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The toughest watches are easy to define but difficult to measure against one another. This is because there are so many different variables that can be considered to show just how tough a watch truly is. Brands will spend millions of dollars on marketing, as well as research and development in order to make sure their watch is as tough as possible.
Tough watches have always been popular with certain professions and hobbies due to their practicality. It’s no use wearing a dress watch if you are a plumber or wearing an Audemars Piguet on a camping weekend. Therefore it makes sense that watch manufacturers have made watches that stand up to these tests and come away unaffected.
Below outlines just what it takes to make the toughest watches, as well as examples and guidelines you should follow in order to buy a watch that is suitable for exactly what you need.
Table of Contents
Toughness Requirements For A Watch
Water Resistance
It goes without saying that a tough watch needs to be able to resist water. An absolute minimum requirement for a tough watch is to make sure that no water gets inside the casing of the watch. If this is something that fashion brands such as Fossil can do, there is no reason why a tough watch should not be waterproof.
There are many different grades of just how waterproof a watch is. All of which are based on pressure resistance to different levels.
The absolute minimum requirement for a rugged and tough watch should be 5 ATM water resistance. This simply means that the watch is suitable for swimming in a pool, river, or sea. Of course, this is not the high end of the food chain when it comes to waterproof watches, as many are resistant to 300 meters of pressure or more.
Dropping
Ever since G-Shock released their series of promotional videos running over their watches with cars and dropping them from 4th story windows, it has become less acceptable for a watch to break on impact.
Of course, many watches are exempt from this since they are designed to be fashionable. But when buying a tough watch, it certainly needs to be able to withstand some amount of blunt force.
There is no real way of testing this other than what the brands have previously shown us since it would simply be too expensive to buy 10 watches and start dropping them from great heights.
Thankfully, most of this is common sense as it is quite obvious which brands use tough materials to make their watches. Provided that the dropped watch is not using a delicate mechanical movement, it is relatively easy to keep a digital quartz module safe inside a watch case.
Scratching & Scuffing
Scratching and scuffing are natural things that happen when you own a watch. Much like a car or any other possessions you own, you can try your best to keep it safe, but sometimes this isn’t enough.
Scuffing in particular depends on the watch material. Watches that use 316L stainless steel are clearly going to be tough, but they will also scratch. This does not necessarily mean that the watch is weak since it will not break to pressure or drops, but it will show minor cosmetic damage.
Ceramic watches on the other hand are very difficult to scratch, but certainly cannot be considered tough since they will shatter if dropped on a hard surface.
Lastly, scratching a watch dial should be very difficult if a watch is truly tough. Over a certain price point ($300~), watches usually begin to use sapphire crystal as a standard feature, which means that the glass will be protected against scratches a lot more than a simple mineral glass. Therefore if a manufacturer hasn’t made some kind of effort to use a scratch resistant glass, their watch cannot really be considered tough.
Antimagnetic
This is less of a problem within digital quartz watches since it is very difficult to disturb a quartz module with a magnetic field. In short, nothing short of an EMP should really bother a non-mechanical watch.
On the other hand, automatic watches can really be affected quite badly by magnetic fields, causing them to either gain or lose time depending on exactly which parts are moved out of sync. Mechanical movements are cheap enough to regulate once they become magnetized, but it is annoying and should not happen to a tough watch. Therefore you will find some manufacturers encase their watches in solid iron or begin to make parts out of different materials such as silicon.
This qualifies a watch as “tough” since if it is unaffected by magnetic fields, this means one less thing you don’t have to care about.
Toughest Luxury Watch
Most luxury brands create watches for wealthy people who live their lives in boardrooms and cocktail parties. Therefore there is not too much demand for tough luxury watches since they’re simply not required.
The toughest luxury watch is any timepiece from the Defy Extreme range by Zenith. As you can see from the photo above the watch states “high pressure resistant chronograph” and is water resistant to over 1000 meters without cracking.
As this Zenith Defy Extreme uses a luxury mechanical movement, you can imagine the workmanship that has gone into the casing of the watch to protect it. Quite simply, there is nothing else really quite like this.
Prices for the Zenith Defy Extreme start at around $20 000 USD for a brand new watch and can be found for as low as $15 000 USD for second hand pieces on chrono24.
Toughest Mechanical Watch
It is difficult to measure just how tough one watch is in comparison with another. Unless you were to lose thousands of dollars investing in each watch, only to destroy it through rigorous testing, there is no other way to do it.
