Oris has been known for several decades as a brand that offers incredibly functional and instrumental timepieces at prices that are impossible to beat. Apart from being one of the most approachable watch manufacturers among established Swiss brands, the Holstein-based Marque has been on fire in recent years.
Oris has been elevating its prominence by releasing robust dive watches with a dash of elegance and vintage inspiration. When it comes to dive watches, the contenders in this genre are heavyweight, but the ones from Oris encapsulate essentially Swiss industrial supremacy.
And we all know that when done right, a good diver has an appeal that runs deep! From high legibility to a practical feature set and flexible design language, here are ten of the very best dive watches from Oris.
These watches are deep in quality and performance but shallow in price. So span your wardrobe style with ease, as each selection is worth your time!
About Oris Dive Watches
Oris is one of the few Swiss watch brands that has maintained its independence even after 100 years. The company is known to produce mechanical watches with exceptional value for money.
The Oris catalog comprises exclusive watches for divers, pilots, and motorsport fans. There’s also a non-sports-oriented edition in the Culture collection with classic-looking timepieces that bear a mixture of tradition and innovation.
The Oris ProDiver line was made for serious diving professionals and comes with a water-resistant rating of up to 1000 meters. It includes the ProDiver GMT and the Oris ProDiver Chronograph, which features the Rotation Safety System.
Again, some of the brand’s watches are tied to environmental conservation causes through alliances with various conservationist organizations.
The divers’ collection includes purpose-driven tool watches and is divided into vintage-inspired (Diver’s 65) and modern-styled (Aquis) timepieces. The dive watches come in stainless steel cases that can withstand depths of 100 to 300 meters.
The purpose-driven tool watches feature a unidirectional rotating ceramic bezel and screw-down crown. These timepieces enjoy widespread popularity and are highly legible with luminescent hour markers and hands, making them easy to read in the darkest depths.
The divers’ collection includes watches with a date mechanism, GMT complication, chronograph, and innovative depth gauge. Prices for Oris’ dive watch hover around $2,000.
History of Oris Dive Watches
To better understand the Oris dive watch catalog, let’s briefly explore the legacy of this iconic brand. Oris was founded in 1904 by Paul Catlin and Georges Christian in the Swiss town of Hölstein.
The duo acquired Lohner & Co watch factory, which had just closed down, and named it ‘Oris’ after a brook running nearby. From the onset, the goal was to produce affordable quality watches for the “everyman”, and in a few years, the company expanded extensively.
Six factory facilities were opened by 1925, making Oris the largest employer in Hölstein, with over 300 workers. In the same year, the watch manufacturer began the production of wristwatches in earnest by fitting bracelet buckles to its pocket watches.
The brand continued to forge ahead despite the passing of its co-founder Georges Christian in 1927. Jacques-David LeCoultre became President of Oris’s Board of Directors in the same year, and in 1938, it released its first signature pilot watch, ‘Big Crown’.
Production of alarm clocks kept the business running through the Second World War, and the first automatic watch — the caliber 601 — was launched in 1952. From this point on, we begin to see the production of some of the brand’s top icons. One such is the first waterproof watch, produced in 1965.
The watch was water-resistant to 100m and came in a 36mm chromium-plated brass case with domed plexiglass. It featured a highly legible black dial with liberal amounts of tritium, a uni-directional rotating bezel, and the manually wound caliber 654.
Oris launched a modernized remake of the legendary line back in 2015, and since that time, the vintage-inspired model has been revisited in countless versions.
The 10 Best Oris Dive Watches
1. Oris Aquis Date Calibre 400 (ref. 01 400 7769 4135-07 8 22 09PEB)
Starting this selection is none other than an impressive contemporary diver with a simplicity and effortlessness that places it as one of the most versatile dive watches out there. The Aquis collection marches to the beat of its drum and needs little introduction amongst enthusiasts and collectors.
The Date Calibre 400, which perfectly represents Oris’ excellent value-for-money capabilities, has all the features you would expect from a dive watch. It has a screw-down crown, a unidirectional rotating bezel with grooves (to allow divers to grab it with gloves), and a sapphire crystal.
