New computer with vibrating alarms recommendations

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Shearwater NERD could be a consideration for your specific needs. Not a vibrating alarm but would put the warnings right in front of your face.
 
For the OP, my understanding is that the new Garmin Descent Mk2 has a vibrating alarm as well. Not sure about the Mk1.

Mk2 alerts:
Descent Mk2i - Dive Alerts

The Mk1 also has vibrating alarms but a lot of them are dumb and so I tend to ignore all of them.

Mk1 alerts:
Descent Mk1 - Dive Alerts

The only ones I've gotten are:
  • vibrates at the start of the dive
  • vibrates when I start my safety stop
  • vibrates when I end my safety stop
  • vibrates when "Approaching NDL" - only this is dumb because I'm not approaching NDL at all but simply hit 80% tissue load which can be 30 minutes away from NDL!
 
Divesoft Freedom (also sold rebranded by Deep6) has great vibrating alarms. Can feel them easily through a drysuit with thick underwear. You can buy it in the “Nitrox” or “Advanced Nitrox” versions or upgrade software as you go. Unfortunately no AI but it can be used as an oxygen analyser if you get the cable for it.
 
Divesoft Freedom (also sold rebranded by Deep6) has great vibrating alarms. Can feel them easily through a drysuit with thick underwear. You can buy it in the “Nitrox” or “Advanced Nitrox” versions or upgrade software as you go. Unfortunately no AI but it can be used as an oxygen analyser if you get the cable for it.

That must be one hell of a vibrator.
 
Mk2 alerts:
Descent Mk2i - Dive Alerts

The Mk1 also has vibrating alarms but a lot of them are dumb and so I tend to ignore all of them.

Mk1 alerts:
Descent Mk1 - Dive Alerts

The only ones I've gotten are:
  • vibrates when "Approaching NDL" - only this is dumb because I'm not approaching NDL at all but simply hit 80% tissue load which can be 30 minutes away from NDL!

So the "approaching NDL" is not based on the calculated NDL time, but instead on tissue load? I have never heard of that. Every alarm I have ever seen is based on "x minutes" left of NDL, not tissue load.

That is a very funky system. So if your tissue load reaches 80% but the NDL is still 10 minutes, it will alert you?

Can you alter the alarm to just be based on time left instead? Maybe someone with one of these can let us know.
 
So the "approaching NDL" is not based on the calculated NDL time, but instead on tissue load? I have never heard of that. Every alarm I have ever seen is based on "x minutes" left of NDL, not tissue load.

That is a very funky system. So if your tissue load reaches 80% but the NDL is still 10 minutes, it will alert you?

Can you alter the alarm to just be based on time left instead? Maybe someone with one of these can let us know.
I have an Mk1 and there is no way to change this stupid behaviour. I've had the alert when I've had over 30 minutes of NDL remaining.

What is even dumber is that it will only alert you once for the dive. i.e. once you hit 80% you get an alert and never again. There is no alert at all when you actually get close to NDL nor when you actually hit deco.
 
What is even dumber is that it will only alert you once for the dive. i.e. once you hit 80% you get an alert and never again. There is no alert at all when you actually get close to NDL nor when you actually hit deco.
Insanity.
 
Certainly is not very useful as an alarm for one of the most critical safety aspects of the dive. Maybe owners can complain to Garmin to add a "time remaining" alert in a firmware update.
 
Certainly is not very useful as an alarm for one of the most critical safety aspects of the dive. Maybe owners can complain to Garmin to add a "time remaining" alert in a firmware update.
I have complained. It fell on deaf ears! As far as I can tell, they have implemented the same alert in the Mk2(i).

On my dive yesterday, the alert came up when I still had 43 minutes of NDL!
 
Thats interesting. I would think that at 80% tissue load (I assume this is in the leading compartment) in normal circumstances there would be very little NDL time left.. What were the conditions where it alerted while you still had so much time?

I am not excusing Garimin's approach of not alerting based on time, which is ridiculous, but I am curious as to how these examples come about.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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