The Most Fun Dive Watch of 2024 Might Also Be the Weirdest

On paper, this watch shouldn’t work. On wrist, it most certainly does.

Published December 22, 2024

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For years, Zenith has had all the makings of a major luxury sports watch brand, except for one thing: a dive watch.

In 2024, Zenith finally rectified this glaring omission in its catalog in the most glorious way possible with a pair of brand-new divers.

The first was the Defy Extreme Diver, a thoroughly modern dive watch with a clear familial relation to the rest of the brand’s modern Defy line. The other was, well, this: the Defy Revival A3648.

Zenith Defy Revival A3648

A faithful remake of one of Zenith’s very first dive watches from 1969, the Revival A3648 maintains the original’s overall design, 37mm case size and even its robust 600m water resistance, but sees some upgrades in the form of a trio of sapphire crystals and modern luxury-level finishing.

Specs

Case Size	37mm
Movement	Zenith Elite 670 automatic
Water Resistance	600m

$7,700 at Zenith

A reissue of one Zenith’s original divers from the 1960s, the Defy Revival excels because of just how unexpected it is.

No one today makes watches that look like this. Hell, hardly anyone made them back in 1969.

The sharply angled eight-sided case and 14-sided bezel, the bright orange color, the high amount of mirror polish, the diminutive 37mm case size, the whopping 600-meter water resistance … everything about this watch is just bizarre.

That’s what makes it great. No one today makes watches that look like this. Hell, hardly anyone made them back in 1969 when the original debuted.

zenith orange dive watch on its side — Perhaps the best way to describe this diver is “lovably weird.”

The fact that Zenith opted to release this as its first dive watch in decades says a lot about the brand’s daring attitude, and we ended up with the year’s most fun dive watch as a result.