ISO 22810:2010, Horology — Water-resistant watches, states its scope in full: "ISO 22810:2010 establishes the requirements and specifies the test methods used to verify the water resistance of watches. Moreover, it indicates the marking which the manufacturer is authorized to apply to them."
What the public scope does not say. It makes no reference to test pressure, to bar or metres, to usable or diving depth, or to any relationship between a marking and an activity. Three things only: requirements, test methods, and authorised marking.
The widely repeated claim, and why it is not here. It is very commonly asserted that a "50 m" marking describes a static laboratory test pressure rather than a depth at which the watch may be used. This Codex drafted that claim, could not confirm it in ISO's published material, and withdrew it. ISO's own news release on the standard in fact uses depth language: "If a watch is said to be 'water resistant' to 30 meters (100 feet), this means that for all aquatic activities down to a depth of 30 meters, the watch case should not leak." That release is editorial text published by ISO, not normative standard text; it is reported here for what it is.
The claim may well be correct; the normative clause is paywalled and has not been read. Until it is, this Codex states the question rather than answering it. The withdrawal is logged publicly as correction corr-2026-09-25-001.
For diving, the separate standard is ISO 6425.
Sources
Every statement above traces to one of these. Read on the date shown.