO 6425 certified watches can bear the word “diver’s”; where does the notion that 200m is minimum for a dive watch come from?). Certified recreational divers don’t go below 40m, and even 40m is considered a “deep-water dive” requiring advanced training. I wash my 30m Grand Seiko under the tap all the time. Every watch I own, including that delicate little Nomos, is rugged enough to stand up to anything, including water, that it’s likely to encounter in day to day, and daily, wear. I happily wear a 100m watch to the pool or beach, and swim to the bottom, 2 or at best 3m; I’d probably swim wearing 50m, but haven’t had occasion to try. People who actually need a “tool watch” are vanishingly few, and the water resistance arms race is so much marketing hoodoo.

Swim, surf, snorkel and scuba. Sadly the Dive days are now behind me. I just let go of my last piece of viable gear. When my watches are seeing the water on my wrist my kids, or wife, has jacked a piece and is in the water. Said this a million times on WC : the watch building tech today is available so every watch has at least 100m of water resistance & a screw down crown - save GShock they got it covered with no screw down crown 😉 . Any company not providing both is a lazy watch manufacturer. Yep, I said it. ALL watchmakers who don't do this are included. Why would anyone pays thousands of $ for a watch with no screw down crown or 100m water resistance? That's overpaying for an underbuilt product.

Picking my son up from practice right now. What'd ya know, there is a water resistance watch on his wrist.

It all depends on the watch, but I mostly agree as soon as we are getting close to the sportswatch category ☺

I moistly hate wet straps...

Why did you quit diving?

So agree on straps. I like neoprene and sailcloth best. I'm not a NATO guy. A leather strap usually gets removed when I buy a new watch. I stopped diving because of time constraints.

I do prefer fabric straps like NATOs or MN-straps, but they take to long to dry up.

I agree. Although a large percentage of my watches are Diver's watches anyway, I look at it as a sign of ruggedness too. Whilst none of use will ever be going down to that depth, and they are over engineered to at least double that value, the rest of the watch is also built to that level, and I see it as another sign of quality.

Yes. I'm becoming a sailcloth convert.