Can I Wear a Watch in a Sauna?
I remember I always had a watch with me to follow the time. I so got used to it that whenever I forgot to put it on after a shower, I felt like I was missing an arm. One time I washed my hands and some amount of water got into it. Without me noticing it, the watch stopped working and I could do nothing about it. I was super upset. I guess we all appreciate our watches once we start using them. So I think it is really important to know what your watch can handle and what it cannot. Can it handle the heat in a sauna?
A short answer is no, a watch cannot handle the heat in a sauna. You should take it off before entering. This applies even to expensive watches like Rolex or Apple and it goes without saying that your cheap watch most likely will be ruined if you expose it to the heat of sauna.
I know how hard is to not forget to take a watch off before such procedures like having a shower or bathing in a sauna. We don’t walk thinking about the presence of our watch – it is so usual to have it on our wrist. But maybe this article will help you to understand what are the dangers of forgetting, the solutions and the precautions.
Is it safe to wear a watch in a sauna?
The most dangerous thing for a watch in a sauna room is steam. It is vapor made of water and of a very high temperature. What might happen to your watch is that a gasket may loose its shape from the heat and the watch could be exposed to moisture damage.
The second danger when you go to a sauna is a sudden transition from a high sauna temperature to a much cooler one in a pool or under the water of a cold shower. It might cause a contraction of the rubber seals in a watch and most likely it will make the water leak in.
Moreover, it is not recommended to wear jewelry, including watches, for the safety reasons. If it is a metal watch, it might get very hot and burn the skin. Not mentioning the discomfort of wearing more things on your body while trying to relax and enjoy the feeling of freedom which sauna gives.
So it seems the answer is very clear – it is not safe to wear a watch in a sauna neither for the watch itself, nor for you.
How do different kinds of watches react to the atmosphere changes?
We wear our watches with pleasure. Sometimes we do it not just for the sake of time measurement but also wear them as a nice detail of our outfit. Good watches usually are both expensive and pretty. For multiple advantages we want to know about the abilities of these precious technologies which belong to us. To be able to preserve them.
For this reason I picked some most popular kinds of watches and I will shortly present the details of their temperature and water resistance.
- Rolex:
Most of Rolex watches can maintain water resistance up to 300 meters. However, it is still not recommended to take it with you in a hot tub or a shower because of the temperature. As with other watches, it is risky that the gasket will loose its shape and let the water in. If you see a fog under the watch’s crystal, the interior of the watch has been penetrated.
- Omega:
It is written that these watches use oils that allow the watch to operate between -20 and +70 C. However, if the change of the temperature is very sudden, it might affect the water resistance seals. If the watch is not damaged, usually the water resistance depends on the kind of Omega but all of their watches can reach 30 meters depth and are sufficient to handle hand washing, swimming and other light activities connected to water.
- TAG Heuer:
This Swiss watch endures the temperature between 0 and +60 C but it is not good to expose it to a sudden temperature change for the reasons mentioned above when we talked about other kinds of watches. TAG Hauer watches are water resistant but not waterproof so they shouldn’t be used for aquatic activities.
- Apple:
The best temperature for Apple watches is from 0 to +35 C. They are water resistant but not waterproof. To submerge the 1st generation’s Apple watches is not recommended. However, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th generations are ready for shallow water activities like swimming in a pool or an ocean. Not diving, though.
What should you do if you take your watch into a sauna?
So if the water leaks in your watch and you see a fog under the crystal, it means you have a week or so before it gets damaged. However, you can do some things which might save your precious belonging.
Firstly, in order to stop the damage you should pull the crown and stop the watch’s movement. Secondly, what you can do by yourself before taking the watch to a repairman is using a hair dryer on a medium setting and dry the watch from all the sides but watch out for it not to get too hot. However, it is not recommended to open the watch and dry the insides by yourself because you might ruin it. The second step is very simple – just to take the watch to a repairman and I am more than sure that he will do his job.
I am absolutely positive that if you accidentally bring your watch to the sauna, it is not a disaster. Everything can be fixed if you react fast.
How to take care of your watch?
The fact that you are looking for some information about how to handle your watch in a sauna presupposes that you are a person concerned about the well-being of your watch. And talking sincerely, I can understand that. Because sometimes we invest our money in things in order to have something what lasts longer and that we wouldn’t need to go around all the shops looking for the same stuff all over again. Sometimes it is a tiring process. So that is why it is good to know how to preserve our things. Here I will give some tips on how to take care of your watch.
- The first advice is to clean the watch as often as you can. You should do it with a soft cloth all over the surface of the watch, including the band. Depending on your watch’s water resistance abilities, you can soak it in soap and water every couple of months. In general, it is important to know how much resistant to water your watch is.
- Protect your watch from being too long in the sun. Sunlight can fade the color of the watch and also shorten the life of the battery since heat is not good for it.
- Keep your watch away from magnets. It might affect negatively the timekeeping.
- Make sure that your watch avoids contact with chemicals, for example, cleaning supplies. Moreover, perfume or cologne are harmful for the band. Spraying it on the band might make it tear apart faster.
- You shouldn’t ever open the watch by yourself. It might expose it to unwanted particles such as dust and dirt and make it stop working.
These are the tips which I found to be important and useful, most of them I didn’t know about before I looked them up so I thought that maybe others will find them interesting and useful as I did.
Conclusion
The question was pretty simple and I hope you got the answer. I tried to give some other information which you might need while having a watch. Overall, we all are busy people and in need to manage our time. But let’s not count the minutes in a sauna like crazy. Let’s chat with a fellow bather, enjoy the bliss and listen to our body when it says to go out. Somehow I think it will tell us the exact time as our watch.