Helium Relief Valve on Omega Seamaster Professional... have you ever used it?

cvalue13

I haven’t worn this in 8 years

Before that, I wore it night and day, rain or shine, for 8 years.

I’d say it could use its first service 😬

cvalue13

Oh. Then I guess it’s a good thing Omega doesn’t make a quartz version of a watch with a useless He escape valve

🙄

cvalue13

This and your initial post toward me are a weird tangent of suddenly acting like we don’t here on this forum do much of anything other than talk about things we do or don’t like (or understand) about watches - or what the watch industry thinks of us.

Kiltie

First of all, the childish part of me wants to say:

69th post!!!
Nice.

I have an Invicta. It's a lefty quartz Navitimer knockoff. The left-handed-ness was the primary attraction to me, but at $170, it was almost twice as much as I'd ever spent on a watch at the time. I got as many unsolicited comments on that watch as any of my Omegas. Prior to that, I'd worn a host of Timexes and a sweetazz Jules Jurgenson moon phase I got for Christmas as a sophomore in high school ( 34mm - I was ahead of my time in the small watch trend ).

Wow... you're impressed, I see...

But flash forward, and I have a handful of "nice" watches, including a couple with HEVs.
Now dig, I'm not on the defensive here. I agree it's superfluous in 999 of 1000 cases. But it is, in point of fact, cool. Yeah, I said "fact".
And here's why:
First off, it's a watch doo-dad, and nearly all watch doo-dads are cool, simply by virtue of them being wee tiny little things engineered to do BIG things. They're amazing. Some dude invented that, and some other dudes employed it in a way that is both practical - in the sense that you can use it - and arguably visually appealing. That goes for moons and calendars and alarms and so on.
Secondly, well, just look up what "cool" means. It's fairly amorphous.

If nothing else, and if you're very lucky, it's a talking point, should someone comment on your watch. Otherwise, it's a...thing... that speaks to the capability of your watch that you, as the owner, internalize. And it's cool. Saying it's childish - and I know you were using hyperbole - is just saying you're cool because you don't have one. And that's ....cool.

A lot of folks, regarding the Seasmaster Pro in particular, want the HEV gone as number one on their wishlist. Next on the list is typically the bracelet. Change the bracelet. After that, it's the bezel. Make it a coin edge or some such. ( It's hard to grab, especially with wet hands. No, no, no...especially with gloves { crying emoji } ... Suck it! These are the same people who'd NEVER get in real water with it anyway. I dive mine regularly, and use the bezel with and without gloves. It works just fine ).
You know what these people want? A friggin' Rolex Sub. And you know what? There's about eleventy-billion of them out there. Get one. It's a great watch. I'd like to have one, too. But I don't want my SMP to be a Sub.
Can't afford a Sub? Get a Diver 65, a Hydroconquest, an Aquaracer... There's a ton of super awesome watches that fit the bill. But they're not Omegas. You know how you can tell? They don't have an HEV.
But leave the HEV alone. Or don't. Or integrate it. Whatever - that's the Seasmaster. That's the Professional Diver that Omega offers, along with its' more Rolex-y sister, the PO*.




*Which, incidentally, barring the HEV, has followed all of The Crown's design cues, blinging it all to hell and back, until it looks as much like the 2500 as a Sub maxi case looks like Sir Sean's Dr No watch. Mm... yeah, a design that hasn't changed at all over the decades. Perfection ( eye rolling emoji ).