We’ve brought you the best sports watches, the best dress watches, the best travel watches (sparing no expense), the best jewelry watches, and even the best beach-ready watches of 2024. You’d think we’d have it all covered, but dive watches are their own genre entirely, so now we turn to the best divers of 2024.
There isn’t much you can do about the lumpy wetsuit or the face-distorting scuba mask if you’re kitting up for a deep dive this summer, but you can compensate by at least wearing a handsome dive watch. The dive watch has become the ultimate showcase for robustness, new materials, elite movements and exceptional water resistance, but it also has a specific aesthetic: Utilitarian and big, but also colorful and exuberant, with an overall vibe that projects serious fun. And yet, there is also an unmistakable elegance creeping into the genre. Dive watches are now decked out in diamonds and gold, infusing them with a cachet that rivals the classic dress watch.
To summarize, the modern dive watch must be robust, with a state-of-the-art movement for ultimate reliability (because your life could depend on it), and it must exude both power and refinement. Examples that fit the formula include special versions of the Omega Seamaster, the incredible Ressence Type 5L, and divers from Panerai, Rolex, Blancpain and more.
Here are the best dive watches of 2024.
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Omega Seamaster Diver 300M Paris
The Seamaster Paris is nicknamed for the venue of this summer’s Olympic games, which Omega has sponsored for the 31st time since its first in 1932. The caseback is stamped with the official Olympic logo, a right allotted to only a few sponsors, and “Paris 2024.” The case is steel and the bezel is Moonshine gold, Omega’s proprietary gold alloy, notched with a diving scale in relief.
Size: 42mm
Water resistance: 300 meters
Movement: Co-Axial Master Chronometer caliber 8800
Price: $8,900 -
Ressence Type 5 L
Image Credit: Ressence The revolutionary display of the Ressence Type 5, with its oil-filled sealed chambers and hands-free dial, has a new trick and it’s perfect for divers. The Type 5 L now has a dial fully coated with Super-LumiNova (L is for Lume). When it lights up, the indexes stand out in contrast, making the dial highly legible. A compression lock system means you can flick a switch for full water resistance.
Size: 46mm
Water resistance: 100 meters
Movement: ROCS 5 (Ressence Orbital Convex System) module on caliber 2824/2.
Price: CHF 34,500 (~$39,000) -
Breitling Superocean Automatic 46 Super Diver
Breitling has added a new “Super” superlative to its Superocean, after enhancing it with a soft-iron inner case to foil magnetic fields, a featherweight titanium case, a new bezel locking mechanism and an increased depth rating of 1,000 meters (compared to 300 on the previous steel Superocean). The ceramic bezel insert matches either of two fun dial colors: green camo or black.
Size: 46mm
Water resistance: 1,000 meters
Movement: Caliber 10 automatic
Price: $8,750 on titanium bracelet; $6,300 on rubber strap -
Blancpain Bathyscaphe Quantieme Complet Phases de Lune
Image Credit: Blancpain Blancpain has introduced ceramic to its daily-use dive watch, which makes it coral-resistant and probably shark-resistant (ceramic is tough and scratch proof). The extra-wide plongeur-shaped hands and markers are lumed to glow, and the unique mix of complications – a moon phase and complete calendar – make this a fashionable watch for land adventures as well.
Size: 43.6mm
Water resistance: 300 meters
Movement: Caliber 6654.P4
Price: $26,000 -
Rolex Deepsea
A $54,200, 44mm solid gold Deepsea that goes to 3,900 meters? Why not? Go gold (and deep) or go home. The updated Ringlock system and compression ring are bright blue ceramic to match the lacquer dial, a color that is highly readable underwater. Naturally it has a helium escape valve, a necessary tool for dives this deep, but let’s face it, this watch is mainly for flexing on land.
Size: 44mm
Water resistance: 3,900 meters
Movement: Caliber 3235 automatic
Price: $54,200 -
Ulysse Nardin Diver Atoll
Image Credit: Ulysse Nardin Finally, a dive watch not only made smaller but set with diamonds, because kitting out like Jacques Cousteau isn’t necessary to explore a coral reef or lounge attractively nearby on land. The Atoll is set with 0.92 carats of diamonds, including 40 on the bezel and 11 as hour markers. The dial is chrysocolla, a blue/green hardstone with a lively patchy matrix and the case is 80% recycled steel. Limited to 100 pieces.
Size: 39mm
Water resistance: 300 meters
Movement: Automatic UN-816
Price: $15,800 -
Tudor Black Bay Ceramic Blue
Image Credit: Tudor Black ceramic is becoming a hot look for sports watches and it makes particular sense for dive watches, since it’s one of the few case materials that can scrape up against a coral reef and emerge scratch-free. The bright blue dial is a reliably visible color under water, and the grade X1 Super-LumiNova is intense on those broad snowflake hands.
Size: 41mm
Water resistance: 200 meters
Movement: Caliber MT5602-1U Automatic
Price: $5,150 -
Panerai Submersible QuarantaQuattro Luna Rossa Ti-Ceramitech PAM 1466
The 44 mm case (“Quarranta-Quattro” means 44) is made of a tough material developed by Panerai called ti-ceramitech, a ceramicized titanium infused with plasma. As one of four dive watches that mark Panerai’s role as an Official Sponsor of the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli sailing team, this is a model that will be worn in competition.
Size: 44mm
Water resistance: 500 meters
Movement: Automatic P.900
Price: $16,600 -
Sinn 206 ARKTIS II
The ARKTIS II is not new, but any dive watch roundup should include something from this German flight and dive watch specialist. This model is a chronograph, sealed tightly because the pusher pins and crown shaft are mounted directly onto the case. Sinn’s proprietary aragon dehumidifying technology prevents fogging in case of moisture entering the case.
Size: 43mm
Water resistance: 300 meters
Movement: Valjoux 7750
Price: $4,560 -
Singer DiveTrack Automatic 24-Hour Central Chronograph Diving 10
Image Credit: Singer We didn’t think the dive watch could be improved upon, and perhaps the last company on Earth we’d have imagined doing sop was Singer, the custom builder of Porsche 911 platforms into million-dollar four-wheel masterpieces. This watch is a chronograph that times not only your dives on the ultra-legible minute track, but also your surface intervals on the central 24-hour timing scale, which extends for hours until it’s safe for you to fly again after diving. If you want to tell the time of day, you’ll be looking at the side of the case against your wrist where this secondary info is relegated to a compelling ultra-wide aperture. It’s a huge watch, but titanium, and therefore light. There will only be 25 made.
Size: 49 mm x 19.67 mm
Water resistance: 300 meters
Movement: AgenGraph 24-hour auto-winding chronograph
Price: $93,800
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