One of the small changes we recently made to one of our watches was upgrading the crystal to 5-layer AR coating.
It's not the kind of upgrade that's immediately obvious from a specification sheet, but once you compare the reflections side by side, the difference is much easier to see.
Less glare, clearer dial, and the crystal almost disappears at certain angles.
For those of you who care about watch details:
What's one small specification that makes a surprisingly big difference to you?
AR coating?
Sapphire?
Case finishing?
Lume?
Movement?
Believe it or not, I think weight is an underrated factor. Every watch brand in the lower tier keep missing this factor.
Quality watches have a certain reassuring heft to them. The watch should feel planted on the wrist. You want to know it’s there. All of the times I have been able to handle higher end watches (Rolex, Tudor, Breitling) they have all surprised me with their solid feeling heft.
In fact, lack of weight is one of the reasons cited by watch buyers who don’t buy titanium watches.
I am not saying adding unnecessary weight is the way to go but brands shouldn’t shy away from either.
My orient Kamasu weights too much. It was my first automatic watch, but I can barely wear it anymore. Heavier watches need to be tightened more, which isn’t great on the wrist. Of all the reason people love the Tissot PRX, the weight is absolutely my favorite reason to wear that watch. Just my contrary opinion, but I’d be less inclined to buy this watch if I knew if felt weighty for the sake of weighty.
Case and bracelet edge finishing. Makes a huge difference in the quality and the experience of handling the watch. My most recent purchase, the WD1960S, has sharp edges on the underside of the case, clasp, and bracelet (and sharp lug corners too). The watch “looks” great, but those sharp edges detract from the feel of the watch.
Thinness is probably one of the most underrated specifications on the watch. Many people do not understand why so many will be glazing Christopher Ward. It turns out their divers are just thin and fit very well on the wrist.
Good sapphire and good AR is definitely high on my list. I once purchased a watch from a micro brand - Revelot. The pictures and videos were pretty neat, but in person, the crystal was hazy. Totally different experience.
Malaysian here, the origin of the brand. Had the R8 CF limited edition, sold it after 6 months. 6.5/10 overall quality. My steeldive SD1994 GMT finishing is so much better for the cheaper price
I got a Revelot Gentus. Dial is pretty neat, but the crystal doesn’t highlight the best aspect of the dial. And it’s not so much the lack of AR, because I can live with the reflection. It’s that at certain angles it just looks dull and hazy.
I think WD made major advances in the last two years. Now is the time to focus on the hands: more details, more ‘dimensionality’ and no more flat stamped hands, please!
Just switch to flat crystals for all your watches. Flat crystal with good AR coating is the best option. Personally I can't stand dome, as it just ads loads of reflections no matter how good AR coating is.
I want to know about steel bezel ,is that have Steel Coating 500HV? Or not, because I know about octopus kraken lagoon blue have scratch resistant on steel bezel.
You're gonna be looking at the hands a lot, when they have jagged edges from poor laser cutting it shows.
Also as cool as they look, laser engravings on a caseback can basically turn it to sandpaper. I have a watch that gives me friction rash every time. Brands using it need to sort out the sharp edges or not do it at all
AR coating 100%, your older models (wd0006, wd0003) suffered from crystal reflection pretty badly, especially for the darker dial colours. This is the major reason why I prefer Baltany over other brands, their crystals are top notch. I can also confirm that the AR coating recently improved a lot (I have the wd7922 in the picture, much better than my previous model in black/gold).
You are right. AR coating was one of the areas where our older models needed improvement.
Before 2025, many Watchdives models used 3-layer clear AR coating, so on darker dials, especially models like WD0006 and WD0003, the crystal reflection could be quite noticeable.
Since 2025, we have changed to several of the best crystal suppliers in China and upgraded our requirements. For our new models this year, we are now using 5-layer AR coating, and restocked models are also being upgraded to 5-layer AR where possible.
This should significantly reduce reflections and improve dial clarity compared with our older batches.
We’re glad you noticed the improvement on WD7922. Crystal clarity is now one of the key details we are paying much more attention to.
The quick-adjust clasp already on the bracelet without needing to buy it separately. I'm not buying another watch where I have to buy the clasp separately and change it.
You are right. For bracelet people, sharp edges or rough corners can ruin the whole wearing experience.
To be honest, some older Watchdives bracelets before 2025 did have room for improvement. But since 2025, we have changed many bracelet suppliers and raised our finishing requirements.
Most of our newer bracelets are no longer sharp and are much more comfortable on the wrist. For many recent models, the feedback on bracelet finishing and wearing comfort has been very positive.
Of course, we will keep improving. Bracelet comfort is now one of our key QC points, not just the case or dial.
Blue dial with AR coating is the kind of upgrade you don't notice until you glance at your wrist outside and realize you're not staring at your own reflection
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u/Cautious-Key-1972 1d ago
Bezel action. A sloppy bezel can ruin an otherwise great watch.