Omega Speedmaster vs. Seamaster: Omega's Iconic Collections Compared

If you're relatively new to the watch collecting game and are ready to graduate to your first Omega watch, you're probably pondering a question that has confronted many others before you: Speedmaster or Seamaster? Spaceworthy historical chronograph or tough but stylish diver? Buzz Aldrin or Jacques Cousteau? The official watch of NASA or the official watch of James Bond? Both of these megapopular Omega watches have rich, amazing stories to tell and both today offer a plethora of options in terms of colorways, materials, and even added complications — all while still remaining true to their heritage. In this feature, we compare and contrast the Omega Speedmaster vs Seamaster in the pursuit of helping prospective buyers make a (hopefully) more informed decision on their first — or next — Omega watch. 

Omega Speedmaster vs Seamaster: Far From Their Roots

In terms of seniority as a product family, the Omega Seamaster has almost a decade on its chronograph sibling. The Seamaster as we know it today is one of the most iconic of dive watches, but in 1948, when Omega introduced the first model by that name, the “dive watch” as we know it in the modern sense didn’t really exist. The original Omega Seamaster was positioned in contemporary advertisements as a watch for “town, sea, and country” — a dress watch for gentlemen that was distinguished from its many competitors by its adoption of a new waterproofing system that Omega had developed for the watches it produced for British military divers during World War II. Omega’s pioneering waterproof technology centered around the use of a rubber O-ring gasket, of the type used in submarines, to seal the crown and case against leaks; this type of gasket proved to be more reliable than the shellac and lead versions that watchmakers had been using at the time, and it set the Seamaster on its path to becoming, eventually, a full-fledged divers’ watch. 

Omega took that metaphorical plunge in 1957, introducing the first Omega Seamaster 300 model as one of a trio of tool-oriented timepieces with “Master” in their name (and you guessed it, one of them was the Speedmaster, more on which below). The Seamaster 300 boosted its dressy predecessor’s water resistance to 200 meters (Omega was confident that the watch could handle pressures as deep as those at 300 meters, even though the testing equipment at the time could only record down to 200, hence the name) and embraced the era’s growing masses of recreational divers. Like another now-legendary divers’ watch that preceded it to the market, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, the Seamaster found its way to the wrist of Jacques Cousteau, the man almost single-handedly responsible for the growth in popularity of diving as a leisure pursuit. Eventually, it would also become the preferred timepiece of two cinematic James Bonds.

What of the other two “Master” watches that launched from Omega in that seminal year of 1957? One of them, the Railmaster, was a watch aimed at scientists and technicians whose technical hallmark was its extreme magnetic resistance (more on the Railmaster here); something of a niche product these days, and far less successful and culturally significant than its siblings, it today comprises a handful of models in the extensive Seamaster portfolio. Much more successful and impactful was the watch that rounded out the trio, the Speedmaster, which as its name implied was a watch designed for timing motorsports.

The original, Ref. CK2915, was equipped with a three-register chronograph and a tachymeter scale printed on the bezel; the latter feature was a watch-design first and has since been widely adopted by other chronograph watches. The original Speedy, as the model has come to be known in shorthand, was distinctly different from the one that went into space more than a decade later, distinguished by its “Broad Arrow” handset and vintage-style Omega logo with oval-shaped “O,” but it contained the same movement, the manually wound, column-wheel chronograph Caliber 321. This early “Broad Arrow” model would inspire a handful of retro-style homage pieces years after the “Moonwatch” edition became the flagship of the collection. 

Omega Speedmaster vs Seamaster: Historical Milestones

Even before it evolved into a “professional” diving watch in 1957, the original Omega Seamaster and its revolutionary waterproofing system achieved some notable milestones. In 1955, diver Gordan McLean wore one for a record-breaking 62.5-meter dive off the Australian coast; in 1956, another Seamaster took a polar-route journey across the North Atlantic strapped to the hull of a Douglas DC6. 

