I’m not particularly enamored of watches that offer alternative ways to tell the time, because the established way we have, with two hands, has been serving our purposes for centuries.

Having said that, I found the new Reservoir Hydrosphere, with its large minute hand, to be a perfect solution for a dive watch.

You see, when you are under the water, hours don’t matter, only minutes. Emphasizing the minutes make the most sense, and that’s exactly what the Reservoir Hydrosphere does, simply and elegantly.

Set against a bright white dial, the minute hand and its half circle of travel are the only thing you see at first glance, which is a good thing. It takes a few moments to realize that the number in the aperture at six o’clock is the jumping hour, a nice nod to watchmaking history in a thoroughly modern watch.

I wore this watch for a week and I never had trouble reading the time, which isn’t something I can say for the other new time display watches I have worn. I loved putting this watch on my wrist and it certainly caught the attention of people who saw it.

I wish I could have taken it in the lake and given it an actual baptism, but since my wear test took place in February, the closest it got to immersion was in the shower. Water resistant to 200 meters with a uni-directional bezel and a fuel gauge power reserve indicator below the hour display, the Hydrosphere ticks all the boxes needed in a dive watch, in a package that is equally at home on the street and in the office.

The watch is slathered in Super-LumiNova, so it glows super bright at night, which is a great benefit, and it’s easy to read the time at a glance, one of the prerequisites of a true dive watch.

The watch is big, however, as you would expect a dive watch to be. My wrist isn’t huge and I was able to pull this watch off. And wearing a watch that is built to withstand the rigors of the Deep Blue Sea, I felt comfortable wearing it in my daily life, where it transitioned between work, play and workout with ease.

And to go back to that single hand — I got used to reading the time very quickly, and it was even easier for my ten-year-old son Jake than trying to read a regular clock.

Turns out that single minute hand is all you really need.