Today I’m taking a hands-on look at the Vaer DS2 Arctic, an affordable quartz diver with a bare bones demeanour that’s meant for actual diving use with its 150 meter water resistance, and the occasional after-dive seaside dining. We don’t tend to feature too many quartz watches here on the WRB, with our last one being the Jung J43C-01 nearly one year ago. What you will notice, is that nearly all the quartz watches we choose to review offer something that a mechanical watch can’t, and for the DS2 Arctic that we’re looking at today, it’s offering a highly functional tool aesthetic without any gimmicks, at a very attractive price point. This is a stripped down diver with a 1970’s mil-sub design influence that you can beat up and treat like a G-Shock.
Functional Vintage Aesthetic
Vaer is not trying to hide the fact that they’ve built another twist on the vintage Submariner, and Omega Seamaster, with some Doxa in there as well. In fact, they’re embracing the fact that this style of watch is one of the best ever produced. It’s minimalist, functional, and almost industrial in its design – they’ve recognized that there’s no need to attempt to reinvent the wheel. Instead, they’ve embraced the core fundamentals, and have taken advantage of what a quartz powered watch can offer, with its slim case coming in at only 10.4mm thick, and its ultra comfortable lightweight skin-diver feel on wrist.
The DS2 Arctic has everything you could need on even a mid, to top tier, dive watch. It’s sporting a full 316L stainless steel construction, a screw-down crown, single flat sapphire crystal with AR coating, excellent 39mm case sizing and a convenient industry standard lug width of 20mm. The lugs and case of the watch bring out most of the vintage appeal with their excellent proportions, translating to an outstanding fit on my 6.5 inch wrist. The lugs have an accentuated chamfering, not unlike what we see from Omega divers, and the bezel has a really nice satin finish with minimalist countdown markers.
The knurling around the bezel provides an excellent grip both above and under water, with 120 clicks of unidirectional rotation, it has a very “Tudor Pelagos” type of vibe to me. In my experience, the rotation of the bezel is very secure with nearly no back play, an important function to execute, and often a failure point for many budget dive watches. There are no extra frills added to this watch, which I can really appreciate, giving it a proper tool like feeling in hand and on wrist.
Innovative Dial
The one area Vaer has added some tasteful styling is on the dial, with the markers being fully applied and filled with old radium SuperLuminova. The matte-black backdrop offers the old radium lume the perfect canvas to contrast beautifully. While the “vintage dial look” can often be overplayed, especially in this lower budget segment, I think the dial here has been designed very well with the application of the markers giving it a sort of 3D appearance without coming off as too modern. The markers also alternate between stick and round shapes.
The minute and hour hands are classic sword shape, with a nice exagerated and extra wide appearance making them very easy to spot. The seconds hand is your iconic lollypop shape that has been plucked right off of a vintage Submariner. The watch comes on a nice black rubber strap, an ideal setup if you’re planning for this to be your water watch. Vaer also gives you the option to add a custom strap as well, with two free choices being; quick release in khaki, single pass in olive, and a third being an upgraded steel bracelet for an additional $90.00. The watch retails at $239USD, which seems like a bargain, and appears to now be available for immediate purchase on their official website here.
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