G-Shock DW-5600 200-Meter Water Resistance Real World Test

Though Casio’s official Water Resistance Chart states that 200M Water Resistance watches like G-Shock are not suitable for scuba diving, many people scuba dive with their G-Shock watches all the time without incident, and not just with the ISO-compliant “Diver’s 200M” Frogman models. We like to believe that the chart doesn’t apply to G-Shock watches or that it is just Casio being conservative and protecting itself from liability. The G-Shock DW-6600, precursor to the DW-6900, was even issued to Navy SEALs for a time, and we know they spend a lot of time scuba diving. We don’t recommending diving to great depths with expensive analog-style G-Shock watches (the main concern being the electronic crown becoming accidentally unlocked) but it’s commonly known that digital G-Shock watches are fine for scuba diving at reasonable depths.

This real world depth test conducted by Casio shows the basic G-Shock DW-5600, one of the most affordable G-Shock models available, go down to the sea floor 200 meters deep and still run without any problems. Based on what we’ve read about people’s experiences and seen in this video, we have no problem recommending digital G-Shock watches for scuba diving (but of course do so at your own risk). One thing that isn’t entirely clear is whether the buttons can be pressed underwater or if that should be completely avoided. We’ve done this without issue in shallow water and it is probably okay at shallow depths, but Casio recommends not pressing any buttons underwater unless it is a Diver’s 200M watch like the Frogman.