Rated to 300 meters, the Aquis Date Calibre 400 wears quite well at 41.50mm in diameter and 48mm from lug end to lug end. The familiar fume dial that progressively transitions from blue in the center to almost black at the borders features wide bar hour markers and sword hands that add grace and elegance to the tool watch.
The large hands and hour markers have a very generous coating of Super-LumiNova for legibility in low-light conditions. The revolutionary Calibre 400 is visible through the transparent sapphire case back. This in-house automatic movement is pretty impressive, with 5 days of power reserve and a 10-year warranty. You can get it here.
2. Oris Divers Sixty-Five (ref. 01 733 7707 4354-07 8 20 18)
The Oris Divers Sixty-Five is one of the best bang-for-buck entry-level Swiss watches out there. Oris proudly satisfies the appetite for luxury mechanical dive watches with this no-fuss timepiece that perfectly reinterprets traditional watchmaking for the 21st century.
The stainless steel case is appropriately sized at 40mm with a height of almost 13 mm, giving it a noticeable – but not overwhelming – presence on the wrist. The case features a 120-click unidirectional bezel, a profusely domed sapphire on top, and a proportionate, tightly-sealed crown.
It is water resistant to a depth of 100 meters, and I know this might raise eyebrows, but trust me, when Oris says it’s 100m, it’s 100m. Better to count on Oris’ 100m rating than a microbrand’s 200m assertion any day, anytime.
The black dial is slightly textured with applied indices and hands, plated with rose gold to match the hands and bezel grooves. The gold paint offers the dial a slight shimmery countenance that just looks royal against the black backdrop.
A date window sits at 6 o’clock while Oris’ logo is printed boldly below 12 o’clock in gold paint. Ticking away inside the timepiece is the Oris’ 733 automatic winding movement. Based on the Sellita SW200-1, the movement offers 38 hours of power reserve.
3. Oris Aquis GMT Date (ref. 01 798 7754 4135-07 8 24 05PEB)
The Oris Aquis GMT Date encapsulates all of the quintessential design codes that offer a contemporary voice to high-performing retro dive watches. If you heard of the buzz emanating from Oris stand at Baselworld 2019, it was thanks to this professional diver with an unconventional combination of complications.
Massive at 43.50 mm wide, this timepiece has that unmistakable tool watch appearance with a charm and twist that has made it the darling of the collectors’ community. The no-nonsense watch allows the wearer to access three distinct time-zone readings.
The local time is set by using the standard hour hand, while the GMT hand, with a yellow tip (set by the crown), regulates the home time. The third time zone is set using the GMT hand together with the bidirectional GMT bezel.
Rated to 300 meters, this watch features an attractive sunburst blue dial with bold applied indices and rhodium-plated hands. All the hour markers, hands, and the inverted triangle at position ’24’ in the bezel have been applied with Super-LumiNova.
The watch is tempting, engaging, and resplendent, with a 24-hour ring on the dial and a date window at 3 o’clock. Under the hood, the automatic caliber 798, based on a Sellita SW 330-1, provides a power reserve of 42 hours. You can get it here.
4. Oris Divers Sixty-Five Bronze (ref. 01 733 7771 3155-07 8 19 15)
The Divers Sixty-Five has been an experimental ground for Oris technically and aesthetically. The Swiss Marque chooses to venture off-piste with this cool and robust Bronze timepiece with a universal appeal.
Besides being highly resistant to saltwater corrosion, Bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) is packed with several advantageous properties. It is widely used in the making of dive watches and has a signature warm color that is prone to darken over time, bringing forth a pleasing patina.
Perfectly sized at 38mm, the case of the Divers Sixty-Five Bronze is notably comfortable with pleasing proportions. At only 12 mm thick and a lug-to-lug length of approximately 48mm, the watch evokes a vintage feel with its faded, patinated retro green dial.