After the Seamaster 300 set the bar higher for dive watches, Omega, along with several of its competitors, continued to push the limits of water resistance for watches during the 1960s and ‘70s. In 1970, the company partnered with COMEX, the same French commercial diving firm that collaborated with Rolex on the development of its Sea-Dweller, to produce what is still arguably Omega’s most polarizing model, the Seamaster PloProf, aka the Seamaster 600. (“PloProf” was an abbreviation for the French “plongeuers professionel,” the “professional divers” for whom the watch was intended.) The PloProf, with its hulking, asymmetrical monobloc steel case, doubled the Seamaster 300’s water resistance to 600 meters; Omega followed that up with the “Grand” PloProf, which could descend to 1,000 meters. While this oddball, somewhat unwieldy timepiece never became a mainstream hit (though it could be described as a cult favorite), the PloProf set some records of its own in the diving world and was another model seen on the wrist of Cousteau. 

Much later, in 2019, Omega scored points in its decades-long battle with rival Rolex for the title of world’s deepest-diving watch — i.e., the watch that has descended to a deeper point  underwater than any other watch on Earth — with its development of a prototype dive watch called the Seamaster Planet Ocean Ultra Deep Professional. That massive 55mm watch, which was tested to a crushing (and at the time, record-breaking) 10,000 meters of water resistance, descended to the Earth’s deepest point in the Pacific Ocean’s Marianas Trench, attached to the robotic arms of Victor Vescovo’s Submarine, the Limiting Factor. 

While the Seamaster was setting records deep below the waves, the Speedmaster was destined to make history in the opposite direction — 238,900 miles above the Earth, to be exact. 

In the mid-1960s, in response to U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s pledge to beat the rival Soviet Union to the moon, the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Association (NASA) sought out a watch that its astronauts could wear on space missions, and contacted a number of watch companies to submit products for testing. Omega was one of a handful of manufacturers that took up the challenge, offering up its Speedmaster Ref. ST 105.003, which astronaut Ed White had worn on his famous Space Walk in 1965. That watch, and three others, underwent a rigorous regimen of tests, conducted by NASA engineer James H. Ragan, to determine their mission-readiness for the new frontier of space exploration. 

The watches were subjected to wide fluctuations in temperature, pressure and gravity that simulated the expected conditions on the lunar surface, as well as a punishing series of shocks and impacts and the rapid acceleration and deceleration that they would encounter in a space launch. When the results were tallied, the Omega Ref. 105.003 emerged as the winner (it was also the unanimous favorite of the astronauts who’d been given all three qualifying watches to wear), becoming the first and only watch “flight qualified for manned space missions by NASA.”

The Speedmaster that aced NASA’s testing gauntlet was discontinued by 1966, several years before the Apollo 11 mission to the moon was launched in 1969, and superseded by the Ref. ST105.012 — today regarded as the original, authentic “Moonwatch.” Its case was 42mm and featured an asymmetrical build with crown guards and wide-set chronograph pushers on the right side. The model cemented its place in the annals of history on July 21, 1969, shortly after the Apollo 11 mission commander, Neil Armstrong, stepped onto the surface of the moon and declared the accomplishment “One small step, for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Armstrong’s crewmate, Buzz Aldrin, was wearing his NASA-issued Speedmaster when he emerged from the capsule several minutes later, ensuring that Omega’s watch would forever be remembered as the first one worn on the moon. After the crew returned to Earth, and the subsequent advertising blitz by Omega touting its watch’s spacefaring cred, the Speedmaster’s reputation as the Moonwatch was secured, and its original identity as a racing watch, left in the lunar dust. The Omega Speedmaster has been part of every astronaut’s equipment kit in every NASA mission since, from Apollo up to the present day.

Speedmaster vs Seamaster: Pop Cultural Impact

In 1993, Omega gave its emblematic dive watch a facelift, introducing the first Seamaster Professional Diver 300M, which, unlike its predecessors, was actually tested to 300 meters of water resistance and also featured a number of technical and aesthetic upgrades, including a scalloped-edge bezel, skeletonized hands, a wave-pattern texture on the dial, and a distinctive five-link bracelet. That watch, which set the stage for many successors and line extensions to follow, began its march to mainstream popularity when Omega signed on as the official watch of James Bond, starting in 1995’s Goldeneye, which rebooted the franchise with Pierce Brosnan in the lead role. 