One watch which certainly ranks as a contender for the world’s toughest mechanical watch is the Marathon TSAR. This watch is more than just tough and also a legitimate divers watch with an ETA 2824 movement, which is generally accurate within COSC requirements.
Although the video below is grainy, it does show that the Marathon watch was indeed ran over by a real fire truck and seems to have survived without even a scratch. As the Marathon TSAR is a bulky wristwatch, it certainly got crushed, but escaped without having its glass cracked. Therefore, until a tougher watch is shown on video, the Marathon TSAR is likely the toughest mechanical timepiece.
The Toughest Watches You Can Buy
Casio Triple Sensor Pathfinder
There are not too many watches that are built purely for the purpose of outdoor use, but the Casio Pathfinder is one of those exceptions.
This watch uses a tough solar movement, meaning that you will not need to replace the battery or adjust the time, since it is powered by natural light sources. In addition to this fact, this specific pathfinder is even tougher and more durable than the standard model since it has both a titanium case and bracelet. Titanium is tougher than stainless steel, admittedly it will scratch easily, but it is almost impossible to break.
The Pathfinder has altimeter, barometer, and compass functions, but these are just optional extras and don’t really add anything to the watch in terms of durability.
Marathon Quartz Diver
Slightly undersized for a modern dive watch, the Marathon diver still wears larger than its 36mm diameter due to just how chunky it is. If you look closely at the dial, you will see the radioactive symbol, which is due to the fact that Marathon uses tritium tubes in their dials to illuminate the watch in darkness. This adds to the toughness of the overall watch since these will not fade like lume paint will.
Marathon already make one of the toughest mechanical watches that you can buy, so with a quartz diver you are in even safer hands. The case is already durable enough to take a fire truck run over it but has even less delicate parts to protect by replacing the automatic movement with a simple quartz module.
Casio G-Shock Mudman
If you have a job that involves getting your hands dirty, the G-Shock Mudman is likely the best fit for you. This watch is used by laborers and plumbers since it takes a beating and keeps going.
Perhaps the main way the mudman differs most from other G-shock watches is that it was specifically built with mud resistance in mind. For the uninitiated, mud might seem like a simple thing to keep out of a watch, but it is really not. It can come in all shapes and textures, solidifying in hot weather and becoming very watery when wet.
It’s needless to say that the G-Shock mudman can easily cope with any of these problems and then some more. It is of course a bulky watch, much like all G-shock models, but this is simply for its own protection.
There are arguments to be made that other watches are tougher, but this is the best watch for those with a manual outdoors job. Not just because of all of the above, but also because it uses a solar cell and does not need its battery replacing.
Luminox SEA Diver
One of the toughest dive watches you can buy is the Luminox SEA diver. As you can see, the crown on this model is simply not going to get damaged since it is encased by a solid stainless steel protector.
Luminox watches are heavily associated with navy SEALs and are therefore both tactical and practical. These watches simply wouldn’t be used by the military if they weren’t useful and rugged.
The SEA diver is quite clearly a legitimate dive watch and passes ISO 6425 standards. It has both 500 meters water resistance and also a helium valve ensuring that the watch is not damaged whilst resurfacing.
In short, this is a heavy duty, Swiss made watch that is reasonably expensive, but not overpriced given the specification.
Timex Ironman
Even though the Timex Ironman is a real low-budget watch with only a handful of features, it is still one of the toughest timepieces on offer. This is mostly because for the few things the Ironman actually does, it does them very well.
As this is the preferred watch of navy SEAL Jocko Willink, there is no doubt that it is both functional and tough. Willink has a no nonsense approach and would not use a product that did not meet his needs and expectations.
So despite costing less than $50, the Ironman is an extremely strong and durable watch. Granted it just tells the time and has a simple stopwatch function, but many people do not need their watch to do much more than this.
Garmin Instinct Rugged Outdoor Smartwatch
Not your typical smartwatch, the Garmin Instinct is another tactical outdoors watch that was not designed with the gym or the boardroom in mind. This watch has been constructed to US military standard meaning that it is an accepted watch to wear if you’re in the army. To pass meet these requirements means that the watch has water resistance to 100 meters, thermal resistance, and also is shock resistant if dropped.
Unlike other smartwatches, the battery life on the Garmin Instinct is very good and can last up to 14 days provided you are not heavily using the GPS feature.
In short, this watch is very good value for money and is built for the outdoors. In terms of ruggedness, this is pretty much the toughest smartwatch you can buy for under $300.
