Once again, I have been incredibly fortunate to have a brand work with me, and for that, I am always grateful. Last time it was Union Glashütte, next week it will be DOXA, but now we focus on a forever love of mine, Yema. When you start getting into watches, you learn the basics, you start by knowing some big brands, Rolex, Omega, Patek, and more. Then you learn that the price of those pieces may be a bit out of your price range, so you learn about the heavyweights of budget watches, Tissot and Seiko. This is a very common trajectory of getting into watches, and mine looked similar, with one exception. After learning about the big brands, next for me came Yema, the design, the story, the craftsmanship, all of it flowed through my brain as the world of watches flew past at a million kilometers an hour.

Yema stayed as a love of mine, always in the back of my mind when the itch to buy a new watch came. Despite this love, I have never owned a watch from them; hell, before I received this piece that we will talk about in just a second, I had never seen a watch from them in person. Always admired the pictures and through reading about them. After this review, my love of them has not died down a bit, and I don’t think it ever will. Is the watch or brand perfect? No, absolutely not, there are 100% problems that I have with the piece and things I think could have been better, but it is impossible to say that this watch lacks charm.

With this personal preface out of the way, let’s get into the review of the Yema Skin Diver CMM.20

It makes sense to start with specs as it is the slowest and most objective way to look at it. Coming in a 39.5 mm case this iconic dive watch is from their latest generation. The older generation had two sizing options of 39 and 41 mm in diameter but Yema have decided to keep it simple with a single set size.  The watch now has a beautiful fishscale bracelet which makes it incredibly unique as there are not a lot of watches that utilize that highly underrated style, mostly because it is difficult and tedious to work the bracelet into that specific style. Caliber wise it is just fine, it uses their in-house CMM.20 microrotor movement which has 70 hours of power reserve and a liset accuracy of +3/-7 seconds a day, this makes it close to being in the spec range for COSC certification so on paper sounds great, It is also ultra thin being only 3.7 mm in thickness, only issue I had with it was that it does not have a hacking function which is a standard now a days and I feel like it instantly makes it feel cheaper which is a true shame.

It has a bi-directional bezel with a bezel lock, in addition to a very comfortable micro adjustment, which is always a plus. Now, design-wise vise this watch is a very standard skin Diver. What makes it different is the bracelet, which we talked about, and in this instance, the color. I really, really like the beige gray color.  It is a color I doubt you would get tired of; it is the perfect blend of boring and interesting to make it a great everyday watch. The watch feels great, the weight is good, and the winding is smooth, with the screwdown crown being very easy to maneuver. As I have put this watch back in the box to ship it back to Yema, I still look at pictures of the watch because the more I write and think about it, I truly enjoy this watch and would not mind adding it to my collection.

I love being positive, and I feel it is very important to be. My feelings towards this watch are very positive, but I value authenticity over everything else, and I do have two problems with it. First, the movement not having the hacking function baffles me, but I am not a watchmaker, so I can’t say how adding it would have affected the watch, and since it is an in-house caliber, it gains uniqueness points from me that almost cancels out the hacking issue. The second problem is a personal and pretty nitpicky issue; the bezel feels bad and unintuitive, and the big issue is the bezel guard. The bad feel of the bezel brings it down for me, as I love a good bezel feel.

Now, is this watch a buy? For me, it is a maybe. There are great things here, and as much as I want to say a definitive yes, the issues I have currently make it tough to give it that distinction, and I say that with a sting in my heart.

I hope you enjoyed this hands-on review. I once again thank Yema for sending me the piece, and I will link it here if you want to take a look for yourself. We are not fully through with Yema, as we will release a history article later this week, so make sure you don’t miss it.