Worn & Wound
The Next Generation of the Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean is Here
You have to give credit where it’s due: Omega teased a big update to their Seamaster Planet Ocean, and they delivered. The collector community will surely debate every aspect of the new fourth generation Planet Ocean, but this is not an iterative change or a minor tweak. It’s a fairly radical rethinking of the style and aesthetic of Omega’s premier professional diving watch, and when you put an early version of the Planet Ocean next to the new gen, it’s honestly hard to see the connection between them. Not impossible, but by “iconic dive watch” standards, which keeps stalwarts like the Submariner and Fifty Fathoms looking much like the watches that they started life as, this is a different kettle of fish entirely. We’ll start with the case, because that’s really where the heart of the Planet Ocean’s rethinking really comes into play most clearly. The knock on the Planet Ocean, since its inception, has always been that it’s overly thick. Of course, being that this is a pro diver with double the water resistance of most other consumer oriented divers, a little heft is to be expected. Still, the general proportions of previous Planet Ocean cases were always a cause of consternation among a subset of die hards. The new watch measures 42mm in diameter and is 13.79mm thick, a significant reduction over the previous Planet Ocean’s 16.1mm case height. The new case also benefits from a flat sapphire crystal and a new titanium caseback, both of which ought ...
