The 10 Best Survival Watches

Editor's Notes

September 11, 2019:

In updating this list, we wanted to take a hard look at the previous list's choices to determine that they offered more than just timekeeping in a survival situation, and that they were the top of a company's lineup (or at least that they slotted into a prefect balance between price and performance) in the survival category. That's why we updated the Mudmaster and Pro Tek models from Casio to a superior Mudmaster and the company's Pathfinder, which is a slightly more capable option than the Pro Tek, with a rotating compass bezel on a slightly more compact case.

And on the topic of bezels, there were two things that the Citizen Nighthawk had going for it: solar power and a slide rule bezel. Well, half the watches on this list boast solar power (which isn't particularly useful in a cave or the arctic in winter), and Citizen's slide rule bezel is both more complicated and less useful than the original slide rule bezel developed by Breitling and perfected in their Navitimer series. So, we swapped out the Citizen for a Navitimer. It's a shame that there aren't more automatic watches that offer survival features, but this is one of them.

At the end of the day, analog systems will win out in a survival situation, as they have fewer complications to either drain a battery or suffer damage from shock, extreme temperatures, etc. That's why the Lumivox ended up at number one. It boasts a simple compass that doesn't rely on any electricity to function, as well as a bezel designed to help you track your walking pace to determine both how far you've traveled and how far you have to go before you can find shelter.