According to Omega, the relationship arose organically, when Lindy Hemming, the Oscar-winning costume designer who came on board for Goldeneye, decided that an Omega Seamaster would be the ideal watch for James Bond, based on the character’s established history. “I was convinced that Commander Bond, a naval man, a diver, and a discreet gentleman of the world, would wear this watch,” Hemming said in an interview. The blue-dialed Seamaster that Brosnan wore in the film (Ref. 2451.80), was outfitted with a quartz movement, but the one he wore throughout the next three films, culminating in 2002’s Die Another Day, was upgraded to the automatic Caliber 1120. 

In 2006, actor Daniel Craig succeeded Brosnan in the role of Bond for the next reboot of the franchise in Casino Royale. And Omega remained on board as the official watch of Agent 007, equipping Craig — an avowed watch lover and Omega fan — with at least one new Seamaster model in each of his five films, spanning the gamut from the classic Diver 300M to the dressier Aqua Terra to the robust Planet Ocean. 

The most recent, which had design input from the actor himself, was the Seamaster Diver 300M “007 Edition,” worn in 2021’s No Time to Die. The watch featured a titanium case, a scalloped-edge rotating divers’ bezel with an aluminum insert, and a brown “tropical” dial with vintage-hued lume and a British armed-forces-inspired “broad arrow” marking above 6 o’clock. While the next actor to portray James Bond has yet to be chosen, and the release date for the next film, which will now be helmed by the team at Amazon, has yet to be set, one can rest assured that an Omega Seamaster will play a role.

The Speedmaster has had far fewer appearances on the big screen than the Seamaster, but its most memorable appearance was in a film that portrayed the Moonwatch’s pivotal role in a real-life space adventure. The 1995 blockbuster Apollo 13 was a dramatization of the eponymous NASA mission in April 1970, the third space flight bound for the moon. The crew experienced a potentially fatal equipment failure when an oxygen tank exploded, crippling the service module that provided life-sustaining functions aboard the vessel. With the lunar mission aborted and the spacecraft dangerously off-course, mission commander James A. Lovell (portrayed by Tom Hanks in the film) executed a risky maneuver to ensure a safe landing: a fuel burn of precisely 14 seconds’ duration that would reorient the craft to a safe angle for a return to Earth’s atmosphere. The onboard clock had malfunctioned, so the Speedy worn by Lovell’s fellow astronaut, Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon in the movie) was pressed into service to time the crucial interval for the burn.

The desperate gambit was successful, and the Apollo 13 crew returned safely to Earth on April 17. This exploit earned Omega NASA’s “Silver Snoopy” award for meritorious service in space travel, giving rise to a series of “Snoopy” limited editions that remains extremely popular today, while the movie depicting the event was nominated for multiple awards and became a treasured classic of American cinema.

Omega Speedmaster vs Seamaster: Vintage Revivals

Both the Seamaster and Speedtimer have in recent years embraced some of the vintage models of their past, proving that these two iconic Omega watches offer an identity beyond just “the Moonwatch” and “the James Bond watch.”

In 2013, Omega returned to the Speedy’s auto-racing roots, releasing the retro-flavored Speedmaster ‘57, a contemporary reissue of the 1957 original. The watch’s streamlined design includes the vintage “Broad Arrow” hands, the original steel tachymeter bezel with blackened scale, and two subdials at 3 and 9 o’clock, for chronograph readout and running seconds, respectively, along with a date window at 6 o’clock. The chronograph subdial is notably upgraded from its 1957 predecessor, with an unusual two-handed design that allows both the elapsed minutes (60) and elapsed hours (12) to be read simultaneously and intuitively on one subdial. All the models in the Speedmaster ‘57 series have 40.5mm stainless steel cases and contain Omega’s manually wound, Co-Axial Master Chronometer Caliber 9906.

The Speedmaster Racing editions, introduced to the larger collection in 2012, pay homage to a model from 1968 in which Omega doubled down on the racing DNA by adding a motorsport-inspired “checkered flag” minute track on the dial’s periphery to complement the subdials and the tachymeter bezel. The modern versions have a 44.25mm steel case with a matte black aluminum tachymeter ring on the bezel. The beveled hands and arrowhead hour markers also echo the 1968 watch’s design, alongside the well-placed orange details on the dial and bezel. The movement, displayed behind a sapphire caseback, is Omega’s Co-Axial Master Chronometer Caliber 9900, an automatic with a column-wheel chronograph function and a power reserve of 60 hours.

