Richard Mille RM 028
Some dive best copy watches can withstand great depths, others have lumes that are brighter than the sun, and some even incorporate a few other complications. This is not the case with Richard Mille’s RM 028. It doesn't do these things. In fact, it's very simple. So why is it one of the craziest dive watches ever made?
Before we get any further into the ridiculous RM 028, let’s first clarify what a dive watch is. This may seem like a fairly simple answer – a watch to wear while diving – but it’s much more than that. Unlike chronographs or pilot watches, categories that give broad and loose functional designations, a proper dive watch actually has to meet a very strict set of standards.
It does make sense. Chrono laps won't kill you, and neither will pilot watches. However, with dive watches; if something goes wrong, you could be sleeping with the fish, quite literally. The International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, has produced not one but two sets of guidelines that determine exactly what features a watch must have in order to be classified as a dive watch. Side note: If you're a photographer wondering if the ISO setting on your camera has anything to do with the Swiss rule-makers, you're right - they set the standard for digital sensors to match the speed of film.
Anyway, back to the dive table. Since the concept of diving is not that old in the watch world, having become popular in the mid-20th century, dive watches are still considered a fairly new concept. Chronographs, calendars, chimes - they've been around for centuries, and although the idea of waterproofing has been pursued throughout history, it was never explored in a proper commercial way. After all, not many of us get soaked while wearing a copy luxury Watches.
But affordable, accessible diving has changed that. Self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (for scuba diving, of course) eliminates bulky wetsuits, oxygen tubes to the surface, and the entire team needed to perform the dive. People can go deeper and further, and they need a suitable watch. There is money to be made under the sea, so they need to make it as quickly as possible.
As a result, the evolution of dive watches happened at lightning speed – at least for the watchmaking industry. Watches such as the 1927 Rolex Oyster and the 1932 Omega Marine were already exploring light water resistance, but a dive watch needed to do more than that. First it needs to be more waterproof, but it also needs to be able to be used in dark, difficult underwater conditions. Watches such as the 1938 Panerai Radiomir used luminescent paint, which allowed the watch's information to be read underwater, while the dial and hands were also clear and easy to read with high contrast.
Then there is the time aspect. Of course, replica watches for sale already have a constant running time display, but a dive watch really needs something that's legible and unmistakable. One of the first examples of a dive watch bezel was the 1937 Rolex Zerographe, a flyback monopusher chronograph concept that never went into mass production.
But the last iteration of the bezel appeared on the 1953 Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, considered the father of the modern dive watch. What makes this version so unique is a simple modification that means the bezel can only turn in one direction. This is very important as it means that time can only be accidentally reduced from the reading rather than increased, never making the diver think they have more time than they actually have.
The combination of these factors resulted in the ISO 2281 water-resistant watch standard (note, not water-resistant, a term that is not allowed as it indicates complete impermeability) and the ISO 6425 diving watch standard. These regulations stipulate that a dive watch must be reliable underwater, have a time preselector device (such as a bezel), be legible underwater, have a running indicator (such as a second hand), be mildly antimagnetic, shock-resistant, and resistant to salt water sex. Only in this way can a watch be called a diver.
Does the RM 028 meet all these criteria? For an eye-watering RRP of £88,000, you bet it does. In order to wear the "300m" label on a high quality watches replica face, it must meet each of these requirements. But that’s hardly news, is it? Dive watches are a dime a dozen, and most certainly won't cost the better part of a house. In fact, most dive watches are the exact opposite of crazy, and it’s easy to see why: they’re sensible and steady.
Not RM 028. It goes in the exact opposite direction. Everything is executed in a way that defies all logic, all reasoning. I once moved into a house that had a built-in sideboard and decided to remove it. Whoever built it over-engineered it so that the pile of screws at the end was almost as big as the pile of wood. RM 028 is exactly the same.
I mean that literally. There are a lot of screws here, both externally and internally, but especially on the bezel. Most dive watches have push-in inserts, but the RM 028 does not. Its bezel is held in place by at least 30 screws (I actually counted them). thirty! Most watches don't have this feature at all, let alone a bezel. Each of these screws, like the security fittings used by automakers to stop would-be home mechanics from tampering with the engine, are splined and drilled in a way that no home garage outlet can fit.
This Saturn V-Class over-engineering isn't just for looks. The bezel turns the way it should, but not the way you'd expect. Most just spin freely, with a ratchet inside ensuring they can only spin counterclockwise, but RM 028 appears to have borrowed an airlock from the International Space Station. The bumps on the top and bottom are actually buttons, and both need to be pressed for adjustment. It's hard to change when you want to, so you'll never accidentally change when you don't want to. replica Richard Mille RM 028
Matching the steroidal bezel is an equally reinforced titanium case, 47mm in diameter and as thick as a bus. It looks more like a scale model of the submarine that will rediscover the lost city of Atlantis than a watch you'd put on your wrist. Howard Hughes would be proud. The sculpted industrial surface of the three-part case gives the impression that it was designed more for hydrodynamics than aesthetics, and the crown sits so snugly between I-beam guards that it almost took two people to complete. .
It’s no wonder Richard Mille is venturing into the world of dive watches because when it comes to punch, it’s no slouch. Everything is tuned to 11 seconds, from the hands that double as an ironing board, to the RMAS7 skeleton movement with structurally engraved end plates and a variable-inertia rotor weight. It’s a display of pure madness, more dramatic than all other dive watches combined. This makes the Omega PloProf look like a Submariner.
Yeah, so no one is kidding, these things are actually necessary. If the £500 Seiko could meet the same requirements for ISO 2281 and 6425, then the RM 028 wouldn't need 30 screws on the bezel and a case like a steampunk battleship. But that’s not what this watch is about. As Richard Mille himself said, this is ancient technology built with modern technology and there is no ISO standard. The mechanical dive watch is a thing of the past, a whimsy open to the most extreme interpretations. So while the RM 028 may be the craziest dive watch out there, it also makes sense in a way. replica Audemars Piguet