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The 10 Best Dive Watches Under $2,000 (DOXA, Longines, & More!)
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Dive watches are almost more at home out of the water than I am in it—that is to say, they have become a true mainstay of the watchmaking world and often figure as the primary lynchpin of many brands’ collections, with their charm having gone well beyond the interest of recreational divers.
It’s not for nothing that the affectionate term “desk diver” is so frequently thrown around: everybody, and I do mean everybody, loves a good dive watch. (If you don’t yet, trust me, you will.)
Unfortunately, many of the best dive watch icons, like the Rolex Submariner and the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, come with incredibly steep price tags, leaving many of us collectors with more modest means shivering in the kiddie pool while the big dive beasts are way out in the deep end.
You can’t get your hands on one of these icons for less than $2,000. You just can’t. Thankfully, you don’t have to because many other brands here have you covered. From the classy vintage styling of the Lorier Neptune to the avant-garde glow of the Christopher Ward Lumière, here are 10 of the best dive watches under $2,000—and, really, 10 of the best dive watches ever.
History of Dive Watches
Before we get into these dive watches, we need to consider where they came from and how they’ve evolved over time. Sure, they’re not always the go-to for divers these days, but many of them were originally designed to be of maximum usefulness to divers and still reflect that purpose today.
In the 1950s, recreational scuba diving was just starting to take off. It was an exciting era of exploration, with professional pioneers like Jacques Cousteau plumbing the hidden depths of our watery world. But naturally, with a limited oxygen supply comes the need to time just how long you’re underwater—enter the dive watch, an absolutely essential dive companion in these early days. If your dive watch broke or was running poorly, or if you even just misread it, you could die. Dependability and legibility were of the utmost importance.
To fill this critical role, brands introduced purpose-built legends that still enjoy tremendous popularity today. The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms was the first true dive watch, and it was quickly followed by the Rolex Submariner and Omega Seamaster.
Most of these models featured a special dive bezel, which can be rotated to align an arrow at the top with the time you enter the water, and from there, a marked scale shows the elapsed dive time when paired with the minutes hand.
Waterproofing, of course, was essential, and without strong case seals, water could enter the watch and prevent it from running. Finally, the markers and indices were usually made large and prominent and were almost always lumed so they could glow and present the time even in the darker ocean depths.
The 10 Best Dive Watches Under $2,000
So today, even though these watches aren’t always exploring the ocean depths quite as frequently as they were back in the ’50s, they still feature the same quintessential design elements and recall the same spirit of adventure. If you’re looking for something durable and beautiful to carry you through life’s stormy seas, look no further than this list!
DOXA Sub 200 Professional on Bracelet – $1,090
I’ve had the opportunity to write about the DOXA Sub 200 a few times before as well and if you’re looking for a dive watch with some fantastic tradition and heritage behind it for under $2,000, you absolutely cannot beat the Sub 200.
I picked the orange dial color (which DOXA calls “Professional”) for this list as it’s DOXA’s iconic hue (meant to best reflect light in the ocean depths, so this is a real-deal diving watch), but there’s also a variety of other excellent options.
Everything is maximally legibl,e and the colors, with the matte black hands and bezel, the off-white lume plots, and the bright orange dial, work shockingly well together for such an unusual color palette. Plus, the beads-of-rice bracelet just oozes with vintage charm and class.
Longines Hydroconquest – $1,775
Quality Swiss brand name? Check. Excellent dive watch design? Double check. Durable, everyday wearable watch that can go from the office to the ocean depths to a luxuriant soirée? Triple check. I love a heck of a lot about this watch.
The hands are just perfect, large and sporty with ample lume. The lugs are long, allowing the watch to sprawl out over the wrist with a balanced appearance that’s more than just a blocky dial squatting just behind your hand.
The Oyster-style bracelet and oversized numerals aren’t my favorite, I must confess, but the well-proportioned structure of the case and lovely sunray dial more than make up for it. My favorite option is the blue-on-blue, but there are plenty of options for you to find your own.
Unimatic U1 Classic – $665
Italian watchmaking as a whole is drastically underrated, from Panerai to smaller brands like the design-focused Unimatic. Don’t cringe at the words “design-focused,” fellow watch fans, for the U1 Classic is an excellent dive watch with some serious watchmaking chops to go along with its minimalistic and elegant style.
Its matte black dial and bezel, for some reaso,n work shockingly well with the off-white lume and brushed steel case, and Unimatic kept things as low-key as possible by placing the dial text under the hands so that it almost looks like it’s unbranded at first glance.
My only complaint is that the rotating bezel doesn’t feature a time scale, but only the dot at the top, so you’ll need to use the dial itself to track elapsed time. It’s just not quite as intuitive. For that reason, this watch makes a superb daily wear diver, but I’d opt for a more informative one if you’re going on real dives.
Lorier Neptune Series IV No Date – $499
I love the Lorier Neptune. I’ve covered it several times already for all sorts of different articles with different subjects, and I just keep coming back to it. It’s one of the very few modern vintage-inspired releases that manage to be completely original and nearly perfectly executed at an affordable price.
