Review: Omega Seamaster Diver 300m Green

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: clickbait title to hook ‘em in and get the eyeballs. You may well believe that, but the more I look at Omega’s latest Seamaster, the more I wonder. To quote the comedian Dave Chapelle, “It’s green.” Let me explain.

Background

Back in the day, before ceramic bezels and trade show stands the size of small mansions, there was a watchmaker called Omega. Omega was a good watch brand because it led the Swiss out of the watchmaking wilderness and into the light of fully vertical manufacture. No longer did watch movements get assembled from parts made by bored farmers, each fitting worse than a gas station hotdog at a presidential feast.

Omega had cracked it. A ground up movement, designed in-house, produced under one roof, assembled with ease and precision. This movement was actually called Omega and it was so good the brand renamed itself after it.

By the turn of the century, the 1800s were over. Omega was king. It had won in every arena: accuracy, quality, volume. There was no one who could compete. Oh yeah, except a German guy living in England importing Swiss movements to make ladies watches he tried selling to men.

Omega laughed in the face of this nonsense. It made big ‘ole pockets watches for men that told the time and looked expensive. Who was this Rolex with its silly ideas? Well, World War 1 came along and promptly showed them that, actually, wearing a wristwatch is pretty handy, whether man or woman. Round One to Rolex.

So, Omega made a wristwatch too, a beautiful and delicate thing that expressed quality and prowess as a watchmaker. So, Rolex had its wristwatch certified as a chronometer, made it waterproof and got real, professional divers to wear it. Round Two to Rolex.

And so, Omega designed the biggest, baddest and most waterproofest watch ever in the world, built to be taken to the bottom of the ocean and back again in the most dangerous and technologically advanced dive expeditions ever. This watch took four years to make and introduced some of the latest and greatest features ever to be seen in a wristwatch. Rolex, meanwhile, made its existing diver a little thicker and flogged it to the pros before the Omega even saw the light of day. Round Three to Rolex.

So, you can see that Omega has been roundly outsmarted by Rolex on many an occasion, and since we started wearing mechanical wristwatches again because they’re neat, the story hasn’t really changed. Rolex runs the roost and Omega comes in second.

In recent times, there’s been one distinct difference between Rolex and Omega, however: the ability to actually get one. If you want a Submariner, you must first join a cult and do unspeakable things. If you want a Seamaster, you can just walk into your local Omega store and buy on. Heck, if that sounds like too much effort you can simply order one online and the postie will bring it to your door.

Not this one, however. In 2022, green is the colour—the colour of envy. The latest Seamaster is adorned in a rich swathe of the earthy colour and it, unlike its siblings, is not readily available. Yes, that’s right—you have to join a waitlist.

Review

I would like to read for you now a series of pull-out quotes Omega has chosen to highlight the unique nature of its green Seamaster. “The hands and indexes are all rhodium-plated with white Super-LumiNova.” That’s one. Here’s another: “The helium escape valve is presented in today’s updated conical shape.”

Strong words. Not doing a whole lot to explain why the green—let’s be honest, almost black in most lights—ceramic bezel and dial should warrant a queue. So, why is there a waitlist? How is it that Omega has tapped into the Rolex trick of making people thirstier than the comments in a Jenni Elle video?

Let’s take a look at the watch itself. Green, we’ve established that bit. It’s no more expensive than the other colourways. That’s because it is otherwise identical. Same 300m water-resistance. Same 42mm steel case. Same helium escape valve. Same hands and indexes all identically rhodium-plated and with the same white Super-LumiNova. Same METAS certified, anti-magnetic, Co-Axial calibre 8800, too.

Looks like people just desperately want one a lot more than they do the black or blue or any of the others. And that’s where I begin to think that Omega has started to fall in line with the Rolex way of thinking. Here’s why.

When you look at the Omega product line, it is, frankly, a mess. The Seamaster collection holds modern and vintage variations of the same product. Rolex splits its vintage stuff into the Tudor brand. There’s a luxury Seamaster too, the Aqua-Terra, which looks similar to but is different from the De Ville. And there’s the Railmaster, which is also a Seamaster, even though it wasn’t when it came out in ‘57. It was separate, like the Speedmaster.

That’s not even beginning to scratch the surface. It would be easier to sort maggots by wriggliness than to arrange Omega’s catalogue. Compare that to Rolex and you’ll see the difference. There’s a dive watch. A better dive watch. The best dive watch. There’s a GMT. A chronograph. An explorer. That one’s called the Explorer. It’s all very easy.

Rolex has spent decades optimising its catalogue to make choosing and spec’ing a watch a simple pleasure and not a part-time career. There’s nothing tedious or overwhelming about it. You don’t have to learn the entire life story of a centuries-old brand to make sense of it. And that’s why, when Rolex changes a bezel colour to green, everyone goes crazy.

See, Omega had our best interests at heart. It wanted to please everyone, everywhere, all the time. The people who like vintage, the people who like pared back, the people who like contemporary and the people who like robust. Not a single model can exist without trying to make it appealing to anything with eyes and a wrist. But we can’t cope with that. It’s the paradox of choice. And so when Omega decided to update a core model with one simple change, green, everyone goes crazy.

I can’t say I blame them. There’s what people say and what people want, and usually those two things have as much in common as I do with an Easter egg, and that’s what Omega appears to be learning. Keep it simple. Keep it easy. For now, at least, keep it green.

What do you think of Omega’s decision to update the Seamaster to green and why do you think it’s commanding a waitlist? Perhaps it’s a case of false scarcity? Could it be that Omega has spent more money on marketing this one? Rolex’s ever-popular green GMT could have triggered the whole thing? Or maybe green is just a really nice colour on the Seamaster?

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