Blancpain x Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms vs Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms Comparison

With the dive watch being the most popular type of watch on the market, it's strange to think this genre of watch has only been produced for a mere seventy years. While Rolex might have been well known for producing some of the first watertight wrist watches, they were beat to the punch in producing the first true divers watch by Blancpain.

The early 1950s saw an explosion in both recreational and military diving and with this explosion the need to safely time a dive really became crucial. Teams at both Rolex and Blancpain were hard at work creating their dive watches in what would become the Submariner and Fifty Fathoms respectively. With the help of French Navy's Captain Robert Maloubier and Lieutenant Claude Riffaud, avid diver and CEO of Blancpain Jean-Jacques Fiechter were able to launch the Fifty Fathoms in 1953. Rolex followed up with the release of their Submariner in 1954.



The key elements found in the Fifty Fathoms that made it the first true dive watch seem rather straightforward today, but in the 1950s were not commonplace. Naturally the watch had to be completely waterproof and withstand depths of around 300 feet. Secondly the watch needed to have a bezel that rotated in just one direction to track how long a dive had been going on for without being moved back by mistake. Lastly, the watch needed an extremely high contrast dial that could be read quickly in the lowest of visibility. The original Fifty Fathoms included all of these design cues and would go on to be one of the most important watches in the history of watchmaking.

On the other of the spectrum you have Swatch. The 1970s and 80s found the world turning to Japanese quartz powered watches over their more expensive and less accurate Swiss made mechanical counterparts. During this quartz crisis, a new company named Swatch emerged that single handedly saved the Swiss watch industry.

Swatch, which is an abbreviation for "second watch" is a Swiss company formed in the early 80s that produced cheap plastic quartz watches that could not only compete with the Japenese watches, but also injected a huge dose of fun into their watches that made them the success they were.



Funny enough, as Swatch kept growing, they ended up acquiring Blancpain from Jacques Piguet in 1992. Under Piguet and Jean-Claude Biver, Blancpain was brought back from the ashes into a once again respected watch manufacture. Although the Fifty Fathoms wasn't part of the initial line up of Blancpain watches, it did find itself back in production in the early 2000s. The Fifty Fathoms models as we know them today didn't launch until 2007 and have remained mostly unchanged besides some limited edition models and recently a smaller case size option.

In 2009 Blancpain released an extreme version of the Fifty Fathoms named the 500 Fathoms. The 500 Fathoms took everything from the standard Fifty Fathoms and made it bigger and better. The case of the Fifty Fathoms was enlarged by 3 mm to 48 mm and crafted out of high grade titanium. The 300 meter water resistance of the Fifty Fathoms was also increased to a mind bending 1000 meters. With this added water resistance, Blancpain also added an automatic helium relief valve. While the same in-house caliber 1315 found in the standard Fifty Fathoms with its 120 hour power reserve was used on the 500 Fathoms, the standard rotor was replaced with a hand decorated rotor in the shape of a propeller complete with bubbles coming off of it.

My favorite change to the 500 Fathoms was the "sandwich" construction of the dial, where the bottom dial is fully lumed and the numerals are cut out of the top dial creating depth. Not only does this design add depth to the dial of the watch, but the brightness of the 500 Fathoms is far beyond any watch I've seen in person. The 500 Fathoms was also limited to just 500 pieces worldwide and came with an MSRP of $26,500. This was the most serious diving Fifty Fathoms ever created until the later releases of the X Fathoms and Fifty Fathoms Act 2 Tech Gombessa. Ever since starting Hourstriker, I somehow re-fell in love with the Fifty Fathoms and particularly the 500 Fathoms which I just recently acquired for myself.



Getting back to Swatch, along with Blancpain, The Swatch Group also contains Omega. Omega has always been one of the most well known and respected manufactures in the watch world with such classic lines as the Seamaster, Constellation and Speedmaster. The Speedmaster in particular will always be known as the first watch to be worn on the moon, an accolade that has made it one of the most well known watches ever created.