The pastel dial features plain, legible hands with circular and rectangular hour markers coated with old-radium Super-LumiNova. The open minute track and dial text is all done up in white, keeping the dial pretty neat and uncluttered.
A date window sits at 6 o’clock, and the dial is protected by an ultra-domed sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating.
Keeping the cost down is a simple and reliable movement with 26 jewels and a power reserve of 38 hours; the 733 caliber. The watch is water-resistant to a depth of 100 meters.
5. Oris Aquis Date 36.5mm Pink Dial (ref. 01 733 7770 4158-07 8 18 05P)
Oris is one of the most customer-focused Swiss brands out there. Over the years, they have dared to be bold by going against the grain when many comparably sized Swiss brands would have chosen to play safe.
The Aquis Date 36.5mm Pink Dial reflects the Marque’s willingness to shun convention and embrace new ideas. At 36.5 mm in diameter, the watch is small with a tapered steel bracelet that gives it a distinctive personality that is just refreshing, sleek, and radiant.
Don’t let the unserious aesthetics fool you, though; this right here is a no-fuss diver with 300 meters of water resistance. To be honest, I was quite surprised (and thrilled) to discover that such a fun and amusing timepiece came with a pro depth rating and sophistication like “toolish” divers.
We see the familiar Oris look again here; hour appliqués and the hands standing out in contrast against a brilliant pink dial. However, the shimmering effect is striking on this one, and Oris likens the radiance to sunlight on the water’s surface.
There’s a partially guarded crown with a unidirectional rotating bezel and a 60-minute scale in relief. The dial is protected by a double-domed sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating inside.
Ticking underneath the mineral glass exhibition case back is the tested, tried, and true Oris 733 automatic movement with a 38-hour power reserve.
6. Oris Aquis Depth Gauge (ref. 01 733 7755 4154-Set RS)
Even though this right here is a ten-year-old release, the Aquis Depth Gauge remains one of the choicest dive watches on the market. Bold, robust, and solid, this timepiece is a workhorse of a dive watch.
It is presented in a large stainless steel case that measures 45.80 mm in diameter, so it’s certainly not for everyone. However, the lugs are short and angled, so it wears more comfortably than the measurements suggest.
The unidirectional rotating bezel is sturdy but easy to rotate, and the watch features a functioning depth gauge that measures depth during a dive. This patented system operates through a hole in the sapphire crystal at 12 o’clock.
The opening goes around till about 1 o’clock and uses the scientific principles of Boyle-Mariotte’s Law. The more you descend, the more pressure builds up, leading to a compression of the trapped air in the glass.
The exact depth can be determined by a scale on the inside created by a watermark that equates to a gauge pointed out in yellow on the dial. The timepiece delivers a high performance underwater with sharp black, white, and yellow markings on the dial for maximum contrast.
The case back features an engraved meters-to-feet conversion scale, enhancing the overall experience of the watch. It is powered by the Oris 733 caliber, based on the Sellita SW 200-1 automatic movement, and can be gotten here.
7. Oris Divers Sixty-Five Oris Social Club Edition (ref. 01 733 7707 4051 OSC-USA-Set)
Oris is a brand that knows how to capture the attention of the watch community. The lore surrounding the Oris Divers Sixty-Five Oris Social Club Edition centers on the creation of an atmosphere where the love for Oris and elegant timepieces converge.
Coming as a collaboration between Oris’ design team and the Oris Social Club or fanbase, this watch is unique and deserves the appeal of the masses. At 40 mm in diameter, the stainless steel case is truly universal with pleasing proportions.
Its polished sides and brushing on the top of the lugs give it a warm, refined look. For the first time in the Oris Sixty-Five lineup, we have a white dial.
Beyond that, Oris has made something special by customizing the case back of this timepiece with special engravings. Each city with an Oris Social Club has a special logo carved on the case back.
The layout of the dial is familiar with what we’ve seen in the Divers Sixty-Five collection. However, a nice detail worth mentioning here is that the hour markers and hands have black surrounds to match the bezel and watch strap.
