Mido Automatic Diving Watch Ocean Star GMT Dark Blue M026.629.17.051.00

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The latter? Everyone else. Well, everyone apart from a few Omegas, and their recent innovation, a non-GMT complication in the calibre 8500 movement family, which offers timezone-setting (1-hr increments) on 3-handed watches. The Mido uses rectangular indices all round, apart from double squares at 12 and 6, and a single square to accommodate the date at 3. Even the 12-marker on the bezel is a square, albeit with a round lume pip within. The hands are folded, with a brushed centre section and polished edges. The H and M hands have rectangular lume sections on the outer ends, and empty windows on the pinion end. Both the GMT and the seconds hand have blue arrow heads. The chamfers on the case corners, the castellated edge of the bezel, the crown, the surface of the ceramic bezel insert, the facets of the hands and indices. Will this be the second watch from Mido which can inspire me? The Mido Ocean Star Chronograph was one of the big surprises for me at the beginning of this year. This was not only due to the interesting hybrid concept, consisting of diver and chronograph. Also the good workmanship, the excellent choice of materials and the moderate price made the timepiece a real top watch for me. So now it’s on to the GMT variant, a distant sister. One of the Swiss company's earliest successes came in 1934 in the form of the Multifort. This model remains a staple of the Mido catalog to this day. The release of the Ocean Star followed in 1959 and was a smash hit. It features a single-shell case and a crown sealing system that would later become known as the Aquadura. At the time, the Ocean Star was one of the most robust and water-resistant watches on the market. Today, the Ocean Star's direct descendants are found in the Commander collection, while the Ocean Star name has been given to a new series of diving watches.

Suppose you are going to be consulting the time in two time zones frequently. The priority of the dial must be legibility, and the Ocean Star GMT delivers just that. The hour and minute hands have a semi-skeletonised format, a distinctive feature of many Mido Ocean Star watches. They are polished on the sides and brushed in the centre to ensure legibility from any angle. The soft blue colour of the dial provides a perfect base for the rectangular applied indexes with their mirror-polished contours and lume-filled interiors. The red GMT hand has a white tip; the same colour combination is used for the central seconds hand, but it is much more subtle and slimmer, so there is no confusion reading the GMT data. A watch with the Traveller GMT function allows the wearer to set the time upon arrival by moving the hour hand in hour increments without any of the other hands needing to be adjusted. Airline pilots and international travellers love this functionality because the GMT hand on their watches usually correlates to their home time; thus, it rarely needs to be changed. Furthermore, most GMT watches use the Office functionality in their movements. They are called Office GMTs for individuals who rarely travel but either want to know what time it is in foreign markets or who have family members living abroad. On Office GMTs, the GMT hand moves in hour increments and can be set independently as well. GMT watches never go out of style. Year after year, brands introduce GMT models with an extra hour hand and a 24-hour scale to indicate time in another time zone, and for obvious reasons, they are some of the most practical watches on the market. In 2022, we have already seen more than a dozen companies presenting new models with such functions. Still, this recent Mido Ocean Star GMT Special Edition, dare I say, is one of the best offers for a perfect balance of price, quality and performance. Let’s see why. I should say that Mido are not active in the UK market. They have no dealer network or even an agent over here. Nor will they sell direct to customers. I did ask Mido directly, but they refused. When feeling the case surfaces, the Mido Ocean Star GMT makes the usual good impression. Everything feels very high quality. The Mido Ocean Star GMT on the wristThe Mido Ocean Star GMT expands the diving collection of the Swiss traditional manufacturer with an interesting world time watch, whose time zone information can be found in a very unusual place. GMT and diving watch in one – I will show you this and all other exciting details in my review! What the Mido Ocean Star GMT promises… These elevate what could otherwise look a little utilitarian into something smarter and even perhaps dressier.

In Spanish, mido means "I measure." In 1918, company founder Georges Schaeren selected this name for his new business because he felt it reflected a desire for technical innovation and precise design. Mido's early years coincided with the advent of the automobile industry. It was, therefore, natural that the manufacturer specialized in wristwatches inspired by radiator grills used by early automakers.Mido specifies the water resistance up to 200 meters depth. That should be more than enough for 99.5% of us. Enduring like no other movement: the Caliber 80 Why is this important? Simply put, the list of companies offering traveller GMT watches is very small, and the list of those offering Office GMT watches is very long. Last year, Mido, one of the brands under the Swatch Group umbrella, released the Ocean Star GMT. Our very own Thor Svaboe has a great write up of the watch that you can find here in which he talks about the amazing value it presents within the category of Swiss-made automatic GMT’s. I like the little details touches when in motion too. The end of the hour hand just hovers over the inside edge of the date window as it passes 3. The minute hand tip reaches the inner edge minute indices. The ends of the second and GMT hands are at the outer edge of minute indices too. The widest part of the second hand’s lume passes perfectly over the inner edge of the hour indices. These are intentional and pleasing things to see. A look through the specs, though, had us wondering what exactly was up with this thing. The spec sheet lists the movement as the Mido Caliber 80, which is based on an ETA C07.661 caliber, part of the next generation of ETA movements with extended power reserves (this one goes up to 80 hours on a full wind). We had heard rumblings of a new GMT movement that ETA would be introducing with a jumping local hour hand, and suspected this might be it. Leave it to a worldwide pandemic to prevent us from getting one to go hands on with to prove it (and the Mido provided press material didn’t explicitly state whether or not this was a feature of the watch).