Even the “Moonwatch” version of the Speedmaster, which has changed relatively little in more than half a century, offers an alternative based on a pre-Apollo 13 model, namely the “First Omega in Space” pieces, which take their cues from the privately owned watch worn by astronaut Wally Schirra on the 1962 “Sigma 7” mission, years before NASA’s official certification of the Speedy as vital astronaut equipment. The watch stays faithful to its 39.7mm dimensions (more modest than those of the Moonwatch), its straight lugs with thin bevels, lack of crown guards, and its use of the relief-engraved seahorse emblem on the caseback. The Alpha-shaped hands and applied Omega logo at 12 o’clock are also features drawn from pre-1969 Speedmasters. The manually wound Caliber 1861 beats inside, as in the current-production Moonwatch, representing the most up-to-date evolution of the Lemania-based Caliber 321 that powered the vintage models. 

The Seamaster has also, to a more modest extent, mined its archives for modern revivals. The Seamaster 300 “Trilogy Edition,” launched in 2017 for the 50th anniversary of the influential “Master” trio, was based closely on the highly collectible Ref. CK2913, and featured that model’s black dial, “Broad Arrow” hour hand, recessed triangular hour markers, and bidirectional (rather than the more modern unidirectional) rotating bezel, made of aluminum in the contemporary version. Outfitted with an Omega Master Chronometer movement, Caliber 8806, the watch also featured the historical Naiad symbol on the crown — a visual nod to exceptional water resistance back in ’57 — and a faithful rendering of the original model’s Seahorse illustration on the caseback. The vintage-influenced “non-Diver” Seamaster 300 proved to have staying power with modern audiences, and Omega has since spun off the Trilogy model into another Seamaster sub-family, now boasting numerous case materials, bracelets and colorways (and unidirectional bezels).

With the 1957 model back on the scene, it was only a matter of time before the very first Seamaster from 1948 would also resurface in a modern incarnation. More or less predictably, that occurred in 2018, the model’s 70th anniversary. Offered in both a three-hand and small-seconds version, the contemporary Seamaster 1948 watches have modest, period-appropriate 38-mm cases and opaline domed dials that use 18k white gold for the hands, applied numerals and indices, and the vintage-style, Greek-letter Omega logo below 12 o’clock. Both versions are equipped with modern Master Chronometer calibers. The “dress watch” version of the Seamaster remains in the collection and provides the template for several city-specific boutique editions.

Seamaster vs. Speedmaster: Exotic Materials, High Complications

For most enthusiasts, the Omega Seamaster and Omega Speedmaster families, regardless of the vast numbers of references they now encompass, are defined primarily by their core classic models: the Speedmaster Professional “Moonwatch” chronograph and the Seamaster Diver 300M three–handed “James Bond” dive watch, both in traditional stainless steel. But both collections have dabbled in more exotic materials and higher complications. Below are some standout examples.

Omega added the Aqua Terra to the Seamaster stable in 2002 as a dressier, more understated option to the tool-oriented Diver 300M (and to the even-more-robust Planet Ocean models, which joined the collection in 2005). The most complex timepiece under the Aqua Terra umbrella is the Aqua Terra Worldtimer, with a multi-level, globe-themed dial. The dial’s exterior section features applied indices and a circle printed with the names of world cities in three distinct colors — red for London, aka GMT 0; black for locations with daylight savings times; and blue for non-DST locales. Bienne, Omega’s Swiss hometown, stands in for Paris at GMT +1. The center of the dial is a sapphire disk with a hand-crafted enamel world map as seen from the North Pole and an outer 24-hour ring in day and night color segments. The case is 43 mm in diameter, with a wave-edged exhibition caseback that displays the movement, Omega’s self-winding Caliber 8939. The original watch, in yellow gold, was limited to 87 pieces, and followed by a non-limited version in steel, which Teddy reviews here. Never one to let an outstanding in-house caliber go to waste, Omega followed up by also installing the world-time movement in a Planet Ocean model a few years later.