The timepiece is water-resistant to a depth of 100 meters and was designed to be worn in any situation where relaxation and leisure are a priority. It is powered by the modified Sellita SW 200-1, Oris 733 caliber, and can be bought here.
8. Oris Aquis Date Green Dial (ref. 01 733 7766 4157-07 8 22 05PEB)
Featuring a bewitching green dial, the Oris Aquis Date is an impressive watch that will appeal to a wide array of enthusiasts. The stainless steel case measures 41.50 mm across with alternating polished and brushed finishing, giving it a really elegant look.
It is paired with a stainless steel bracelet with finely polished outer and brushed center links. The green dial is quite captivating, with a variegated appearance in different lighting conditions.
The sunray motif causes it to assume a vibrant nature, like the shimmering effect of the sun on the surface of the ocean. Its dial is further adorned with silver-toned, applied indices that add depth and opulence to its surface.
The striking dial might make the timepiece feel more like an “everyday sports watch”, but with a water resistance rating of 300 meters, the dive instrument is a no-nonsense tool watch. Crisp white strokes lie between the hour markers, and together with a luminescent central sweep seconds hand, reading the minutes and seconds is pretty easy.
The hands and indices have been treated with Superluminova BG W9, giving off a blue emission in dim light. It is powered by the Oris 733 caliber, visible via the exhibition case back.
9. Oris Aquis Date Upcycle (ref. 01 733 7766 4150-Set)
Oris strives towards a more sustainable environment with the Aquis Date Upcycle, which was launched in a bid to draw attention to ocean waste. The timepiece is fitted with a special type of dial that seems a bit random, abstract, and nothing very eye-catching.
The plastic-based dial is unique, so every timepiece in the Upcycle lineup is remarkably different. The watch is presented in a stainless steel case that measures 41.50 mm across with a unidirectional rotatable bezel and grey ceramic bezel insert.
The construction of the case is the same as other Aquis models, with alternating brushed and polished surfaces. The screw-down crown is protected on either side by the signature Aquis crown guard though here it appears thinner giving the watch a neater and sharper appearance.
The dial was produced in partnership with Tide (a Swiss company famous for recycling plastics from the ocean) and features an exclusive pattern and color scheme. The hours are denoted by luminous hour markers, while bold hands (also luminescent) indicate the time.
The watch is water-resistant to a depth of 300 meters and comes on a steel bracelet. Visible through the sapphire crystal case back is the Oris 733 caliber, which provides a power reserve of 38 hours when fully wound.
10. Oris Aquis Date Relief (ref. 01 733 7730 4153-07 4 24 63EB)
Launched in collaboration with Water Ambassador and Explorer Ernst Bromeis, Oris raises awareness of a serious issue with this high-performing diver. The Aquis Date Relief draws attention to the importance of the Earth’s fragile freshwater reserve.
The joint action, tagged ‘The Blue Miracle’, will involve Ernst swimming across the world’s largest freshwater lake (Lake Baikal) with the Date Relief strapped on his wrist.
The timepiece comes in a sturdy 43.50 mm diameter stainless steel case that is water-resistant to a depth of 300 meters. The aesthetics and craftsmanship do not deviate a lot from the other dive watches we’ve looked at.
The sunburst grey dial has the typical silver-toned luminous hour markers and bold hands indicating the time meticulously. Red seconds hand with a luminous lollipop pip enlivens the somber dial while a date window indicated with a white disc and black digit sits at 6 o’clock.
For the first time, a relief bezel is used on an Aquis. This means the unidirectional rotating bezel has three-dimensional numerals standing out from the surface of the scale.
Keeping the price down is the self-winding Oris 733, with a reliable and easily serviceable engine and a power reserve of 38 hours.
Conclusion
The making of first-class watches at accessible prices has become an inseparable part of Oris’ identity. It is upon this core value that the brand was built, and through the years, the watch community has come to respect Oris for Its commitment.
The brand’s high-performance dive watches are known for their robustness and sporty look that appeals to a ton of watch enthusiasts globally. They will forever remain a testament to the brand’s excellent value-for-money capabilities.
