The Year’s Most Impressive Dive Watch Comes from a Brand You Wouldn’t Expect

Hint: It’s not Rolex, Omega, Tudor or Blancpain.

Close-up of a mechanical watch with a carbon fiber bezel, visible gears, and an orange textured strap.

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Published December 28, 2025

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Dive watches are likely the most popular traditional watch style today, and although few people ever take dive watches diving, brands are constantly looking at ways to innovate within the genre.

This innovation has led to dive watches that can dive deeper, glow brighter and, in the case of the Ulysse Nardin Diver Air, weigh so little you’d swear they could float.

GP100: Gear Patrol’s annual roundup of the most important releases collects key watches, cars, outdoor gear and more. Browse the full list or catch up on last year’s winners.

two ulysse nardin dive watches — There’s never been a mechanical dive watch as light as this.

The Diver Air is the lightest mechanical dive watch ever made. The watch head weighs 46 grams, and the strap adds just six more for a grand total of 52 grams — about as much as an egg.

Despite its extremely low weight, the beefy 44mm watch is still as robust and capable as any of the leading divers on the market. It has a fully lumed bezel with loud, crisp action. Its crown and caseback both screw down, ensuring 200m of water resistance. Its movement is self-winding, has a 90-hour power reserve and is capable of withstanding shocks up to 5,000 Gs.

Skeleton dial wristwatch with black carbon bezel and white textured strap on a white abstract background. — On the strap, the watch weighs about as much as an egg.

This is all possible because Ulysse Nardin cut weight, not corners, when creating the Diver Air.

The case is made from a mix of lightweight materials: titanium, carbon fiber and Nylo-Foil — a nylon-carbon composite. The strap is an airy, elastic strip of fabric with a clever, minimalist Velcro closure and is exceedingly comfortable.

Skeleton dial Ulysse Nardin watch with visible gears, black and silver bezel, and orange fabric strap. — The Cal. UN-374 automatic movement is made mostly of titanium, with a silicon escapement and unique innovations like a flying mainspring barrel.

The new Calibre UN-374 is a completely reworked version of the brand’s existing Cal. UN-372 movement, with all unnecessary weight eliminated and the remaining bridges being remade in titanium and reconfigured to optimize strength. The hyper-skeletonized movement takes up just 20 percent of the space inside the watch — the other 80 percent is air.

Looking at the design as a whole, the Diver Air feels impossible. Thankfully, Ulysse Nardin specializes in making the impossible possible.