![The weight-saving Ulysse Nardin Diver [AIR]](https://divernet.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Light-version-UN_WW_Diver_Air_CLUP.jpg)
The lightest mechanical dive-watch ever made – that’s the claim of independent Swiss watch manufacturer Ulysse Nardin (UN) for its new 200m Diver [AIR] see-through model.
Diver timepieces tend to be bulkier than dress watches, and few scuba divers lose sleep over the weight of any such instrument they might take under water, but UN's technological achievement does provide a talking point – albeit one with a £33,000 price-tag.
The latest addition to the UN Diver collection goes “beyond what is expected and even believed to be possible”, says the company, adding that the new watch represents a combination of “high horology, high technology and high performance”.
Ulysse Nardin made its first waterproof instrument as long ago as 1893, its first dive-watch in 1964 and in 2001 came its Aqua Perpetual, the only 200m water-resistant watch to feature a perpetual calendar. Twenty years later it introduced the Diver X Skeleton, and it is on this model that it has based a new version claimed to be stronger yet sleeker and lighter by half.
Shaving off the grams
Where UN’s 44mm Diver of 2019 weighed 120.5g and the Diver X Skeleton 106g, the Diver [AIR] weighs a feather-like 52g – or 46g without the strap.
It features a new UN-374 calibre that uses less material than the Diver X Skeleton. Its construction is based on slender hollow bridges used to form triangles that resist bending and warping, but with the reduction in mass said to have made the structure more resilient. The new calibre has a hefty 90hr power reserve.
![The hyper-light Ulysse Nardin Diver [AIR] dive-watch with orange and white straps](https://divernet.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Light-version-BG_DIVER_AIR_Duo_HD.jpg "Airy newcomer is lightest dive-watch yet 1")
Eighty per cent of the space inside the watch now consists of air, surrounding a movement claimed able to withstand an impact of 5kg. By sacrificing the automatic winding mechanism even more weight might have been shed, but retaining that feature was a requirement under official dive-watch standards.
Watch movements are usually made from heavy brass, because aluminium is too soft and titanium, though light and durable, is normally considered too difficult to manipulate, as well as being flammable during machining. UN found a way to use titanium anyway.
It also provided a highly anti-magnetic silicon escapement, the component that controls timing precision, and in this case said to weigh half as much as a standard balance.
Upcycling
The new modular 44mm case combines titanium with carbon fibre for further weight-saving. Because carbon fibre is not notably waterproof, the movement is encased in a titanium middle case. This titanium is 90% recycled, and the side parts of the case are made from another lightweight carbon fibre composite, Nylo-Foil, sourced from recovered fishing-nets.
The luminous bezel insert is made from CarbonFoil – upcycled carbon fibres – while the escapement is made from an upcycled silicon wafer.
The Diver [AIR] has a domed sapphire glass and a minimal skeleton dial with black indices and hands coated in white Superluminova.
Completing the timepiece are two interchangeable straps in orange and white, made from elastic fabric with a scratch closure system. The watch costs £33,420 – find out more about it at the Ulysse Nardin site.
Also on Divernet: TIME MACHINES: THE LATEST DIVE WATCHES, MODERN, RETRO & SHINY: 7 NEW DIVING WATCHES, MAKE A SPLASH WITH THE LATEST DIVE-WATCHES