In March of 2022 Swatch shocked the entire watch world by surprise releasing a Speedmaster collaboration with Omega. The result was called the MoonSwatch, which was a one to one recreation of the Omega Speedmaster Moon Watch in Swatches Bioceramic material. This material allowed Swatch to create the MoonSwatch in any color case they desired, with the initial release being themed on the planets of our solar system as well as the Sun. Swatch ended up using a quartz chronograph movement inside of the MoonSwatch which allowed them to sell the watches for an extremely low $260, orders of magnitude less than the Speedmaster's starting price of $6,600. To say the release of the MoonSwatch was a success would be a massive understatement. The MoonSwatch was the most successful watch release in modern history with lines around the block and people flipping the watches for more than double retail on the aftermarket.

With the massive success of the MoonSwatch naturally Swatch would look at other brands inside of the Swatch Group for a follow up. While there are many historically important watches inside of the Swatch Group, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms was picked to be the next watch to receive the Swatch treatment. With the history of the Fifty Fathoms being the first dive watch, it was a great choice by Swatch.



Swatch and Blancpain were able to keep the collaboration silent by using an extremely small team of individuals inside of both brands only knowing about the watch and working on its creation. This team even included the CEO of Blancpain Marc Hayek. In September of 2023 Swatch and Blancpain were ready to show off their creation to the world.

The resulting watch was called the Blancpain X Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms. The watch was instantly recognizable as a Fifty Fathoms using the smaller 42.3 mm case size seen in some previous limited editions and later on a smaller regular production model Fifty Fathoms. Like the MoonSwatch, the Scuba Fifty Fathoms was crafted out of Bioceramic and came in different colors representing the oceans of the world. An interesting detail was that the watches didn't all have the same dial layout, with some having various dial designs from famous vintage Fifty Fathoms models. The Scuba Fifty Fathoms models each had the winding rotor of the particular model decorated with a Nudibranch that represented the ocean of that model. The Scuba Fifty Fathoms is also true to its name offering 50 fathoms (300 feet) of water resistance, making it a true dive watch.

Speaking of the winding rotor, for the Scuba Fifty Fathoms a mechanical automatic movement was used. Blancpain considered the Scuba Fifty Fathoms to be true Blancpain model and the brand was famous for saying they have never produced a quartz watch and never will. Swatch luckily had an automatic movement already at their disposal in the SISTEM51 which offered automatic winding and 90 hours of power reserve. More importantly, the SISTEM51 can be mass produced and offers a simplified design. Making the switch from quartz to automatic also bumped up the price of the Scuba Fifty Fathoms to $400.



A few months later Swatch released a more grown up blacked out version of the Scuba Fifty Fathoms named the Ocean of Storms. The inspiration of the Ocean of Storms was the moon, hence the black aesthetic. This version is by far my favorite in the collection and looks the closest to a watch Blancpain would release in the true Fifty Fathoms collection. We recently asked Swatch if they could send us a Scuba Fifty Fathoms Ocean of Storms to review and they graciously agreed to. You can read our full in depth review of the Ocean of Storms here.

Having just added the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms to my personal collection and having the Blancpain x Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms Ocean of Storms in for review, I thought it would make a fun article to compare the two watches to each other. I asked if I could keep the Scuba Fifty Fathoms a little bit longer to write this article and Swatch agreed and said they looked forward to the comparison. I hadn't seen an article or video comparing the Fifty Fathoms to the Scuba Fifty Fathoms with both watches in hand, so I guess I'm filling some kind of horological hole here.

It might seem there isn't really much a watch retailing for $26,500 would have in common with a $400 watch. I mean I'm looking for an extra strap for my 500 Fathoms that costs more than the Scuba Fifty Fathoms. I knew this line of thinking was incorrect after spending some time with both of these watches though.



