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Unimatic's Modello Uno UT1-PD is a quartz 300 metre diver wrapped in moulded rubber

A quartz Seiko VH31A sits inside a moulded rubber shell in Unimatic's new 300 metre diver, limited to 250 numbered pieces at 680 euros.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 2 min read · 8 August 2026

The Unimatic Modello Uno UT1-PD, a sandblasted steel dive watch with a black dial and orange bezel triangle — Image: Unimatic

There is a dive mask engraved on the caseback of the Modello Uno UT1-PD, which tells you most of what you need to know about how much subtlety Unimatic was going for. This is a professional diver, it knows it, and it is not going to be shy about the fact.

The part that will lose people is the movement. It's a Seiko VH31A, quartz, the one with a sweeping seconds hand, and the trade is easy to lay out: plus or minus 15 seconds a month, about two years on a battery, and a hand that glides instead of ticking. You take that or you take a mechanical. Unimatic has never pretended to be torn about which side it's on.

An exploded diagram of the UT1-PD showing the sapphire glass, hands, bezel, insert, case, crown, dial, movement, gaskets and case back — The 360 degree shell sits between the movement and the case. Image: Unimatic

The shell you stop seeing once the watch is screwed together

The interesting engineering here is invisible in the finished watch. Unimatic designs and makes what it calls a 360 degree protection system, moulded in Italy from a thermoplastic polyurethane blend. It holds the movement on every side, with a protective ring sitting over the top of the dial, and the aim is to soak up knocks and environmental stress without loading the watch down with weight.

Military standards get name-dropped loosely enough that it's worth pinning down which one this is. MIL-STD-810H is a US military spec covering real world environmental testing, and Unimatic says the UT1-PD has been officially tested against it. That's a claim about process rather than a number printed on the dial, which is the more useful kind.

The UT1-PD photographed in darkness, its markers, hands and bezel pip glowing green — Super-LumiNova C1 on the dial and the bezel. Image: Unimatic

40mm of sandblasted steel under 2.5mm of sapphire

The case is 316 stainless steel, sandblasted, 40mm on its own and 41.5mm once you count the bezel, and it's rated to 300 metres with every piece tested individually. The flat sapphire is a properly thick 2.5mm with anti-reflective coating on the inner face. The screw-down crown is 8mm. The bezel is a 120-click unidirectional with a matte black countdown insert and an international orange triangle.

On the dial: matte black, printed Arabic numerals in Super-LumiNova C1, an open white seconds track, orange trim, and a reverse lollipop seconds hand tipped in orange. Loud, on purpose.

680 euros, and what the straps add

The 680 euros includes tax and duties, and Unimatic ships worldwide, so an Australian buyer pays the euro figure as it stands. A black TPU strap comes in the box. After that, a sandblasted steel bracelet is 225 euros, a nylon NATO in international orange is 44, and a second TPU strap is 82. Each of the 250 watches is numbered and turns up in a tough case with a warranty card carrying its own ID seal.

The fair objection is that 680 euros buys a very competent automatic diver from any number of brands. It does. None of those will still be inside 15 seconds a month two years from now without being touched, and plenty of people who buy a 300 metre diver never take it past the local pool. This is the watch for them.