IAT Review: The Alpina × TRTS Seastrong Diver Extreme and the Subtle Art of Challenging the Uniformity of Sports Watches

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I know I said you wouldn’t hear from me until next year, but I’ve had this watch on my wrist for a week and I couldn’t wait until then. So, enjoy this moderately biased review of a watch made by a couple of friends of mine.

Also, a gentle reminder that the holiday discount for the paid subscription, which gets you access to a bunch of extra content like this is active until the end of the year.

The Alpina × TRTS Seastrong Diver Extreme and the Subtle Art of Challenging the Uniformity of Sports Watches

There’s a comforting predictability to the modern sports watch. Over the years, the category has settled into a set of visual cues so familiar that they barely register anymore. A solid steel case, purposeful crown guards, a dial designed for instant legibility, hands and markers that seem to announce their seriousness before you even check the time. These watches are meant to look capable, and, for the most part, they succeed in doing that. They signal reliability in a way that feels almost universal, regardless of brand, price point, or intended use. You don’t need to be told what a sports watch is for; the design does all the talking.

That clarity of purpose is part of the appeal, but it also explains why so many sports watches now feel interchangeable. As the years pass and the templates harden, the room for meaningful visual experimentation shrinks. Brands iterate rather than invent, adjusting proportions here, adding a new texture there, leaning on color as a substitute for risk. The result is a landscape filled with competent, well-made watches that blur together in memory. They’re easy to like and hard to fault, yet rarely provoke a strong reaction beyond polite appreciation.

This convergence didn’t happen by accident. The sports watch is one of the most commercially important categories in modern watchmaking, and familiarity breeds confidence. When a design has proven itself over decades, deviating from it can feel unnecessary, even irresponsible. Heritage becomes both an asset and a constraint. A watch that looks like its predecessors reassures the buyer that they’re making a safe, informed choice, one validated by history, by marketing, and by the collective taste of the market. In that environment, standing out is less important than fitting in.

At the same time, much of the real innovation in contemporary watchmaking happens beneath the surface. Movements become more efficient, cases more robust, materials more advanced. From across a table or across a room, most sports watches still tell the same story in the same visual language. The differences reveal themselves only after closer inspection, or not at all. But even those changes, it could be argued, have slowed to a crawl.

And yet… Oh, and yet. I feel like we have the sports watch covered. We can buy one. Two. Maybe even three or four that will fit into these pre-defined sports watch genres. But there must be a hunger in the market for something that feels distinct without being contrarian. When a design steps outside the well-worn formulas — through shape, proportion, or a willingness to look a little unconventional — it can feel almost disruptive, even if the change is subtle. Not because it’s louder or more aggressive, but because it reminds us that function doesn’t dictate a single aesthetic outcome. In a category defined by consensus, individuality doesn’t need to be radical to be meaningful. Sometimes, it just needs to exist. And over the past few years, one of the brands I’ve been following closely precisely for this reason is Alpina. For years, I joked that I wouldn’t buy a watch from the same people that make my skis, but this was just a joke, because Alpina Watches has nothing to do with Alpina winter sports equipment makers. And for years, Alpina has been making some very interesting sports watches that fall out of this pre-defined sports watch mould. One of them is the Seastrong Diver Extreme Automatic.

Just a small digression before we get to the Seastrong I’m writing about here. Friendship has a way of reshaping our points of view. We absorb the tastes, interests, and enthusiasms of the people we respect almost without noticing. Their excitement becomes contagious; their projects feel personal. This isn’t a flaw so much as a human condition. That influence, of course, introduces bias. In the context of criticism or review, bias is usually treated as something to be eliminated, scrubbed away in pursuit of an impossible objectivity. But there are moments when bias isn’t just unavoidable — it’s earned. When good friends commit themselves fully to something creative, especially something built slowly and sincerely, it’s hard not to root for the outcome. Support doesn’t have to mean blind praise, though. It can also mean taking the work seriously enough to evaluate it with care.

The Real Time Show podcast is exactly that kind of project. Built by Alon Ben Joseph and Rob Nudds — two people whose passion for watches is matched by their curiosity and candor — it represents years of conversation, thought, and genuine engagement with the culture of watches. It’s also become one of the most important podcasts in the industry, as they got industry leaders, CEOs and insiders to speak completely candidly about what they do. No other podcast out there does that.

