Is the water safe for swimming and diving this summer?

Tick, tock, tock, tock… it’s vacation time. In your suitcase, your high-tech panoply is complete: SkilledComputer, Tablet, Nomad enclosure, Reading light, not to mention your sophisticated connected watch that never leaves your wrist. But when it’s time to dive, can the latter accompany you to acquaint yourself with moray eels like in the film? Big blue ? “20 Minutes” reminds you of what you need to know before you get wet.

What depth?

This summer, Fabrice has decided to take on the brown mark her connected watch leaves on her wrist! Sportsman, he wants to measure his efforts using small activities, record his routes with GPS, measure height differences with the on-board altimeter or return to his starting point without leaving his Dogante during his holidays. He gets lost while hiking. He also hopes to dive a bit, having bought his precious “Level 2” since last year, which allows him to be autonomous down to minus 20 meters. His watch is water resistant up to 50 meters and has fabric room!

Please note, our vacationer is unlikely to know that his attached watch is not a diver’s watch. In fact, we distinguish between clocks waterproof, waterproof watches and diving watches. And not everyone delivers on the same promises.

Specific standards

Uniquely waterproof, they hardly resist splashing water. Many have already experienced this: with a slight dip, a small condensation may appear under the screen. It doesn’t matter if the watch gets wet when you wash your hands, it becomes more of a hassle if you take a dip in the pool with it on. To be truly waterproof, a watch must meet a certain ISO standard.

5 or 10 ATM for connected clocks

Most connected watches comply with the ISO 22810:2010 standard. Behind these figures, there is a requirement: the watch’s water resistance is at level 5, measured in ATM (atmosphere). And it is a 5 bar pressure. Thus, A Apple Watch Series 7A Samsung Galaxy Watch 4A Huawei See GT 3A Garmin Pioneer 255A Mi WatchOr a Fitbit Consciousness 5 All these are 5 ATM linked clocks.

Tip: If we multiply the previous ATM number by ten, we get the depth to which the watch should resist. That is, here, 50 meters. The exception is the latest Scanwatch Horizon 10 ATM from Vidings. So it can dive up to 100 meters. But it is on paper.

What are maritime activities?

If you read the instructions provided by Apple or Huawei on the matter, you can read that the respective watches from the manufacturers “can be used for shallow water activities such as swimming in a pool or open water”. In other words, you can swim with it, tease the sea urchins on the rocks with your mask, flippers and snorkel, but little else.

The Bad: It is strongly recommended not to use the 5 ATM watch for somewhat violent water activities such as water skiing, surfing, side surfing, which can wreak havoc on the watch. The pressure on the Dogante in case of impact with water actually exceeds the authorized limit by 5 atm… For its part, the site my-watchsite.fr It’s also definite: no diving or fast water sports with a watch that doesn’t have at least 20 ATM! This is the minimum. They are mainly found on G-Shock, but Seiko, Sertina…

No doubt Fabrice could spend a few minutes with the watch attached during his short dives, but it was clearly not designed. On the other hand, Dogante is very gifted in the pool, especially to calculate its number of lengths, heart rate, swimming time etc.

To dive deep beneath the waves, he must equip himself with a real diver’s watch. Compliant with the EN13319 standard, it has a depth measurement function that allows it to measure water depth using environmental pressure. These are professional devices whose resistance ranges from 20 atm for sport swimming or scuba diving to 30 atm or more for diving or scuba diving.