Alpina X The Real Time Show
Alpina × TRTS: A Diver With a Voice (Two, Actually)
When podcasters start designing watches, things can go sideways fast. Thankfully, when the podcasters in question are Alon Ben Joseph and Rob Nudds, the duo behind The Real Time Show, you get something rather different: a sharply considered, surprisingly elegant take on the modern tool watch.
Enter the Alpina × TRTS Seastrong Diver Extreme Automatic Special Edition, released quietly in late November 2025 and already whispering its way onto collectors’ radars.
This isn’t a wild reinvention of the Seastrong, no one’s bolted on a helium valve shaped like a microphone, don’t worry, but it is a confidently executed refinement. The most obvious shift? Readability. The TRTS pair clearly wanted a dial that could be read by a moderately distracted diver, an overcaffeinated journalist, or anyone checking the time between podcast takes.
Dial Drama, Done the Right Way
The background is a moody charcoal with a finely grained texture hiding beneath a lacquer gloss, subtle, but it catches the light beautifully. In a neat trick, both the wordmark and “Automatic” engraving are rendered in black on black. From certain angles they vanish completely, giving the dial a clean, almost monolithic look.
That disappearing act sets the stage for the one element that absolutely refuses to hide: a vivid orange seconds hand, slicing across the dial like a flare at sea. It’s complemented by Alpina’s specially developed bright-white lume, which pops hard against the charcoal.
The rehaut, a defining feature of the standard Seastrong, has been removed altogether. The result? A wider visual aperture and room for larger hour markers and a full, integrated minute track. Actual to-the-second reading, imagine that.
Around the dial, a matte black ceramic bezel insert merges seamlessly with the charcoal base. Only the raised minute markers pick up a gloss finish, subtly echoing the lacquered text inside the dial. Interior meets exterior, in the quiet, well-behaved way Swiss design loves.
Hands, Proportions, and Other Things That Matter
The hour and minute hands get darker frames, enclosing bright-white lume for maximum clarity. The seconds hand keeps its trademark counterweight, but this time it’s blacked out, giving all the visual priority to that long orange spearhead.
The case, now in Alpina’s updated Seastrong proportions, 39mm diameter, 12mm thick, 40.5mm lug-to-lug, gives the whole thing an unexpectedly compact feel. It’s still a diver, still rugged, but somehow also quite chic. A watch you could take both diving and to dinner without anyone raising an eyebrow.
Pairing it all is a black rubber strap that ties neatly into the knurled black screw-down crown. The look is nautical without being costume-y; sporty without shouting.
A Limited Edition Without the Noise
Alpina isn’t going big on production numbers here. It’s a low-volume release, the kind that sells out quietly and then lives rent-free in the minds of anyone who hesitated. For now, it’s available directly from Alpina’s website for £2,195.00, a price that sits comfortably in the “premium but not painful” category.
The TRTS collaboration could easily have been a gimmick. Instead, it delivered a thoughtful, highly wearable evolution of Alpina’s diver, one with a clearer voice, a sharper look, and just enough personality to feel genuinely special.
It’s not a watch trying to shout above the noise. It’s one that knows exactly who it’s talking to.