Decades after wrist-worn computers made the analog dive watch an all-but-redundant tool, it’s still one whose limits and possibilities watchmakers continue to evolve, as though functional redundancy—not to mention the limits of the human body at depth—were merely a state of mind. 

For instance, Rolex broke records last year with its Deepsea Challenge, designed to work at the bottom of the ocean’s deepest point (for all the use that would be), shortly after Omega had unleashed its own 6,000-meter monster, the Ultra Deep. The likes of Oris, IWC, and Blancpain have each engineered watches that use mechanical means to give depth readings beneath the waves.

But with its latest underwater offering, Blancpain—the historic marque actually credited with inventing the modern dive watch in the first place, no less—has now taken a notably different tack. Its new Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa ostensibly responds to the real-world requirements of professional saturation divers (albeit ones who likely do their diving from their own superyachts, given this piece's $28,000 price point), by focusing on duration instead of depth: A simple but intuitive three-hour timing feature addresses the extended dive times afforded by the modern rebreather technology that’s now favored. Styled in determinedly contemporary fashion in grade 23 titanium (ultra-high surgical quality, rated higher than grade 5), and with the word “Tech” adorning the dial (despite the relatively uncomplicated solution involved), it’s an esoteric but arguably expedient addition to the genre of the specialist luxury dive watch.

It comes as Blancpain marks the 70th anniversary of the original Fifty Fathoms, the watch that set the blueprint for analog dive watches as we know them. Developed with the help of French combat divers who needed a tough, reliable underwater wristwatch, the Fifty Fathoms set the agenda with its luminous dial markings, innovative waterproof construction, and locking rotatable bezel, used for marking time spent at depth: By syncing the bezel’s index with the minute hand on entering the water, divers could easily visualize their dive time (and manage their oxygen supplies) according to how far the hand had progressed from that point. 

Rolex’s Submariner, developed the same year, took the same approach—but since it only made it to market the following year, Blancpain has gone down as the progenitor of what continues to be one of the most successful, varied genres in watchmaking.