Editorial: Too Much Hot Air About Helium Release Valves

January 15, 2013

The helium release valve is one of the most overused andmisunderstood components found on watches today. While it does no harm to include one, its function is extremely specific and only matters at all if you happen to be acommercial diver (that bothers to wear a watch). It's high time we cut through the mythology, so here's the low down on the helium release valve.? Brands large and small continue drilling extra holes in their cases and then touting the extreme capabilities of these watches, often erroneously associating the component with deeper depths and safer diving. Meanwhile, many na?ve watch buyers assume that a dive watch without a helium release valve is somehow inferior and they therefore seek out this feature above others. Sea Dweller Gas Relief Valve via ShearTime Unlike a fuse-and-chain or a tourbilloncomplex horological advances whose aim is to improve timekeeping precisiona helium release valve is a simple mechanism: a one-way pressure relief valve typically consisting of a strong spring, a plug, and a good rubber gasket. Nothing too complicated there. When Rolex developed their patented gas relief valve forthe Sea Dweller in the 1960s?at the suggestion of U.S. Navy diver Bob Barth, the dive watchwas a legitimate instrument, used right alongside depth and pressuregauges. Rolexes were being used by the SEALAB and COMEX divers and others inthe burgeoning field of commercial diving, when diving bells and underwaterhabitats were just coming into use. The divers found that the crystals wereexploding off their watches as they rose in decompression chambers due to the buildup of heliumgas in the watch after extended stays inside the dry pressurizedhabitats used for commercial diving. The valve was a no-nonsense solution to this problem.According to DOXA, its Conquistador dive watch (1969) was the first watch equipped with a helium release valve tobe sold to the general public, while the Rolex Sea Dweller remained mainly acommercial tool. There is some irony to the fact that DOXAs version of thisvalve was included on a watch that pioneered the no decompression limit bezel,which was created to help recreational divers avoid the very decompression thatwas causing the crystals to pop off commercial divers watches after weeklongsoaks in helium environments. Commercial divers have little use fora 60-minute timing bezel during a multi-hour shift. DOXA with Helium Relief Valve Too often we read hyperbolic ad copy, press releases, and watch reviews that tout the inclusion of a helium release valve on a watch assomehow endowing it with the ability to go deeper or to be a more seriousdiving instrument. However, unless youre one of the very few people doing commercial diving, adding a release valve does nothing more than add another hole to the case - a counter-intuitive move in my mind. In fact, it runs counter to the everythingyou need and nothing you dont aesthetic that I find so appealing about rugged sport watches in the first place.A helium release valve does not make a watch capable ofdiving to deeper depths. It was designed to function in a dry, pressurizedenvironment and only deals with the gases in the air, not with the waterin which the timepiece is submerged during diving. I am not saying brandsshouldnt put them on their dive watches, but lets be realistic about theirfunction, their use, and why they are or are not being included in the first place.