The thing that I really wasn't expecting was that my mind thought I was wearing a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms every time I wore the Scuba Fifty Fathoms. I'm not a big fan of NATO straps, so most of the time I wore the Ocean of Storms it was on a spare black rubber strap I had laying around that had the same lug width as the Scuba Fifty Fathoms. This little change really made the Scuba Fifty Fathoms feel more in line with a true Fifty Fathoms. I also feel that with the branding of the dial first mentioning Blancpain, your mind is tricked into believing it is a Blancpain watch. I've heard from other Fifty Fathoms owners that they feel the same way.

Speaking of straps, one super interesting detail kept for the Scuba Fifty Fathoms is the strap bar being secured by two hex screws and not using a spring bar. The Fifty Fathoms collection is extremely expensive, especially for a dive watch, so having such a secure means of attaching the strap as a screwed in bar is extremely nice and the right call. For a $400 watch also employing this design cue, even using the same 0.9 screw head as my 500 Fathoms is a brilliant touch.

After getting to know my 500 Fathoms more, one design detail that really stuck out to me was the design of the crown guards. As opposed to many sharp and harsh crown guards, the ones found on the Fifty Fathoms are much more organic to the case and have a rounded off appearance and feeling to them. Almost as if they were formed like a smooth river rock through slow erosion. The crown guards on the Scuba Fifty Fathoms match the real deal crown guards perfectly. In fact the case of the Scuba Fifty Fathoms matches every aspect of the true Fifty Fathoms just as well.



Swatch used extremely advanced 3D mapping to make a one to one copy of the 42.3 mm Fifty Fathoms case. With this scan at their disposal and the ability to craft Bioceramic into pretty much any shape imaginable, Swatch was able to make a near perfect copy of the Fifty Fathoms for the Scuba Fifty Fathoms. Even little details like the scalloping of the crown matches up with my 500 Fathoms.

I had previously read that the bezel mechanism of the Fifty Fathoms was replicated for the bezel of the Scuba Fifty. While the bezel action of my 500 Fathoms requires much more force to turn than the Scuba Fifty Fathoms, they are definitely similar. The feel of the clicks and even the sound each click makes are very similar. Both watches also offer 120 rotations to complete one trip around the dial. Also the bezel of the 500 Fathoms might be a bit beefed up to that of a normal Fifty Fathoms, so the slight difference I'm seeing could be attributed to that.

Another fun design cue brought over from the Fifty Fathoms to the Scuba Fifty Fathoms is the Blancpain branding found on the left hand side of the case. Many people have expressed their dislike for this design touch, but I actually like it. On my 500 Fathoms, the Blancpain text is moved over a bit to make room for the helium relief value. On the Scuba Fifty Fathoms the Blancpain Text has been replaced with Swatch, a fun little Easter egg.



Those are the main areas the Fifty Fathoms and Scuba Fifty Fathoms are similar, so let's move on to the differences. Naturally the biggest difference between the Fifty Fathoms and the Scuba Fifty Fathoms is the movement. The Fifty Fathoms range is powered by the in-house Blancpain caliber 1315 beating away at 28,800 vph (4 Hz) offering 120 hours of power reserve. The Scuba Fifty Fathoms uses the Swatch SISTEM51 movement beating at 21,600 vph (3 Hz) with 90 hours of power reserve. While 90 hours of power reserve is amazing, it's still over a day short of the Blancpain movement. The slower beat rate of the Swatch movement also makes the seconds hand have more of a tick versus the smoother sweep of the faster Blancpain movement. While our Scuba Fifty Fathoms movement was dead accurate to +1 seconds per day, this isn't what Swatch quotes the movement accuracy as. While the Blancpain movement is expected to have dead accuracy, Swatch allows for some variance in their movement.

Flipping the watches over also shows another huge difference in the Blancpain 1315 and Swatch SISTEM51. The SISTEM51 has a stunning Nudibrach printed on its winding rotor while the rest of the movement's finishing is sparse and done by machine. The finishing on the 1315 is much more elaborate and some aspects of the finishing are actually done by hand. In the case of the rotor on the 500 Fathoms, the entire rotor is hand finished. Naturally having a human hand touch any part of a movement will dramatically raise its price and in the case of Swatch releases, make it impossible to produce watches fast enough to meet demand.

