The Family: Prospex

Seiko Prospex challenges every limit, with a collection of timepieces for sports lovers and adventure seekers whether in the water, in the sky or on land. Seiko are constantly striving to bring ever greater reliability and safety to both professional and recreational divers. The variety in the collection offers different movements like automatic, solar, analogue quartz, solar chronograph and radio sync solar world time chronograph watches.

The Prospex Story:

Scuba-diving became increasingly popular around the 1960’s, an example of this was the formation of the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) in 1965. Moreover, diving equipment was becoming increasingly reliable, so more people began to dive recreationally. There was of course a crucial need for divers to be able to time their dives. Subsequently, the watch market responded to this necessity by flooding the market with reliable dive watches.

In 1965, Seiko first produced their original dive watch – the 6217. This was the very first Japanese dive watch and it paved the path for future divers that claim to meet Seiko’s Professional Specifications (the Prospex). The original 6217 was notably worn by the 8th Japanese Antarctic expedition. This model featured bidirectional rotating bezel, distinctive and lumed hands, and an easy-to-grip crown.

Although professional divers were still pining for a dive watch that had the capability of going deeper than 300 metres. The Seiko development team went about going to produce a watch which was capable of doing so. The year 1975 marks the release of the first Seiko Prospex, with the ability to be used in 600 metres of depth. It’s first diver watch to use a titanium case instead of a standard steel case. It was also the first to use a ceramic shroud for deep-sea diving and the first to use a hybrid analog digital watch with an alarm.

Another achievement for the Prospex family was the L-shape single crystal gasket, which prevented any helium escape valve uanessacry. This was one of the development teams first aims, to prevent a helium resistant watch. There were numerous other milestones that Seiko achieved with the Prospex. Such as in 1986 when Seiko produced a watch that was water resistant to 1000 metres.

The Brand: Seiko

Seiko’s story began in 1881 with the opening of a clock shop in Tokyo, it’s owner was Kintaro Hattori. Eleven years after the opening of his shop, Hattori opened a clock factory with ten employees and it was in 1895 that they began to produce pocket watches. Soon followed by alarm clocks in 1899, and then table clocks in 1902. Then in 1913 Hattori began working on his first wristwatch. The in 1924, 43 years after the initial opening, the brand Seiko was born with the creation of the first Seiko wristwatch.

Seiko established itself throughout the 20th century as being a driving force in the advancements that took place in the watching world. For example, in 1956, Seiko were the producers of the first winding wristwatch made in Japan. Then in 1964, Seiko became the official timer for the Tokyo Olympics. And then most notably Seiko unveiled the first quartz wristwatch, the Astron, in 1969. Marking the beginning of the quartz revolution. Or equally impressive the creation of the world’s first TV watch in 1982. And even more relevant today, with our abhorrent use of non-renewable energy sources, Seiko’s Kinetic. This watch had the ability to generate its own power from the movement of the wearer, it was released in 1988.

Ceaseless determination to innovate in every aspect of the watchmaker’s art is what defines Seiko’s 135-year history. By embracing this ethos, Seiko has been responsible for a string of industry-leading advances in the technology of time. Notably, the creation of the world’s first quartz watch in 1969. The listed technological developments serve as evidence to illustrate the revolutionary impact which Seiko has had on the watchmaking world. They are also markably unique in that they manufacture every aspect of every watch in-house.