Hollis future support for Prism 2?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

reefrat

Contributor
Messages
572
Reaction score
221
Location
Houston Texas and Grand Turk
Looking at going CCR from Hollis Explorer in 2018 and the P2 ticks most of my boxes in terms of features, capabilities and available training. The trouble is that I bought a brand new V2 Hollis Explorer not long ago and got stung badly when Huish (Hollis) without warning walked away from the unit- no support, no services just FU!
If they did this with the Explorer because the bean counters said that the bottom line was not good enough what is the chance that they could do exactly the same thing with the P2 somewhere down the line?
Like the old saying says "fool me once- shame on you, fool me twice shame on me"!
So, this is my biggest concern about buying a P2 from Huish (Hollis) and does anyone know something that could allay my fears? Or should I be looking instead at a unit from an established independent manufacturer that places some priority on customer loyalty and service.
Other contenders are the Spirit LTE from KISS and the ISC Pathfinder.
 
...The trouble is that I bought a brand new V2 Hollis Explorer not long ago and got stung badly when Huish (Hollis) without warning walked away from the unit- no support, no services just FU!...

I'm in the same situation where my wife and I both bought Explorer 2s this year. I also have a $1200 Hollis accessories order for the Explorer 2s we bought that is outstanding. I'm getting no word for delivery of the order, or when I can expect a refund from the shop.

I'd like to upgrade to the P2, but I have the same thoughts and concerns about support.
 
At least the Prism is on DiveCAN so there isn't a lot of stuff that should cause you to have to send it back to the manufacturer....

There are some other units out there other than the three you mentioned that I would look at in my opinion
 
I have 2 Prism2's & the same thought has crossed my mind, no doubt. A couple things to keep in mind,.... The rebreather market is actually a VERY small niche market,... growing, but small. Right now, I would say it is pretty much saturated with rebreathers. This is both good & bad. Good because it has helped to bring down the overall cost of owning a rebreather, making it accessible to more people. Bad because when the market is saturated,.... the weaker products will fall by the wayside. Is the Prism a weaker product? I would like to think not,... but then I am not on the board/ committee making those decisions. What is what? Hard to say. When I bought my Prisms, I bought them with the thought that AUP (Oceanic/ Hollis) were in good standing & a strong company that would be around for a while, with an affordable product (more affordable than some of the the "legacy brands"), I was interested in. A couple years after I bought them, I then started hearing whispers of financial troubles within AUP (came to light with their sale of their Pelagic computer division)..... Then the later sale of the entire company to Huish. I am sure Huish had to look at the profit vs liability part of the equation.... Especially with the rebreathers,... after all they are a business & a business must make a profit. Now,... as for what happened to the Explorer owners,.... That was very uncool & unfair. I think that They should have at least offered a couple of years of support, at a very minimum. The trade-in program... was only throwing a few scraps to try to keep a very few people happy,... & it failed miserably,... as often happens when a company tries to get off on the cheap for a bad decision. When a person invests thousands of dollars into a product, one can reasonably expect there to be decent support. To suddenly find out that your expensive product is now, basically non existent. It has really put a black eye on the Hollis product line,... & I cannot say I blame those who got screwed for being sour on Hollis products. So far am happy with what I have & the Hollis products I have. Could that also happen to the Prism? Certainly..... it could,... if Huish decides that there is not enough profit vs the liability they have taken on, the Prism2 will be gone, or sold off to another company. What Brand is absolutely solid? I wish I could say I know. There are some that have been around for decades & I would say, those are a better bet, as they seem to have a stable product.
 
Last edited:
Good points all.
I guess the electronics being Shearwater and DiveCan means that regardless of what Huish does there will hopefully remain support for those components long term. Also, I’ve never heard of any issues with the Petrel, or any other part of the P2 so that’s encouraging.
I live in a fairly remote and massively inconvenient location as far as getting services or parts from the US or anywhere so I try to be self sufficient as much as possible. One of the reasons I am still tossing around the KISS option is that I have a better chance of resolving minor component failures here, although I would still be reliant on Shearwater electronics for monitoring so really the difference is the O2 solenoid vs CMF/MAV.
 
I look at it like this. The Prism 2 is an also ran. It doesn't do anything innovative, nor does it do anything any better or worse than other similar rebreathers on the market. It doesn't have things like the streamlined profile of an SF2, or the dual scrubbers of a rEvo. It doesn't have the simplicity of operation and construction of a KISS or a Pelagian, or the bombproof construction and heritage of a Meg. It doesn't have the market saturation of an AP, and the depth of support that comes with it.

So, overall it's a "nothing special" unit. Doesn't mean anything is wrong with it or that it's a bad unit, just that it doesn't have any feature that sets it apart from the rest. Now, couple that with the stuff that Hollis/Huish pulled with the Explorer, Hollis' already shoddy customer service reputation, the typical stuff that goes along with a restructuring, and what you've got is the potential for some serious issues for the consumer.

In light of that fact, I wouldn't choose a Prism 2 to spend real money on. There are plenty of other units on the market that tick every box that the Hollis unit does that don't have issues with the parent company, and many offer some innovative value-added features that make them more attractive options.
 
AP is a business that is not going away. The owner is a passionate CCR diver surrounded by a lot of good people. Although there are other units that look seductively good, the market is so small (niche) any corporate manufacturer might well be subject to cost analysis that cans production. So I know which unit I would invest my money in although I have in the past used Poseidon, JJ, Sentinel and Prism. I hope that helps!
 
AP is a business that is not going away. The owner is a passionate CCR diver surrounded by a lot of good people. Although there are other units that look seductively good, the market is so small (niche) any corporate manufacturer might well be subject to cost analysis that cans production. So I know which unit I would invest my money in although I have in the past used Poseidon, JJ, Sentinel and Prism. I hope that helps!

problem with AP in the USA is the people they have chosen to represent them are true scum of the earth and that has turned a LOT of inspo divers and instructors away from them. It is not a unit I would consider unless you were in/near the UK... It doesn't tick any boxes that other units can't, and they can do it for less money with much better local support.
 
Seems to me there are two kinds of rebreathers on the market right now. There are the "corporate" units, designed, marketed and built by corporations. Then there are the units designed and built by a (usually) single dedicated, passionate person.

The second category are the units least likely to just "go away". Usually the passionate makers will continue to support the unit even after retirement. Certainly they seem to be a much better place to put one's money. Also frequently, the instructors for these units tend to know the designer and also are passionate.

As always, I'm sure there are exceptions, but just viewing the larger trends and tendencies, corporate "stuff" is always going to be ruled by the beancounters, for better or for ill.
 
@sunnyboy what units are you still considering "non-corporate"?

Revo was like that, but got bought by Mares
ISC is a legit company and that unit isn't going anywhere thanks to the military
Dive Rite is a legit company and that unit isn't going anywhere
SF2- is basically a fancy RB80 so there isn't much that it could need unless you break the composite shell
Poseidon-they've invested so much in the Se7en that it won't go anywhere any time soon
APD-is a big company and since the unit hasn't changed in 20 years, I doubt there will be much change
Liberty-is new kid on the block, but from a legit company
Defender/xCCR-the next gen hammerhead, and that's coming from a legit company

Kiss is really the only small one left that I can think of, but they're growing quite a bit. Problem I have with them, on the backmount units as pointed above is that they are REALLY close to the price of a fully configured unit from one of the guys above. So aside from the sidemount units, I wouldn't recommend the backmounted ones.

What is left that is still being sold? Europe has some smaller ones, VMS, etc. but those are basically non-existent in the US so I don't consider those viable for this market
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

Back
Top Bottom