The next major difference is the case material. While Blancpain offers the Fifty Fathoms in various metals including stainless steel, rose gold, ceramic and top grade titanium, Swatch only offers the Scuba Fifty Fathoms in Bioceramic. I'm a fan of Bioceramic and it seemed tough enough during my time with the Ocean of Storms, but people have reported issues with its durability. The trade off in possible lack of durability is that Bioceramic is extremely lightweight and can be made in any color. I'm not a big fan of stainless steel watches due to their weight and also would be nervous having a gold dive watch due to how easy gold can be damaged. Ceramic and titanium Fifty Fathoms offer both lightweight and durable watches, so they would be my choice in the collection. The 500 Fathoms I own is crafted out of high grade titanium by the way.



It would be pretty off brand for Swatch to have produced the Scuba Fifty Fathoms in anything but Bioceramic or plastic, so I understand the decision. Also having the Scuba Fifty Fathoms crafted out of a metal might have raised the eyebrows of a few Fifty Fathoms owners who spent much much more on their watches.

One thing that was puzzling to me on the design of the Scuba Fifty Fathoms is why Swatch would use a sapphire crystal on the display back while using a less desirable and scratch prone bio-sourced glass on the front of the watch. For models of the Fifty Fathoms with a display back, sapphire crystals are naturally used on both front and back. It would have made more sense to use a sapphire crystal on the front of the Scuba Fifty Fathoms and then have used the bio-sourced glass on the back of the watch where scratches are less likely to occur.

One of the most opulent design elements of the Fifty Fathoms is its sapphire crystal bezel. Now other companies have used a sapphire bezel, but they have been flat. The bezel of the Fifty Fathoms is domed and not easy or cheap to manufacture. The look and feel of this bezel just can't be beat. For the bezel of the Scuba Fifty Fathoms, Swatch once again uses Bioceramic to effectively mimic the look of the sapphire bezel on the Fifty Fathoms. It wouldn't have been possible for Swatch to use a domed sapphire bezel on the Scuba Fifty Fathoms because of cost. A replacement bezel for a Fifty Fathoms is way more expensive than the entire Scuba Fifty Fathoms.



Also the bezel surround on the Fifty Fathoms and Scuba Fifty Fathoms do closely resemble each other and offer exceptional grip, which means both could be used easily with dive gloves on. The big difference is that the bezel surround on Scuba Fifty Fathoms is made out of Bioceramic, while the Fifty Fathoms bezel surrounds are crafted out the matching metal to the watch. The means that the bezel of the Fifty Fathoms should be a great deal stronger than the bezel on the Scuba Fifty Fathoms.

While the crown of the Scuba Fifty Fathoms really resembles the crown of the Fifty Fathoms closely, there is one big difference. The Fifty Fathoms has a screw down crown which aids with its 300 meter (1000 meters on the 500 Fathoms) water resistance. The crown on the Scuba Fifty Fathoms is not screw down, but it still offers nearly 100 meters of water resistance. This little fact shows that the Scuba Fifty Fathoms is fine of swimming and even very light scuba diving, but it is not a serious dive watch.

One final big difference between the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms and the Scuba Fifty Fathoms is the strap. The Blancpain X Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms series only comes on a NATO strap made out of recycled fishing nets. I'm not the biggest fan of NATO straps, but the strap is fine. Even though the Scuba Fifty Fathoms has very short lugs, it is still possible to get a standard rubber strap on the watch. Many aftermarket companies make straps tailor made for the Scuba Fifty Fathoms, so putting a different strap on shouldn't be too big of a deal. The Fifty Fathoms on the other hand is offered with multiple strap options including metal bracelets, tropic rubber straps, sailcloth straps and NATO straps. The Fifty Fathoms collection also offers metal pin buckles and an excellent deployant clasp, which my 500 Fathoms comes on. The Scuba Fifty Fathoms offers just a Bioceramic Pin Buckle and strap hardware.



