Prolonging dive watch battery life

[Chris Richardson]

Can anyone please advise? I have a Citizen Pro Divemaster watch that costs +£55 to get the battery changed. As I'm not diving 24/7 is there anyway to stop the watch to conserve the battery life with no detriment to the watch? It just burns my posterior forking out that much for a battery replacement for something that sits in my cupboard a lot of the time? Thanks guys

 

[Centrals]

Wear it daily.
Sell it.

 

[BikerBecca]

Trade it in for the new Eco-Drive model?

 

[2airishuman]

Can anyone please advise? I have a Citizen Pro Divemaster watch that costs +£55 to get the battery changed.

So, the first thing to understand, is that no one relies upon a dive watch as a their primary means of measuring time during dives where the measurement of time and calculations based on it have safety consequences. Many people (including me) have dive watches that are great fashion accessories, or are ideal for instruction, or the pool, or swimming, or shallow dives where the passage of time is interesting but not important.

The reasons for this have to do with the fact that there are a wide range of dive computers that are cheaper than the combination of a dive watch and a depth gauge, and with a few exceptions even the crap dive computers are better than fantastic dive watches, for actual diving where your safety depends on how long it's been since you started your dive and how much gas (nitrogen, oxygen) loading your body has taken on. The good ones also tell you which way is north and how much of what kind of gas you have left.

So you have a fashion accessory (c.f. Thorstein Veblen's concept of conspicuous consumption and positional goods) and, well, are stuck paying usury rates for new batteries. There is no way to make the watch eat batteries more slowly. Here are your choices:

1. Change the batteries yourself. It isn't that hard, and you can get batteries on ebay.co.uk.
   
2. Travel to some far-away cultural backwater with few trade barriers, low wages, good diving, and a tinpot dictator where you can get your watch battery changed for much less than 55 quid. I recommend Florida.
3. Buy a self-winding mechanical watch that doesn't use batteries. I recommend the Certina DS Action, available in both quartz and self-winding in a variety of styles and colors. Bear in mind, however, that in place of battery replacements, you're supposed to get it cleaned and serviced by a specialist.
4. Sell watch, buy dive computer

Cheers