When it comes to dive watches, the past few years have seen an explosion of brands offering very competent and well-designed pieces, often times powered by Japanese automatic movements. Tempest is one of those brands, and they first caught my eye with the high-domed Viking. Today, we are taking a look at their latest offering, the Tempest Commodore.
How does that Hair Club for Men commercial go, “I’m not just the President, I am also a client.” Well, with Zelos, I am not just a blogger, I am an owner; when the Helmsman launched, I put my money down for the Bronze/brown with Serial #1. Now, Zelos Watches is back for their third launch on Kickstarter, the serious bronze diver, the Zelos Abyss.
Divers love their orange watches. Well, at least some of them do, since most divers are offered in a variation with an orange dial. According to Doxa, they were the first to use orange as a way to make the dial more readable in low light situations, way back in 1966 (hey, it is as old as I am). But I don’t have over $2,000 for a dive watch, and with the wide range of watches out there, the Prometheus Piranha makes a strong case for being a great choice under $500.
I see a lot of crowd funded projects, and many of them state that the creator couldn’t find the watch they wanted, so they went off and created one. Some times the watch is fairly unique in an aspect or two, but other times I could easily find similar watches with minimal searching. But still, there is a desire to design something and make it your own. Which is what is intriguing about the H2O Watch business model, and the H2O Kalmar 2 which is available for pre-order. There is a full menu of options for the watch that lets you customize it the way you want, and still get a high performing dive watch.
There are a couple of companies producing dive watches with cushion cases, and I have seen quite a few bronze divers of late, but there are not a lot of bronze divers with a cushion case. Well the Benarus Bronze Moray 42 is here to help fill that niche. Offered in two dial colors with two design options each, this limited production watch is a statement on your wrist.
We like to feature Touch of Modern sales here on WWR, for good reasons. They often have interesting timepieces at pretty decent discounts. The site does require you to sign up in order to buy, so if you have not done so already, you can join here. Right now on the site, they are featuring two interesting watch sales, one on a range of divers from Deep Blue, and the other on high end automatics from Azimuth.
What are the key features you would like in a basic dive watch, beyond the requirements for lume, pressure and a bezel? Sapphire crystal? A reliable automatic movement? A little flair? The Borealis Sea Diver is their entry level diver which offers a lot of value at a price point below $250, plus a clean, modern design.
I have written about it here before, and I will say again, that I own an Anstead Oceanis. The original Anstead Oceanis, as sold on Kickstarter. It was my first really big (relatively) purchase on that site, my first crowd funded watch, and one of the reasons why I am currently on staff here at WWR; it stirred enough passion in me to offer to write a review, which led to more writing, which led to this gig. Now Tom Anstead, the man behind the watch, has relaunched it in a way, selling the Oceanis direct through his web site. But this version, still under the same name, and still “the first of the naval combat series,” is really an improvement and refinement over the original Oceanis, a watch I still enjoy and wear.
I am one of those guys that wears a watch all the time. Well, almost all the time, when I am involved in one of my potentially dangerous activities, I don’t wear a watch. For me, this is road biking, mountain biking and rock climbing. It isn’t that I don’t want to know the time, it is that if I take a fall (and I have been known to crash my mountain bike a fair bit), I don’t want to damage my watch. But now, the Haigh & Hastings M2 Diver can ease that worry, pairing a nice looking, sensible diver with a 5-year damage repair guarantee.
It was not all that long ago where we brought you word (and a side-by-side comparison) of…