Anyways, seeing their name attached to a watch inevitably colors my reaction. This one isn’t the first one. That was the Sherpa x TRTS OPS. The second was the Circula x TRTS ProTrail SE. This is the third one, the Alpina × TRTS Seastrong Diver Extreme Automatic Special Edition. And I can’t come at it as a neutral observer standing at a distance. I come to it as someone who knows the people behind the idea, who understands the intent, and who wants the result to succeed. That said, fairness still matters. Affection for the people involved doesn’t absolve the object itself from scrutiny. If anything, it raises the stakes. A watch associated with friends deserves to be judged honestly, on its design, execution, and merit—not merely on goodwill. Acknowledging bias upfront is part of that honesty. It frames the perspective rather than disguising it.

With all of that said, the Alpina × TRTS Seastrong Diver Extreme Automatic Special Edition arrives at an interesting intersection of ideas. It exists inside a category defined by repetition, and it’s shaped, at least in part, by personal relationships. That combination could easily result in something either forgettable or overly indulgent. Instead, it produces a watch that feels thoughtful, restrained, and unusually self-aware.

The foundation is Alpina’s Seastrong Diver Extreme, a model that already sits slightly off the mainstream path. Its cushion-shaped case, measuring 39mm wide with a short lug-to-lug of roughly 40.5mm, avoids the visual sprawl that defines so many contemporary sports watches. On the wrist, it feels surprisingly compact. I don’t mean just on my chonky wrist. I showed the photo of the watch to my dad before it came out and his reaction was a resounding “meh”, as he is a man of small watches. Once it arrived, even he was shocked how well it sits on all sorts of wrists. Helping that is the thickness of 12.5mm which, while not thin, actually is thin when you consider the fact that it has 300 meters of water reistance. On top is a powerful matte black bezel that has polished markings standing proud of the surface. The bezel click is sensational on this watch.

The TRTS influence is most clearly expressed on the dial, where the watch separates itself from the broader field of lookalike sports watches. Gone is much of the decorative layering common to the genre. In its place is a darker, more disciplined surface: a charcoal-toned dial with subtle texture that almost looks like menacing sandpaper. Large white hour markers are nor printed directly onto the dial, but are rather cutouts that taper down to the lower surface that is painted in white lume. With a flat dial like this, especially since TRTS removed the flange around the dial, this gives much needed three dimensionality.

The bright orange seconds hand is the most obvious signature of the collaboration, and it works precisely because it doesn’t try to do more than one job. It adds energy, yes, but it’s also practical—highly visible, instantly readable, and clearly in motion. The rest of the branding is intentionally subdued. The Alpina logo and text appear in tonal black, visible when the light hits them but never demanding attention. It’s a dial that trusts contrast and proportion rather than decoration. I have almost no complaints about the dial, and if I could change one thing, it would be — more intense lume, to contrast the darkness of the dial. The cool thing is that the counterweight of the seconds hand is also lumed.

Inside is Alpina’s AL-520 automatic movement, a reliable, no-frills caliber with a 38-hour power reserve. It’s not a movement that will blow you away with it’s advanced capabilities, but it will keep on ticking, no matter what you throw at it. The watch comes on a black rubber strap with a brushed folding clasp. And that’s the subject of my last criticism — it could use a quick release. But even that isn’t that big of a deal, since it uses a proprietary strap shape, so you won’t be exchanging straps that often. I would, however, get an orange strap for it as it has to look amazing.

What ultimately makes the Alpina × TRTS Seastrong Diver Extreme Automatic Special Edition compelling is how comfortably it inhabits its contradictions. It’s a collaborative watch that resists self-indulgence. It’s a sports watch that acknowledges the fatigue of sameness without resorting to gimmicks. And yes, it’s a watch reviewed through the lens of friendship — but one that doesn’t rely on goodwill to justify its existence.

In a category crowded with safe designs and incremental change, this watch succeeds by making fewer moves, not more. And in that sense, it fits neatly into the broader argument that started this review: when everything looks the same, the watches worth talking about are often the ones that simply choose to look a little more like themselves. This is a limited edition of 300 pieces, available exclusively online on the Alpina website until February 2026 or until stock lasts. Oh, and best of all — right now, Alpina includes that orange strap I mentioned for free. Price is set at €2,195. See more on the Alpina website.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk