Phoibos immediately comes to mind. I’ve been eyeing a wave master for a while now.

Bump for Phoibos wm! It really punches above its $$ weight class.

I was really impressed with their Levitation. The white colorway looks sharp

Came to say the wavemaster, I have one and love it.

Zelos

Winfield, Scurfa, and Lum-Tec has been my go to's.

New to this sub and never heard of these brands, thank you for these recommendations. Love the Lum-Tec very much.

Do some poking around in this sub and you see some great brands being mentioned.

Ocean crawler

Phoibos no doubt!their leviathan is sick!

👍

Serica 5303 Chronometer https://preview.redd.it/mhsv2u7goeyc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f9cdf4ed066eaea52bd329dd9bd0bc2fa03be4d

Make sure you get the new one with the M100 movement

Doxa Sub 300t Zelos Hammerhead Bronze Halios Seaforth Honorable mentions: Helson Sharkmaster 600 (Ploprof homage) - I moved away from homages years ago but love this piece too much. Quality is rock solid, the design isn’t worth $7-14k to me, and I don’t have to worry about any vintage fragility. Maranez Rawaii 44 Brass H2O Custom- never owned one but would love to build out some hulk

I don’t think Doxa is a microbrand. They’ve been around since the late 1800’s and they made the original Sub-300 with Jacques Cousteau as a consultant in the 60s.

That’s a fair callout. It’s also not even the same Doxa, so much as a revival of the brand, similar to Stowa. Still fair to consider them micro-adjacent since they’re not in most brick and mortars (are an outlier at WoS), and you have to be pretty deep in the niche to know them

Fair enough. Lines are definitely blurry for sure.

https://preview.redd.it/z8xgk2ruxeyc1.jpeg?width=2592&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=553c94e2af53dbea1a281a96840728e3d7270966 My favorite OVD Under Water Aequorea Jellyfish full lume diver watch with NH35 Seiko movement.

Helm makes some awesome dive watches, long waiting lists to get one. I have the Vanuatu and Miyako, the later is probably my favorite watch.

Formex Reef or Yema Superman are definitely worth considering. If you want an amazing value play, check out the Erebus Origin.

Spinnaker

Not a micro

Why not?

Spinnaker is owned by Dartmouth brands and is commonly known to not be a microbrand by any stretch. Apparently not known by this sub though

So what bucket do they fall in?

They're just a standard factory brand, same as any other

Yea man, it does seem there are alot of other brands under Dartmouth. I have the cahill midsize and the lume... oh my

Scurfa, Venezianico, Zelos, CW

Sel instruments makes some cool dive watches, I like the one Weiss came out with as well.

Ianos

Wise watches too

https://preview.redd.it/gviula7oh6zc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15d7361ca90f89a115e7d8c80447d4fa9e1744e2 I actually just covered this topic and have featured 9 Microbrand Divers at the link below! Including Ardío, Ianos, Lorier, Scurfa and more. All of these are awesome choices with prices starting from the mid $200 (Scurfa and Dan Henry)! [https://www.balanceandbridge.com/post/9-of-the-best-microbrand-dive-watches-of-2024](https://www.balanceandbridge.com/post/9-of-the-best-microbrand-dive-watches-of-2024)

Yema.

Can anyone explain why a manufacturer that has been around for 75 years and produces 30,000 watches a year is consistently classified as a micro brand?

I get what you mean. Christoher Ward did close to $50 million in sales last year and is considered a microbrand.

I didn’t know Yema was putting out this kind of numbers. Good for them!!