Citizen Promaster Dive (You Know the One) Gets Full Lume Dial

I haven’t been shy about sharing my adoration for this particular Promaster Dive watch from Citizen. Zach Kazan and I wrote about our impressions as owners of the same variant of this watch, with a perfectly unsubtle blue camo dial, and it’s a watch we both come back to often. To me, Citizen is at their best when they lean into the slightly strange, and they’ve got a number of designs that qualify, including these wonderful Ecozilla “ashtray” watches recently released. If camo isn’t quite your thing (I don’t blame you), their latest take on this platform might be right up your alley. And if you are into camo, you’ll probably still like it as well. The latest Promaster Dive uses the same fabulous gunmetal titanium case, but pairs it with a full lume dial and a bright orange minute hand. 

Lume dials are a tricky thing to pull off properly, but here it feels like a totally natural extension of the design of this watch. It feels right at home. The camo execution was funky enough to jive with the unusual case design, but the full lume feels like a more practical solution to bring a unique level of clarity and contrast to the watch as a whole. It takes a near novelty level watch to a supremely practical level of watch.

Like the Aqualand JP2007-17W, the lume dial here is a light creamy green color that jumps off the black backdrop of the case and bezel. The hour plots are filled with lume of nearly the same color, but appear a bit brighter after a flash of light is applied to them. The markers get a thin black outline, but there’s plenty of contrast to make out the markings at a glance. This is aided by their sheer size of course, and the chapter ring in the rehaut itself. 

And then there’s the giant, bright orange hand. This minute hand dominates the dial as the only element that breaks from the light green and black colors applied across the rest of the dial. It’s glorious in nature and makes a quick read of where you are within the hour trivially easy from even the quickest of passing glances. 

The rest of the dial adheres to the design codes found in many generations of Citizen dive watches and they feel right at home placed with the sea of lume. This includes a small date aperture at 3 o’clock, which retains a small remnant of lume to its right to keep up to ISO spec. 

Inside you’ll find Citizen’s Eco-Drive E168 movement that’s powered by any light source, meaning (theoretically) the battery will never need replacing. This movement obviously jives pretty well with the full lume dial as you’ll likely be looking for any excuse to expose it to light. 

As we’ve commented about this case in the past, wearability is near effortless. It’s not a small watch at 46mm in diameter, but it’s lack of lugs mean it’s the same distance from top to bottom. Pair this with the relatively thin mid case section and titanium construction, and you’re left with a watch that is downright pleasant on the wrist.

The Citizen Promaster dive with lume dial is priced at $550 and is available for purchase now. Citizen.