3 ms·

Watch depths on watches are basically lies. Look at the "Water Resistance Classification" table in the linked "Water Resistance Mark" Wikipedia page. 50m means

by jws 12y ago

Watch depths on watches are basically lies. Look at the "Water Resistance Classification" table in the linked "Water Resistance Mark" Wikipedia page. 50m means you can barely submerge it. 100m is snorkeling. I learned this the hard way when I got a new 30m watch for a sailing trip and it died the first time I stuck my hand in water. Timex even used to print something like that table in the paper that came with the watch. So I'll upgrade my "lies" characterization to "shameless lies". (That said, I want Apple to do better, and I expect they will in the future. Underperforming on the first products would be a disaster. Better to under promise.)

sanoli 12y ago
It means that in a sealed water resistance test thing, the watch, sitting there surrounded by water, will still function when subjected to, in the case of your watch, 3bar of pressure. That is without moving the watch, with the crown fully tightened/pushed in, etc. Yours was probably defective, or was advertised in bad faith, even though by those water resistance tables they say 30m isn't suitable for swimming. However, I've taken both 3 bar and 5 bar watches to the sea many times with no problem. It's supposed to handle shallow swimming