Glows all night, no charging required
By Tom Hargreaves, Falmouth, Cornwall ยท
Tritium tubes are the reason to buy a Luminox. Little sealed glass vials of gas that glow on their own for years, no light needed to charge them. Painted lume, even the very good stuff, fades within a few hours. Tritium is still faintly there at four in the morning when you're trying to work out whether it's worth getting up for the tide.
The Pacific Diver Chronograph is a 44 mm steel case, 14 mm thick, 200 m, quartz Ronda 5040 inside. Date, chronograph, steel bracelet, $695 to $795.
Now, a chronograph on a dive watch is mostly decoration. You can't work pushers at depth on most of these and you shouldn't try. The rotating bezel does the job that matters. And the dial is busy with three subdials, which costs you some of the clarity a diver should have.
The quartz bit is a plus for a lot of people. Grab and go, no winding, no worrying if it stopped.
For a duty watch on a lifeguard tower or a beat-up boat, fine. For actual diving, I'd get the plain three-hander Luminox and save some money.