12 Best Waterproof Watches in 2023 | 165-660 ft

If you want a great looking watch that is made with high-quality and durable materials that all happen to be waterproof, the Victorinox Swiss Army I.N.O.X. is your choice.  With a water-resistance rating of up to 660 feet, this watch lets you go about life without worrying about water.

Oh, and you’ll look good while you’re at it.  This watch looks gorgeous, and the makers made sure it stays that way for a long time.  Boasting a stainless steel case, a triple-coated anti-reflective sapphire crystal technology, and a removable bumper, this watch can put up with a lot of abuse.

According to its description, before leaving the factory, this watch is put through over 100 tests, such as water resistance, temperature, corrosion, and shock resistance.  In theory, these watches should never have a problem upon delivery, but on the chance that something does go wrong, you should be okay.  These watches come with a three-year limited warranty when purchased from authorized retailers.

To top it all off, customers can choose from a wide variety of strap materials to accompany the case, letting people base their decisions off of their preferred activities and aesthetics.  If there is a downside to this watch, it’s functionality in low-light environments.  No backlight means if you do end up underwater in the dark, you can’t tell what time it is. We recommend you check beforehand.

Of course we would go back to the brand for our best overall quality for our best women’s watch:  Victorinox.  Almost everything we love about the Victorinox Swiss Army I.N.O.X continues to be true for their women’s watch.

The aesthetic, construction, water-resistance, durability tests, and movement reliability  stand strong.  We did notice, on Amazon at least, that the women’s version didn’t have quite as many strap customization options as the men’s, but there were still several to choose from.

The waterproof Timex Men’s Expedition Vibration Alarm Watch is a first step into waterproof digital watches without feeling like an entry-level watch.

The watch uses a resin case and strap and scratch-resistant mineral glass for the display. It also carries a water-resistance rating of 200M or 660 feet, helpful features like an Indiglo backlight and alarm system, and a one-year warranty.

At less than $100, the Timex Expedition Vibration Alarm Watch is a fantastic choice if you need a watch that can take some abuse without abusing your budget.

Light and accurate. The brilliance of the Citizen Men’s Eco-Drive Sport Luxury watch can be captured with these two words. This watch runs on light.  Not sunlight.  Light.  Any light–real or artificial.

The technology behind this mechanism is fantastic. We’re not talking about a cheap 1990’s solar-powered calculator that fades its numbers after a week inside your desk drawer. From a full charge, this watch would need to spend more than 6 months in solid darkness before it runs out of “juice.” In short, you don’t need to replace a battery.  Great for you.  Great for the environment:  no metals going into a landfill.

The watch also stays absurdly accurate by receiving radio signals from an atomic clock.  If you travel internationally, a few simple steps will let the watch adjust its time automatically as it receives the relevant radio signal.

Sounds fancy and fragile, right? Thankfully, Citizen put all this sweet tech into a titanium body.  Top that off with an anti-reflective sapphire crystal dial, and you have a fancy and durable waterproof watch. That’s right.  Waterproof.  The Citizen Men’s Eco-Drive Sport Luxury boasts a water resistance rating of up to 200 m or 660 feet.

Naturally, these features and this durability come at a price.  The Citizen Eco-Drive watches are very expensive, though you can often find deals on Amazon to bring the price closer to earth.  Additionally, some users may find the metal bracelet of the watch less comfortable than other bands, such as leather.

Some smartwatches can tolerate water.  The Apple Watch Ultra is designed for it.  And the mountain you climbed over to get to the water.  And the trail you followed up the mountain.

It’s also one of just two smartwatches that made our list of waterproof watches.  Samsung recommends taking their watches no deeper than 5 feet for no longer than 30 minutes at a time. Meanwhile, Fitbit’s website lists 50M as a maximum depth for its waterproof watches, making them really only viable in the shower or a swimming pool based on our guide.

With a massive 49mm sapphire crystal screen on a titanium case, the Apple Watch Ultra was designed to be durable and the most waterproof smartwatch Apple has released to date.  It carries a water resistance rating of 100M and a certified rating of 40M for recreational scuba diving.

With the right app, customers can incorporate an actual dive computer into the watch’s functionality.  That’s right.  This watch was made for recreational diving. For more information on the functionality of the Dive Computer, check out our review specifically for this feature.

Don’t dive much? You’ll still find plenty of use for it in other outdoor environments with its improved compass and dual-frequency GPS. Alternatively, you can always just step into the office with a sweet-looking, geek-salivating smart watch.

Garmin has a wide range of smartwatches and “smart-ish” watches.  Some of their lower-end watches are barely water resistant; they also have higher-end options that cost even more than the Apple Watch Ultra.  Their middle-of-the-road Instinct 2S Solar watch stands as an excellent smart watch with a good water resistance rating and plenty of the features you’d want from a smartwatch but comes in several hundred dollars cheaper than the newest smartwatch released from the major players in the market.

Through downloading an app on compatible smartphones, the Instinct 2S Solar can do many of the exact same things you’d do on a smartwatch from the exact same company as your phone.  The Instinct can receive texts and alerts, use a contactless pay system with participating providers, activate safety features, display events from your smartphone’s calendar, and more!

The watch also carries a plethora of health-tracking related features such as heart rate, respiratory rate, and sleep score, to name just a few.  In the exercise and athletics areas, the watch can track all kinds of activities, exercises, and athletics.  Whether you want to track your daily runs, your daily swims, or your yoga workouts, Garmin’s Instinct 2S Solar can do it.

