I’ll be honest: I wasn’t expecting DOXA to genuinely surprise me like this in the first months of 2026. The Le Locle brand has always played familiar territory: bold colours, robust tool-watch architecture, and outstanding value. Then the SUB 200 II landed, and I immediately spotted something new. DOXA introduces a fumé dial to the permanent SUB line for the very first time, and it works brilliantly.
Let there be fumé
The fumé finish is the headline story, and rightfully so. Applied to five colourways: black, grey, blue, green, and the striking Redcoral, and the gradient darkens progressively toward the periphery, creating real optical depth. A moiré texture sits just beneath the surface, interacting with light in a way that rewards close inspection. Furthermore, painted indices and hands carry Super-LumiNova treatment, and DOXA coats the entire outer minute track in Super-LumiNova as well, ensuring legibility stays absolute.
The Redcoral variant deserves particular attention. Reserved exclusively for the black DLC edition, that deep red shifts between mineral richness and organic warmth depending on available light. DOXA describes it well: sometimes almost mineral, sometimes vibrant. I’d add that it photographs beautifully and reads even better in person.
The Sellita SW200 Inside
Under the screw-down caseback sits the Sellita SW200, a 26-jewel Swiss automatic calibre measuring 25.6mm in diameter and 4.6mm in height. It beats at 28,800 vph (4Hz), provides approximately 38 hours of power reserve, and offers hacking seconds, hand-winding, and a quickset date function. Sellita produces this movement in Le Locle to tight tolerances, and it genuinely outperforms many movements at double the price in terms of long-term reliability.
The SW200 carries no haute horlogerie pretensions, and DOXA makes none on its behalf. At this price point, it is the honest, robust, entirely Swiss choice. I personally rate this calibre very highly for its accuracy-to-cost ratio and proven track record across countless professional-use watches.
The Case Architecture
DOXA machines the SUB 200 II case from a solid block of 316L stainless steel, or subjects that same steel to a full black Diamond-Like Carbon treatment covering case, bezel, and crown uniformly. The diameter reaches 44mm, yet the compact lug-to-lug dimension delivers wrist presence closer to a 42mm watch. That short lug integration genuinely surprised me when I first wore it.
Thickness drops to 12.80mm, a full millimetre thinner than the previous SUB 200. The unidirectional bezel carries an aluminium insert: lightweight, corrosion-resistant, and dimensionally stable across temperature variations, an excellent technical choice for a genuine dive tool. A domed, anti-reflective “glass box” sapphire crystal tops everything off, and a screw-down crown with screw-down caseback seals the package to 200 metres / 20 ATM.
A Confident Evolution at the Right Price
The SUB 200 II arrives as a complete collection today: five dial colours, textured retro rubber strap or finely woven Milanese mesh bracelet, and two case treatments. I find the Milanese mesh particularly compelling: its interwoven steel links distribute weight evenly, hug the wrist naturally, and echo the shifting tones of the fumé dial above it in a way that feels entirely intentional.
Starting from CHF 1,390 / EUR 1,590 / USD 1,690 on the rubber strap, and CHF 1,450 / EUR 1,650 / USD 1,750 on the Milanese mesh, the SUB 200 II puts considerable Swiss specification pressure on competitors at significantly higher prices. DOXA keeps delivering exactly what the dive watch community wants, and this time, it added a layer of genuine sophistication to do it.