Having gone over how the Scuba Fifty Fathoms and Fifty Fathoms are similar yet different, let's talk about how life with both are. Starting with the Blancpain X Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms, the watch is just a treat on wrist with its incredibly low weight and rather small lug to lug of 47.8 mm. On the NATO strap the watch only weighs 44 grams and adding a rubber strap doesn't add much heft. Like I mentioned earlier, the Scuba Fifty Fathoms tricks your mind into think you're wearing a full blown Fifty Fathoms, so you get a lot of the sensation of wearing a Fifty Fathoms at a fraction of the price. You might not get this feeling with a more colorful Scuba Fifty Fathoms, but with the Ocean of Storms' more reserved color palette I certainly did.

The 90 hour power reserve of the Scuba Fifty Fathoms means you can skip wearing the watch for a day or two and it will still be running when you pick it up again. With the near zero seconds per day accuracy of the review unit we had, you also will probably not need to set the time if you don't wear the watch for a few days. With my wardrobe mostly consisting of black t-shirts, shorts and sneakers the all black Ocean of Storms fit in nicely. While running errands and going out to dinner or drinks, the Scuba Fifty Fathoms fit in perfectly. I never felt like I was wearing something that didn't suit the situation. Moving the watch over to a black rubber strap from a black and white NATO probably helped with that.

The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms is not a watch you just wear casually and forget about when on wrist. The watch is 48 mm in case diameter and over 50 mm in lug to lug length. Although the watch is large, being crafted out of titanium makes the watch only weigh 128 grams. This is still nearly three times the weight of the Scuba Fifty Fathoms, so while the watch doesn't give you wrist fatigue, you know it's there at all times. The 500 Fathoms is 3 mm larger than the standard 45 mm Fifty Fathoms, but I'd imagine it would feel the same to somebody that had a smaller wrist than my 7.25 inch and 58.5 mm wide wrist.



The Fifty Fathoms and 500 Fathoms in particular are just purpose built professional dive watches. Playing around with the 500 Fathoms for a few seconds just shows how serious of a tool watch this is. From the screwed in links to the screw fastening the strap into the hole you size it to, the watch is meant to stay on your wrist in even the most challenging situations. The lume on the 500 Fathoms looks like the watch has built in LEDs even glowing in direct sunlight, putting pretty much any high lume watches including full lume dial DOXAs and sandwich dial Panerais to shame. The feel of the bezel and crown when being used are just so sure in their operation that it would be near impossible to miss use them. The 300 meters on the Fifty Fathoms and 1000 meters of water resistance on the 500 Fathoms also shows how serious Blancpain was about diving when developing these watches.

Blancpain might be the most involved luxury watch manufacture when it comes to diving, sponsoring many divers and projects that are both trying to understand and protect the oceans. Blancpain is also one of the only watch companies continually innovating mechanical dive watches. Looking at the recently released Fifty Fathoms Act 2 Tech Gombessa shows as much. For this watch Blancpain realized that the 60 minute dive bezel is a thing of the past and now rebreather divers can spend multiple hours underwater. For this watch they developed the first ever 3 hour dive time complication and have been testing it with their Gombessa expeditions.

Summarizing, the main difference between the two watches is that the Blancpain X Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms is a great and fun watch to wear, while the Fifty Fathoms is a serious piece of dive equipment. You can see why many Fifty Fathoms owners purchased Scuba Fifty Fathoms to wear in less serious situations. You get the basic look and function of a time only Fifty Fathoms at a fraction of the price, but the watch is still a great timepiece on its own.



So is the standard Fifty Fathoms worth nearly 40 times more than the Scuba Fifty Fathoms and the 500 Fathoms 66 times more? Or course not… For $400 the Blancpain X Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms gives you most of what you get functionality wise from the more expensive Fifty Fathoms. The base Fifty Fathoms models only offer time and date functions, the same as you find on the Scuba Fifty Fathoms. Most people do not scuba dive, maybe from time to time they snorkel on vacation and take a dip in the pool. If they do end up scuba diving, they aren't going much past 10 or 20 meters, so the Scuba Fifty Fathoms would have this all covered. You also get the look of the Fifty Fathoms and a one to one recreation of the 42.3 mm Fifty Fathoms case on the Scuba Fifty Fathoms.