The battery life is also far superior to other smartwatches, partly due to its ability to use solar charging, but significantly due to a potential downside for some, which is the monochromatic display.  It works great in sunlight, but that means only one color.  For users that don’t mind sacrificing that color, the battery life can last much longer than most smartwatches.  Turning on battery-saving modes, capitalizing on solar power, and limiting use to certain features can extend the battery life of the watch from less than a day to several weeks!

Its water resistance is comparable to the other smartwatches on the list, though it doesn’t boast the certified recreational diver’s rating that the Apple Watch Ultra does.  That said, if you’re spending less time in the water and more time on the land off-the-grid as a part of your recreational routine, the Garmin Instinct S2 Solar is a great smartwatch for a decent price.

The Orient ‘Ray II’ Automatic Stainless Steel Watch provides high-end durability, water-resistance, and aesthetic at an affordable price. With a 200M water-resistance rating, a scratch-proof mineral window, high caliber Japanese quartz movement, and a stainless steel case, this watch should last you several years at least before developing serious problems.

The watch’s elegant design makes it look like it should be more expensive than it really is.  Its easy-to-read date window, effortless clasp, and a signature crown offer nice features and finishing touches to the overall presentation.

The Casio G-Shock Frogman has so many (diver-friendly!!!!!) features, it is the closest thing to a smartwatch without actually being a smartwatch!  To name a few, just look at its stainless steel buttons, moon phase and tide indicators, solar battery, or its 200M water resistance.  Just in case you were really skeptical of its water resistance, the Casio G-Shock Frogman carries an ISO-6425 diver’s certification, something some other “dive” watches can’t claim.

The watch is so full of features it literally shows it.  This is one of the bulkiest looking watches on our list, which may deter users wanting a sleek aesthetic, but its many unique features make the size and higher than average price tag worth it.  We especially enjoy its auto EL backlight that lets you illuminate the watch with a turn of the wrist instead of pressing a button, which swimmers and divers everywhere can appreciate.

The TAG Heuer Formula 1 Stainless Steel Watch looks like it belongs on a celebrity driving a red convertible. The black-and-steel shade is perfectly synced with the racetrack-type markings with a hint of a winning red.

The TAG Heuer Formula 1 has a functionality and durability to back up its aesthetic excellence. The watch boasts an excellent water-resistance rating of 660ft, a reliable Swiss quartz movement, and a fine-brushed stainless steel case.  We especially enjoy the fact that the hour markers are luminous, making the watch actually legible when underwater–a feat some other waterproof watches can’t accomplish.

The rubber strap is flexible enough, obviously, but its holes may catch and tug on arm hair.  We also felt that the crown appeared to have a looser fit than the crowns of other waterproof watches we’ve seen out there, making routine maintenance a potential point of concern for the long-term.

The Luminox Evo Navy Seal Blackout is a solid middle-of-the-road choice for customers truly planning on taking their watch into the water.

Its construction and operation both include some quality designs such as durable Swiss Quartz Movement, an anti-scratch coating applied to the mineral dial window, and a carbon-reinforced case.  Its lightweight construction makes divers forget they even have something wrapped around their wrist.

The features and design don’t come with any flash, however.  While some users may enjoy and specifically want the all-black aesthetic (the watch looks like it belongs underwater), other users may prefer a watch that can also function as a piece of formalwear for the office or a party.

We have seen so many analog watches in our research we had to throw at least one on our list for people preferring a digital watch but don’t want or need to pay up for a smartwatch.  Thankfully, Nixon Heat provides just that–a quality digital watch with enough durability and features to avoid being a $25 watch you give to your nephew on his 13th birthday only for it to break in two months, but at a price way cheaper than most smartwatches present at the market.

With a stainless steel case, a mineral crystal screen, and (according to Amazon) design input by an actual surfer, the Nixon Heat presents itself as a durable and reliable digital watch.  Its calendar, stopwatch, premade timers, EL backlight and chronograph represent meaningful but generally expected features in a digital watch.

The biggest downside is its middle-of-the-road water resistance rating of only 100M.  In other words, it’ll do just fine in the shower and on or near the water’s surface, but this won’t be a digital watch you’ll want to take deep underwater for extended periods.

An all-time classic Timex Expedition Field Chronograph Watch combines reasonable waterproof qualities with an outstanding design. Your eyes will be not on the prize, but on the price considering how extremely affordable it is. From mineral dial window to leather/double-layer fabric straps and analog display, this hybrid will serve you well in your transitions from the office to the swimming pool.

And, as always, a one-year warranty provided by Timex is the icing on the cake.

A great budgetary alternative to high-end watches, Fossil Quartz Stainless Steel and Metal Casula Watch is a total steal from (almost) every perspective. It’s got a stylish design, the benefits of a highly qualitative quartz movement, and the chronograph feature. In addition to that, it fits like a glove thanks to the superb mixture of size and weight.

If only it was twice as water-resistant as it is, the listing of the following watches would make no sense.

A watch designed specifically for water-related activities, Technomarine Cruise Chronograph Quartz Watch is your best friend when venturing on another adventure. Featuring a 60-second sub-dial, a 1/10th-second sub-dial, and a 12-hour sub-dial, this accessory will come in handy for snorkel-lovers.

And in case you don’t trust our words – the upside-down crown is there to prove the waterproofness.

An automatic Hamilton Khaki Field Back Dial Watch is not only powered by the well-known Swiss engineering but is also super practical. Although Hamilton is a higher-end brand, the quality of the watch makes the price tag seem fair. The scratch-proof sapphire crystal dial window in combination with titanium bezel considerably contributes to its durability.

Feel free to wear it on your next snorkeling adventure, but do not dive with it for long.