One of my favorite details on this watch is the lume plots, which are a lovely bright white, since Lorier chose to reject any use of fauxtina, which would force a fake vintage look on us. Even more than that, they went as far as 3D-printing the lume to create a puffy vintage look, which is something I haven’t heard of any other brand trying. It’s pioneering and creates an absolutely perfect look. I find this detail to be representative of the whole watch: perfectly executed, with a powerful focus on getting every little bit just right.
IFL Watches Gravity Concept – $1,290
What’s better than a classy Seiko 5 dive watch with a Jubilee-style bracelet, “Batman”-colored bezel, and automatic mechanical movement?
Try this: the IFL Watches modded version with a handpainted dial. The colors of the dial work perfectly with the color scheme of the rest of the watch, so it feels like it was always meant to be there as a special artistic version released by Seiko. It’s a work of art on your wrist, but not in the way of simply printing a popular painting onto a watch dial and selling it as an art piece.
This is handpainted class that starts with the watch, already a great piece on its own, and adds something extra to make it all the more beautiful and fascinating.
Even the 4:00 crown position, usually something I hesitate to accept, feels like it works so much better because of the orientation of the astronaut on the dial, who appears to be reaching out towards it. It’s just a really dang good watch.
Christopher Ward Trident Lumière – $2,390
The Trident Lumière is Christopher Ward’s latest dive watch, and its French name makes it clear that the best-known British brand chose to laser in on the theme of light here. The indices and hands are molded from Globolight XP, a special type of lume that glows a brilliant blue at night and which can be shaped and molded into solid blocks like almost no other type of lume can.
I love the way a well-lumed watch glows when it’s been exposed to sunlight, and I love watches that play with the concept of using lume for more than just visibility. This watch exemplifies that to the extreme, and I’m all for it. Sure, it’s a bit over our budget—but I just really couldn’t leave this one out.
Micromilspec Offshore – $1,815
A lesser-known but high-class dive watch from Micromilspec, the Offshore manages to be at once traditional and cutting-edge, drawing from watchmaking icons but presenting a fresh and unique image. The bezel is perhaps its most striking feature, clearly Royal Oak-inspired but without ripping it off, and I love the complex harmony of curves and angles.
The dial has of course a wavy pattern which is deeply engraved and provides rich texture. Finally, I love the accent color of yellow on blue, which pops so well. Note as well the Offshore runs on the very respectable Swiss made Sellita SW200-1 with a custom rotor, so it’s got some serious watchmaking chops.
Tissot Seastar 2000 Professional Powermatic 80 – $1,125
The Seastar 2000 Professional Powermatic 80 couples a very rich and elegant dial with Tissot’s superb Powermatic movement, which is an automatic workhorse with 80 hours of power reserve and a Nivachron-alloy balance spring for antimagnetic resistance.
Honestly, when I first found out the Powermatic movement was that good, I was shocked—we’re talking about a watch that goes for barely over $1,000 here and it’s getting a longer power reserve than most Rolexes! But Tissot didn’t stop there.
The aqua green color of the dial, with a lovely fumé gradient, pops very well against the monochrome bezel and case, and the wave engraving on the dial is much more irregular than the Micromilspec we just looked at, in a very pleasing way.
Jacques Bianchi JB200 Poulpro Blue Edition – $1,165
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The professional dive watch manufacture out of Marseille absolutely crushed it with this one. The first JB200 was issued to the French Navy in the 1980s, so Maison Bianchi has been making military-grade dive watches for a long time now. With the Poulpro, they decided to get much more playful with their hardcore watchmaking chops, featuring a playful octopus front and center on their dial.
The octopus feels unobtrusive, thanks to the lightness of its lines, while filling the dial’s negative space in a fun way. Its green emission Super-LumiNova, coupled with the blue watch dial and body, gives you a very aquatic-feeling watch. Plus, it runs on the prestigious Swiss-made Soprod P024. I’m a huge fan of this watch.
Mido Ocean Star Decompression Worldtimer in Blue – $1,310
I can’t get over the vintage, multicolored charm of this watch. Just look at how busy that dial is, with so many different things marked and presented for your use.
All of the colors come together harmoniously, with none of them intruding on the overall blue color palette but still drawing the eye to the information it presents. I mean, this watch is by far the do-it-all older brother of the mechanical dive watch world.
You’ve got a GMT hand plus a worldtimer bezel, so you can figure out what time it is anywhere on the globe. Perfect for planning your next dive in the Bahamas or off the coast of Italy. And as soon as you get in the water, Mido’s got you covered too, with an extended decompression timing scale so you can avoid the bends as you make your return from the watery world to dry land.
And wearing this, you can look so dang good doing it, too. This is my ultimate “I’m on a beach on the French coast in the summer” watch, but I would totally rock it year-round, too.
Conclusion
Dive watches are probably the single most diverse genre in all of watchmaking, and they’re a distinct favorite for many—myself included. Sure, I’d sooner use that dive bezel for timing a cake in the oven than how much time I’ve spent underwater, but that’s the beauty of a good dive watch.
They channel that sense of underwater adventure and bring it into every moment of your life. So whether you’re a diver or not, you can find your next everyday wearer on this list, at an affordable price!
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