Watches And Wonders 2025: Ulysse Nardin Introduces Diver [Air] The World’s Lightest Mechanical Dive Watch
5 min read
Imagine a timepiece so light, it feels like a second skin - yet packs enough engineering brilliance to survive depths of 200 meters and impacts of 5,000 G. This isn’t just another dive watch. This is the Ulysse Nardin Diver [AIR], the lightest mechanical dive watch ever created, tipping the scales at an astonishing 52 grams (including the strap) and just 46 grams without it. To put that in perspective, that’s less than half the weight of Ulysse Nardin’s own Diver X Skeleton - a watch already celebrated for its lightweight design. Introduced at the Watches and Wonders 2025, the Ulysse Nardin Diver [AIR] redefines the benchmarks in ultralight watchmaking without compromising on mechanical performance and overall durability.
Breaking The Mold: A Skeleton Dive Watch That Defies Logic
Dive watches are supposed to be heavy, rugged and overbuilt. That’s tradition. But Ulysse Nardin looked at the rulebook and simply ignored it. The Diver [AIR] is the culmination of three radical innovations:
A Movement Made of Air (Almost)
The UN-374 caliber giving life to the Ulysse Nardin Diver [AIR] is a skeletonized masterpiece, where 80% of the space is empty - yet it’s stronger than ever. Its bridges are hollowed out, reconfigured into ultra-rigid triangles and the mainspring barrel is reimagined as a “flying” design to shed weight. The result is a movement with 199 components that weighs just 7 grams. It beats at a frequency of 3 Hz or 21,600 vibrations per hour.
Titanium + Carbon Fiber for Unstoppable Lightness
The 44mm case is a modular hybrid featuring a titanium inner shell (90% recycled) which ensures 200m water resistance. It’s surrounded by carbon fiber side panels (sourced from IMOCA racing sailboats) to cut weight dramatically. The bezel is made from CarbonFoil, a compressed, marbled carbon composite that’s as tough as it is beautiful. The case gets a domed sapphire glass.
Silicon Escapement: Precision at Half the Weight
The balance wheel and escapement are crafted from upcycled silicon wafers, making them 50% lighter than traditional versions, without sacrificing accuracy.
Why This Watch Is A Technical Masterpiece?
The Ulysse Nardin Diver [AIR] is Lighter than anything in its class. Here’s a look at the weight shedding exercise at Ulysse Nardin progressing from the Diver of 2019 to the Diver [AIR] launched at Watches and Wonders 2025:
- Diver 44mm (2019): 120.5g
- Diver X Skeleton (2021): 105.8g
- Diver [AIR] (2024): 52g (with strap), 46g (without)
Now that’s not just progress, that’s a huge leap in terms of ultralight avant-garde watchmaking.
More than just an endeavor in weight shedding, the Ulysse Nardin Diver [AIR] features an impressive 5,000 G shock resistance (that’s 50 times the force of gravity). The watch is tested for days of continuous vibration and real-world abuse. It also packs in an ample 200m water resistance making it a highly competent diver’s machine. Its minimal skeleton dial features black indexes and hands with a generous luminous coating of white Superluminova.
Its UN-374 caliber packs in an impressive 90-hour power reserve, thanks to the ultra-efficient flying barrel. While losing the automatic winding mechanism would further benefit in weight reduction, Ulysse Nardin chose not to venture that extreme so as to enable the Diver [AIR] to pass the requisites for achieving true dive watch certification.
Sustainable High-Tech Luxury
Avoiding the ordinary, not just in engineering but in material technology as well, enables Ulysse Nardin to achieve record-breaking numbers with its ultralight Diver [AIR]. The brand partnered with market leaders and start-ups for obtaining the highest-grade titanium and carbon fiber, a cutting-edge approach novel even in contemporary watchmaking and first experimented with the creation of the brand’s Diver NET concept watch in 2020.
The Diver [AIR] uses 90% recycled titanium which is recovered from Swiss medical waste. The Nylo-Foil case sides are made from 60% Nylo sourced from upcycled fishing nets and 40% carbon fiber which has been recovered from the world’s fastest IMOCA sailing boats.
Ulysse Nardin didn’t just design this watch - they assembled a dream team of material scientists, aerospace engineers and marine recyclers:
TiFast and Thyssenkrupp process the recycled titanium to aerospace-grade perfection. Fil & Fab supplies recovered ocean nylon from discarded fishing nets. CDK Technologies and Extracthive salvage carbon fiber from racing yachts and recycle it back into its original fibrous state while Lavoisier Composites fuses the Nylo and carbon fiber into Nylo-Foil, a material lighter than carbon fiber. This isn’t just watchmaking - it’s a sustainability revolution disguised as a luxury timepiece.
The luminous bezel insert is forged from CarbonFoil, 100% upcycled carbon fibres from IMOCA boats, chopped and compressed into a marble-like pattern. Finally, the escapement plays its part in this innovative approach, as it is produced from an upcycled silicon wafer supplied by Sigatec.
The Diver [AIR] comes with a choice of two interchangeable straps: Orange elastic fabric strap with scratch closing and a white elastic fabric strap with scratch closing. The straps weigh less than 6 grams.
Final Thoughts: The Watch That Shouldn’t Exist But Does
The Diver [AIR] from Ulysse Nardin introduced at the Watches and Wonders 2025 is more than a timepiece. It’s a statement, a proof that luxury can be lightweight, that sustainability can be cutting-edge and that true innovation never stops. In the words of Paul-David Nardin, “If it’s possible, it’s done. If it’s impossible, it will be done.” This daring spirit still ignites innovation at Ulysse Nardin and enables the brand to venture further beyond what is expected and even believed to be possible. Forget what you know about dive watches. The Ulysse Nardin Diver [AIR] changes everything.
