Being surprised by a dive watch is a rare occurrence at this point in the watch industry, except for a few brands trying to break the mold. The formula is relatively simple. Take a large case, add a snappy bezel, give it a legible design language, and what you end up with tends to be a staple model in your collection. What that leads to, though, is a sea of look-alike options with slightly different specs and price points, leading to enthusiast banter over slight obscurities. However, for a watch to tweak the formula with considered, bold design choices and still win me over is a rare thing. That is why, with over 140 brands and thousands of watches on display, I found myself returning to the Jacques Bianchi booth all three days of the Windup Watch Fair in New York City to handle the JB300 Profonde X Deepsea.edc collaboration dive watch.
Unfortunately, if you were not among the over 11,000 attendees at this year’s Windup Watch Fair in NYC and, furthermore, did not manage to squeeze into the Jacques Bianchi booth, your chances of seeing this watch in person are now slim to none. Within hours of officially launching the JB300 Profonde X Deepsea.EDC, all 150 individually numbered units have officially been sold and will be delivered to their excited owners in January of 2026. Given that reaction, it’s hard to imagine this being the last we hear of these two.
The fever behind the collaboration came as no surprise to me, in part due to the specifications, but also the storied partnership behind it. Named the JB300 Profonde X Deepsea.edc, the watch received the second half of its name from the Instagram handle and business name of Brock Stevens, its co-designer. A U.S. Navy Diver, Brock leaned on his experiences underwater in some of the most demanding conditions to inform the design language of this JB300. It is designed to be more technical, legible, and uncompromising with specific touchpoints needed in his line of work. Pair that with the man himself, a genuinely kind and well-respected member of the enthusiast and professional watch community, and it is easy to see why those familiar leapt to support the launch. Then, you introduce the watch.
At first glance, it may seem similar to the previous Jacques Bianchi JB300, but then you quite literally rotate the whole thing 180 degrees. Nearly every aspect of this collaborative watch has been altered, except for the overall case shape. The design influence of field experience has carried heavily into the final product, some of which, I must admit, initially threw me off. It is not a simple design by any means, like so many other “highly legible” divers strive to be. Jacques Bianchi went out of its way to add depth, texture, and visual interest to the final product, making the JB 300 Profonde X Deepsea.edc not only stand out from its current collection but also from its other competitors entirely.
Creating an initial visual distinction is the Destro design, which flips the crown from its original right-side orientation to the left. No, this choice was not made to be fixed to Brock’s right wrist. Instead, the crown was flipped as a matter of comfort while working underwater, allowing for more articulation room in the wrist. It is an interesting design choice rarely seen outside of other technical dive watches, such as the Tudor Pelagos, which still tend to launch in parallel with more traditional orientations. After your brain makes peace with this flip and your hands stop fumbling around quite so much, you might notice that the case is quite different from the standard brushed steel case of its sibling as well. Instead, the JB Profonde X Deepsea.edc comes in a Grade 5 titanium case finished in a tumbled texture. No doubt a byproduct of the heavy scratches gouged into other dive watches while working underwater, the finish will not show wear in the same way that other watches might. It lends a romantic visual and unique hand feel carried over to the bezel that feels as if you had plucked a piece of Civil War lead out of the riverbed after decades of weathering.
Coming in with a case diameter of 41.5mm and a thickness of 13mm, you would expect the watch to wear a bit large. However, the combination of shorter 44mm lug-to-lug and the lightweight nature of the titanium lends itself to a very comfortable wearing experience that should feel right at home on those with medium or smaller wrists. The review sample I had came on a comfortable tropic-style rubber strap, though for my wrists, the holes never quite lined up, and the buckle did not match the case, leading me to swap it out almost immediately. According to the website, those who purchased the watch should expect to receive it instead on a JBM webbing strap in khaki, although I cannot speak to that at this time. Given its snubby, slightly hooded lugs and lower resting spring bar holes, it was ever so difficult to fix thicker rubber straps to the watch, but once fitted was off to the races. I had no such issues with nylon pass-through straps, which worked incredibly well with this watch, especially when pairing earth tones and the tumbled case.
With most of the thickness coming from the backside of the watch pressed against your wrist, the top side of the case appears visually flat, tapering away towards the lugs, which allows for a more secure grip on the bezel. Deep, buzzsaw bezel grooves dig into finger tips, allowing you to easily manipulate the snappy 60-click unidirectional elapsed time bezel, which pops into place with authority and only a slight bit of backplay. Although the large grooves provide good grip, they also extend in two areas that could cause problems. The first being the overhand on the case, which might lead to snags here and there, not the most significant issue, given how infrequently this could happen. The other thought occurs on the crown side, where the very well-protected crown, snugly tucked between two guards, can be hard to manipulate at times, as the ridges of the bezel catch the tips of your fingers and push them off the crown. Yes, this seems like a nitpick, and I understand the ramifications of a very well-built U.S. Navy Diver coming to my apartment to fight me on this topic and defend protection over manipulation, but there it is.
Inside sits the matching tumbled bezel insert with large demarcations filled in black. It completes the exterior monochromatic look while holding a large lume pip at 60, emitting a strong green glow at night. Its slight dome rises to meet the flat of the sapphire crystal, which holds guard over the dial beneath. Although not explicitly mentioned, the crystal does a good job of reducing glare with absolutely no visual distortion. Below sits the two-piece dial, split by the minute track, which is raised above, and the primary dial, which rests beneath. Running the perimeter, a printed white minute track is broken up with larger markers placed every 5 minutes in the Deepsea.edc staple yellow. Below, the textured black dial holds a maxi display with large lumed geometric shapes marking the hours, with PM hours printed just inside in the same yellow. At its center, Jacques Bianchi has kept its standard handset with a sword hour hand, a large arrow minute hand, and a sweeping second hand with a square pip tipped in yellow. Each hand holds its own generous portion of lume, though, in the name of legibility, the pip and minute hand are treated in a green emitting Super-LumiNova while the hour markers, hand, and second hand all emit blue. The stark contrast of white and yellow against the flat and textured black makes for a very legible dial layout by day, and the strong lume makes it easy to read by night.
Inside beats the automatic Swiss-made Soprod caliber P024. Based on the ETA 2824-2, like others on the market, it will bear a similar operating frequency of 4 Hz and an adequate power reserve of 42 hours. It will also bear the same faults as its sibling, meaning owners beware: watch the hand-winding. Some may be turned off to see the caliber, but given the recent better track record of Soprod and the collective specifications of the JB300 Profonde X Deepsea.edc, I am glad to see a Swiss automatic at this price point. During my time with the watch, it maintained excellent timekeeping, deviating by roughly 6 seconds per day.
To say that the JB300 Profonde X Deepsea.edc has grown on me would be underselling it. Initially, when I viewed the renderings months before the reveal, I held the firm belief that I didn’t like yellow, that the dial looked a bit too busy, and that the bezel looked somewhat inspired by the Seiko mod community. However, after spending time with it, every single detail that once turned my eye has endeared me to the design. There is something extraordinary about how comfortable the watch wears. Somehow, the finishing, the materials, and the dimensions come together to conjure the experience of wearing a beloved vintage dive watch.
I hesitated to write this review, given that you, as a reader at this point, cannot purchase this watch directly from the manufacturer. Though even if this exact reference is gone, the ideas that it explores deserve a broader audience. Take it as a “be on the lookout” from a brand that may not have been on your radar, and a designer with real-world experience to draw from, and now a breakout first hit. Jacques Bianchi
Devin Pennypacker
2025-11-14 19:59:00