Rolex

Posted the same thread in Horological Meandering but wanted to hear Rolie fans' reaction, just in case you miss it there.

No intention to offend anybody. This question has been bothering me for a while.

Most divers today (at least the ones I know - I am a scuba diver myself) do not wear dive watches to go diving these days. They wear dive computers that tell them everything including remaining dive time, depth, decompression times etc. and all the calculations that a so called 'dive watch' cannot tell you.

In the old days, a dive watch was necessary because divers needed to bring some form of a timekeeper into the waters to calculate remaining dive times. No longer today with the advent of dive computers.

So why are watch companies still making dive watches and why are people still buying so called dive watches? And why did Rolex spend all the R&D dollars to come up with the Deep Sea? I suspect that it's the idea or concept of a waterproof watch more than any practical considerations. So, Rolex spend R&D dollars on coming up with a marketing concept to sell to people and people are still buying the concept - not to improve diving in itself. I, for one, still like dive watches because of their looks and the 'idea' of a waterproof watch and their association with the oceans, which many people (myself included) have an affinity for. I have no illusions however, that the dive watches of today are 'diving instruments' in any way.

But then, it's the same argument about mechanical versus digital watches that tell time more accurately in most cases. It's just the watch companies calling the watches 'dive' watches that bugs me, I suppose. "Superlative waterproof watches", I'm okay with.

let's add something more...
how many divers go below 50 meters then?
my seiko is 200mt proof...i know watches 1000 mt proof..what are they for??

deep sea is marketing...and it is a nice watch

diving of a boat etc will obviously be greater. Likewise the pressure on a watch whilst swimming, doing crawl for example, as your hand is pulled through the water is far in excess of the depth at which you are doing it.

I agree that 1000m is a little excessive, but a sharp move with you hand whilst diving at say 20m, must put significant pressure on a watch.

MK

 

 

This message has been edited by markkeenan on 2008-10-08 03:14:43