Why Helium Release Valve On Your Dive Watch.

Some of us already know what Helium valve is and some may not. Today, we are going to talk about it. That strange, circular fitting usually on the side of dive watch cases at 9 o’clock, sometimes 10 o’clock. All the best dive watches have them. That’s how you know you’ve got a genuine dive watch on your wrist.

Helium Release Valve

It turns out that helium release valves, or helium valves, not only a fancy feature but can really protect your dive watch. let’s look at the He release valve and figure out why.

This feature is typically found on a dive watch. We will take the Pantor Sealion for example. It is a 300M dive watch.

First, you need to know what Helium is. It is an extremely small molecule. Under the high pressure, helium can sneak past the seals of a watch where water molecules can’t.

So, helium will stay in a watch under external pressure, until that external pressure is released. As we mentioned above, the Helium molecule is very small. They can enter your dive watch although water molecule can't do. If the there is no He release valve on your dive watch, you may want to be careful with your dive watch now. The pressure inside your dive watch may lager than outside. That may will blow the crystal off the watch. you may get hurt by this.

To prevent such an occurrence, a helium release valve automatically depressurizes the watch when it returns to a sea level pressure environment. It’s a one-way valve so it only let’s pressure out of the watch. It’s designed to never allow water (larger molecule) to pass into the watch.