Omega offers several GMT options in the Seamaster Planet Ocean line, the most noteworthy of which is the Deep Blue edition, the successor to the Deep Black models, the first ceramic-cased watches tested to 600 meters of water resistance, introduced in 2016. The Big Blue is the first Omega watch with a case made entirely from a monobloc of blue ceramic. Orange and blue are the signature colors of the Planet Ocean series, so orange highlights abound throughout the design, including in the 24-hour GMT scale surrounding the dial and the first 15-minute-sector of the bezel’s 60-minute diving scale, which combines orange rubber and ceramic. Inside the stately 45.5mm case is the Master Chronometer Caliber 8906, with a 60-hour power reserve and an integrated GMT function.

The “Dark Side of the Moon” version of the Moonwatch, launched in xxxx, derives its name from the monochromatic, ebony aesthetic of its case and dial, both made from black zirconium oxide ceramic. The 44.25mm case has both brushed and polished finishes, and the dial has applied 18k gold indexes and two blackened subdials at 3 o’clock and 6 o’clock. The movement is Omega’s automatic Caliber 9300, which drives an intuitive two-handed counter at 3 o’clock, for both the 12-hour and 60-minute chronograph readouts, and a running seconds display at 9 o’clock. The bezel’s traditional tachymeter scale is inscribed in matte chromium nitride on the polished black ceramic surface, and the chronograph pushers are also in polished ceramic. Despite straying far beyond the purist’s version of an Omega moonwatch, the Dark Side of the Moon has become a successful sub-family in its own right, offered in several other executions, including editions with different-colored ceramics, like the Gray Side of the Moon and Blue Side of the Moon editions.

While nearly all Speedmaster “Moonwatches” are chronographs, relatively few of them are also equipped with that most on-theme of additional complications, a moon-phase display. In 2016, Omega released the most noteworthy example, a blue-on-blue Speedmaster Moonphase (with a sunburst dial and a tachymeter bezel insert cast in the brand’s proprietary “LiquidMetal”) that was also the first Speedy with a movement that achieved Omega’s Master Chronometer certification, attesting not only to the movement’s accuracy and robustness but also to its extreme antimagnetic properties. Joining the hours-and-minutes chronograph subdial at 3 o’clock, and the dual small seconds/analog date subdial at 9 o’clock, a moon-phase at 6 o’clock is distinguished by a photorealistic moon disk with a subtle historical detail that is worth viewing under a loupe: the minuscule imprint of Buzz Aldrin’s astronaut boot on the surface.

Launched in 2021, the Speedmaster Chronoscope pulls off a rare horological trifecta, combining three chronograph-related scales on its vintage-inspired dial and bezel: a tachymeter, telemeter, and pulsometer. Deriving its name from the Greek words “chronos,” meaning time, and “scope,” meaning to observe, the model pays tribute to vintage Omega chronograph watches from the 1940s with its spiral track patterns, snailed subdials, and leaf-shaped hands. The Chronoscope is available in seven total references, six that use stainless steel for their 43-mm cases and another in Omega’s exclusive bronze gold, a corrosion-resistant alloy made up of copper, gold, and a handful of other precious metals. Inside the watches beats a new, manually wound manufacture movement, the Omega Co-Axial Master Chronometer Caliber 9908, whose noteworthy features include Geneva waves in Arabesque that radiate outward from the balance wheel rather from the center of the bridge — the first time that Omega has executed this distinctive finish in this manner. 

Final Thoughts

Considering all the factors noted above, the contest of Omega Seamaster vs. Speedmaster ends in what most would consider a photo finish. The Seamaster has the edge in terms of longevity (if only by slightly less than a decade), mainstream pop-cultural cred thanks to its longtime and ongoing association with the James Bond franchise, and in its breadth of line extensions, from Aqua Terra to Planet Ocean to the core 300M Divers. The Speedmaster, on the other hand, dominates the conversation when it comes to historical impact, as the first watch on the moon, and offers slightly more vintage-inspired iterations than its more contemporary-focused sibling. The core “Moonwatch” is also revered by purists for retaining many of the period-appropriate details of its most famous reference here in the 21st century, right down to the Hesalite crystal and manually wound movement. If you're a diver, or a space geek, the choice is probably easy. Everyone else is urged to continue learning even more about these iconic Omega timepieces.  You can learn more at omegawatches.com