Japan Dives

There’s a plethora of fine Japanese products created with a single-minded intensity and the finesse of immeasurable detail refinements; even industrial goods. But they’re unfairly less well-known than their western rivals because they’re given unrememberable names like SPB071J1. And wait till you hear the codes for the spares... But the Seiko Prospex SPB071J1 distinguishes itself at a glance, drawing you closer. Then you find out it was created in collaboration with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors – better known to frogmen and women of the world as PADI – and you begin to want to know more about how a Japanese watchmaker approaches developing a dive watch. The SPB071J1’s spiritual successor is none other than Japan’s first-ever dive watch, the proto-Prospex conceived and popped in 1965.

Once undersea, accuracy, legibility, water resistance and durability are essential to diving safely. The SPB071J1 meets the ISO standard (6425:1996) for dive watches, and is claimed to provide maximum legibility even at depths sunlight does not reach. Large hour markers provide maximum surface area for Seiko’s Lumibrite coating that's in keeping with Japanese nature-consciousness: it's “a newly developed luminous paint that is completely free of radioactive substances with stronger glow intensity and longer output duration”. The watch has been tested for accuracy at depths of 200m. If this is all too geeky for you, the SPB071J1 has glamorous cousins known collectively as the Prospex Black Series, a three-model limited edition. Swipe to see.