The Fifty Fathoms gets it value from things that 99.99% of the population will not appreciate, but to those that do, they are huge deals. Blancpain is the oldest watch brand and the Fifty Fathoms is the first dive watch ever released. The finishing of the case and movement cannot be touched by any other dive watch on the market as well. The 1315 movement is probably also the finest and longest running movement in the dive market. This all contributes to why the Fifty Fathoms cost what they do. Somebody like myself understands that and sees the value in the collection.

So which watch do I prefer? Well that's not really much of a question, I'd take the Fifty Fathoms every time… but I'd take the Fifty Fathoms over a Rolex Submariner and every other dive watch out there as well. I put my money where my mouth is and added a 500 Fathoms to my personal collection after all. I'm also not having any buyers regret, although my wrist is currently falling between strap sizes and it's either too tight or too loose. I feel if I lose or gain 5-10 lbs it'll be perfect though.



Does that mean I don't like the Blancpain X Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms? No absolutely not, I love the collection. I'm sure rather soon I'll pick up the Ocean of Storms for myself and a more colorful version for my wife… but next I have to buy a rubber strap and buckle for the 500 Fathoms, which is more expensive than the Scuba Fifty Fathoms retail price of $400…

Being a Fifty Fathoms owner and wearing both out and about, I get 90% of the satisfaction wearing the Scuba Fifty Fathoms that I get wearing the 500 Fathoms. The last 10% is just the feeling you get from wearing something truly special. The Scuba Fifty Fathoms was jointed developed with Blancpain and their CEO was crucial in the development of the watch. If Blancpain wasn't as involved with the project as they were, the Scuba Fifty Fathoms would have been sub $300 and have contained a quartz movement more than likely. Since the Scuba Fifty Fathoms IS a Blancpain watch that was not acceptable and the watch used an automatic mechanical movement and can be used for its intended purpose of diving.

If you're in the market for a fun watch that has great value and still carries the heritage of the world's first dive watch with it, the Blancpain X Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms could be a great addition to your collection. The watch also offers enough versatility to complete a one watch collection with its go anywhere do anything nature. If you're looking for the best of the best dive watch with no compromises and budget isn't too much of a concern, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms collection really needs to be at the top of your list. I own other divers, but the 500 Fathoms is definitely the king when it comes to divers in my collection.



Hopefully this little comparison between the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms (500 Fathoms) and the Blancpain X Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms shed some light on both watches and might help somebody with their decision on a future purchase. I'm truly a big fan of both watches and see the value in both of them. In the end the Scuba Fifty Fathoms is a fun and faithful take on the best dive watch on the market, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms.

For more information about the Blancpain X Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms collection please visit : Swatch

For more information about the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms collection please visit : Blancpain

Technical Specifications - Scuba Fifty Fathoms

Reference Number: SO35B400

Retail Price: $400

Case Size: 42.3 mm

Lug to Lug: 47.8 mm

Thickness: 14.6 mm

Weight: 44 Grams

Case Material: Bioceramic

Bezel: Bioceramic

Strap: NATO Strap Made From Recycled Fishing Nets with BIOCERAMIC Pin Buckle

Movement: Swatch SISTEM51 Automatic Movement, 21,600 vph (3 Hz)

Functions: Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Date

Power Reserve: 90 Hours

Water Resistance: 91 Meters (50 Fathoms)



Technical Specifications - Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms

Reference Number: 50015 12B30 52B

Retail Price: $26,500

Case Size: 48 mm

Lug to Lug: 53 mm

Thickness: 17.2 mm

Weight: 128 Grams

Case Material: High Grade Titanium

Bezel: Domed Sapphire Crystal

Strap: Sailcloth with Titanium Deployant Clasp

Movement: Blancpain 1315 Automatic Movement, 28,800 vph (4 Hz)

Functions: Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Date

Power Reserve: 120 Hours

Water Resistance: 1000 Meters