Introducing: Hitting New Depths With The Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M And Planet Ocean 6000M ‘Ultra Deep’
With a day of releases that seems to have touched nearly every part of the Seamaster lineup, of course the brand couldn’t leave out its two deepest-diving watches, the Planet Ocean 600M and Seamaster Planet Ocean 6000M Ultra Deep. These two watches are built to withstand serious pressure and both have gotten a new – albeit familiar – look. Let’s dive in.
The Planet Ocean 600M
The new Planet Ocean 600M measures 39.5mm by 14.2mm. Those dimensions are for a dive watch fitted with a helium escape valve, rated for 600m of water resistance, featuring a solid caseback with the new Poseidon motif, and a very blue color scheme.
The dark and powder blue colors on the ceramic bezel are cool, but it’s the dial that seems to be one of the biggest selling points. It’s ceramic with blue PVD coating that is then brushed to form a gradient from the light to dark, starting at the center. Amidst all that, it maintains a vertical brushed pattern. Then there are the raised powder blue (or what Omega calls “Summer Blue”) numerals tying the design together.
Inside the watch beats the Caliber 8900 Master Chronometer-certified co-axial movement with 55 hours of power reserve and date function. Even if you can’t see the movement through the caseback, Omega says this METAS-approved movement will offer the expected resistance to magnetic fields reaching 15,000 gauss, a free-sprung balance with silicon balance spring, automatic winding in both directions, and a rhodium-plated finish with Geneva waves in arabesque.
The Planet Ocean has always been a curious watch for me. I’ve seen more than a handful on various wrists in the last few years but it seems like watch enthusiasts gravitate toward the 300 and 300M before going for the more sporty and modern Planet Ocean 600M. It’s also a design that has started to feel a bit long in the tooth for me. But there’s something about this new Planet Ocean 600M that really catches my eye.
The $7,400 price point for a Master Chronometer-certified co-axial watch seems right, especially considering how overbuilt it is and how many nice touches there are, especially on the dial. The three-dimensional Arabic-numeral hour markers will never cease to make me smile because of the visual depth they add. But Omega could have done without the “ZrO2” on the dial (referencing the zirconium oxide PVD-coated and brushed dial treatment). I think the dial brushing and gradient speaks for itself and you don’t need an extra reminder of the treatment each time you look at the watch. Other than that, this is a nice celebratory design for a capable, wearable, diver.
The Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600m is a 39.5 mm stainless steel dive watch measuring 14.2mm thick. With 600 meters of water resistance, an engraved case back, and a gradient blue dial, a ceramic bezel, and helium escape valve. The Seamaster Planet Ocean 600 uses the Omega Co-axial Master-Chronometer Caliber 8900, a METAS-certified automatic movement with 55 hours of power reserve. Priced at $7,400.
The Planet Ocean 6000M Ultra Deep
I’ll keep this section short since we’ve talked about the record-setting (at the time) Planet Ocean 6000M Ultra Deep when it was originally announced as a commercial watch last year. The new anniversary Ultra Deep slides into the lineup alongside the other Seamasters with a new blue colorway, but darker (and more hefty) than most of its compatriots (the darker blue color is a reference to its depth rating).
The ceramic bezel is black with touches of light blue to cover the range of colors you’d get from the surface to the deepest depths of the ocean. That darkness creeps into the dial as well, which is yet again the biggest selling point of the watch.
According to Omega, the dial pattern is an “accurate representation of the bottom of the Challenger Deep,” the deepest point in the Mariana Trench,” which was mapped out by the Five Deeps team using nearly a million sonar points. That dial then is coated with liquid enamel in a flowing pattern to create visual depth. And if you shine a UV light on it, there’s a bit of hidden text that says “Omega Was Here,” signifying the world record dive of 10,935 meters. It’s a super cool dial for such an intense tool and I feel like I’m going to need to see it in person to fully appreciate it.
The Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 6000M Ultra Deep is a 45.5 mm stainless steel dive watch measuring 18.1mm thick. With 6000 meters of water resistance, an engraved case back, and a “flowing” enamel gradient blue dial, and a ceramic bezel. The Seamaster Ultra Deep uses the Omega Co-axial Master-Chronometer Caliber 8912, a METAS-certified automatic movement with 60 hours of power reserve and time zone function. Priced at $13,000.
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Hodinkee is an authorized retailer of Omega watches. For more on this new Seamaster, visit Omega.
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