Teric not Accepted as Primary Dive Computer?

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There is no question that if we were on a dive and things went sideways, your odds would be better listening to JC than to me in finding your way out of the wreck or whatever. But, we're not on a dive. We have the luxury to discuss, debate and examine the reasoning. This is particularly true on a subject like this one, where plenty of very, very experienced tech instructors do not impose such a requirement. Asking "why?" and debating it is a healthy thing to do.

What I hope and suspect any of them would say - and what, without qualification, any good instructor would say -- is that they want you to be a THINKING DIVER. Tech training involves learning about decompression theory and dive planning, subjects that are constantly evolving, not just blindly following what your instructor tells you about which algorithm, which GF, etc. Perfectly appropriate to start off students "the instructor's way" but that doesn't mean you don't think about it and make informed decisions as you progress and as the science evolves.

You'll find many experienced divers, vastly experienced divers, and instructors that continue to dive based on what worked for them based on what they started doing 20 years ago, which is out of date and no longer considered best practice. I'm absolutely not suggesting JC is in that category - I don't know him - just generally noting that experience is not the only thing when it comes to dive planning.

If you lack the foundation to assess the arguments yourself, then you're probably right to copy what more experienced diver does, but the point of technical dive training - good training - is to give you the tools to figure some of that out for yourself.

Even before taking any of his classes, that’s exactly what he came off as thru conversations - after taking classes it’s confirmed.

He wants you to think, he challenges you and shows you many solutions to problems.

It may not be bow ties and tuxedos but it worked for me.
 
While I’ve not seen the OP confirm that John Chatterton is indeed the instructor that he was considering studying with, I’ll presume that he is indeed the person being referred to. I know that John requires that his students use specific Shearwater computers as their primary instrumentation. I’ve no problem with this at all. John has made it clear that there are specific reasons why this is one of the protocols for his courses, and has taken the time to describe them for the readers of this forum.

Consider too that John is providing instruction based upon his specific experience and knowledge. He is well versed in the Shearwater computers that he specifies and it would be contrary to his personal standards, and outside of his area of expertise to require him to become familiar with workings of all of the other computers that are currently available. He does not prohibit students from using whatever instruments they own as secondary units for his courses, but insists that they use products that meet his parameters and which he is intimately familiar with as their primary computers. It’s not his job to learn the intricacies of your computer, let alone become familiar enough with its operation in an emergency, either actual or simulated. If you do not have the Shearwater that John requires, he will rent one to you for about $10.00 per day. I’ve seen operations offer Zoop rentals at higher rates than that.
 
As somebody new in the technical path, why do you have those specific requirements?
Because there have been too many instances of braided hoses failing and cutting off the air supply. They fragment and little particles clog the inlet to the second stage. They also kink easier than rubber hoses. At least one cave instructor had this happen with a student doing an air share. The way they had the hose on the reg in a sidemount configuration without a swivel turret caused it to kink. Never saw a rubber hose do that unintentionally. Again, potentially cutting off the air supply. They are floaty and tend to take a set. Making them harder to stow and after a deployment. They are also not friendly to drysuit seals. Like fine sandpaper on them and I just recommended a customer replace the ones on a reg she sent for service because it was starting to fray and had little sharp fibers sticking out of it.
As to the SPG, AI transceivers fail and it's another battery to worry about. While you should know how much air you have without looking at the gauge, in an emergency or unexpected circumstance, it's nice to not have to rely on a battery. Transceivers are also expensive. In sidemount, it means you spend 800-900 bucks just for the transceivers. Two SPG's are less than 150.
If your computer battery fails, which they do, you now no longer know how much air you have unless your back up can pick up the transmitters. In open water on NDL dives, no big deal. End the dive. A few hundred or a thousand feet back in a cave or inside a wreck with a significant deco obligation you now have no idea how much air you're using or have available for a teammate in an emergency. Again you should know roughly how much you are using, but with lots of depth changes or the elevated SAC that results from an emergency, the SPG is there to see. And with an SPG, you don't need a backup AI computer to pick up the info. A simple bottom timer is all you need to fall back to the tables you've cut.
 
While I’ve not seen the OP confirm that John Chatterton is indeed the instructor that he was considering studying with, I’ll presume that he is indeed the person being referred to.
..................

IAs the OP, I wanted to keep the conversations focused on the statement, not the person. That's why I avoided mentioning where I got the statement from, but I guess Google got in my way.

Anyway it's been a hugely useful thread for me and I can't thank all of you enough for your contributions. I'm already a better diver thanks to all that has been said here, and I guess that's what SB is about.

Training with the gentleman who made the statement isn't an option for me though, we're half the world away. I'm starting my wreck course in Subic, Philippines, tomorrow.

Safe dives all.
 
If an instructor is ambitious enough to actually teach decompression using downloaded dive profiles and wants to go into details of modifying deco on the fly by changing the prameters on computer he/she knows bets, I would definitely pay $10/day rent to get most out of the course.

Now I always dive with a Petrel in my left wrist hand and a Perdix AI on my right, like them both very much. This far only only one instructor went into this level of detail with decompression (with Shearwaters, but that is not the point). And still we didn't do a drill with modified ascent profile in water on that course. That part was a classroom thing.
 
While I’ve not seen the OP confirm that John Chatterton is indeed the instructor that he was considering studying with, I’ll presume that he is indeed the person being referred to. I know that John requires that his students use specific Shearwater computers as their primary instrumentation. I’ve no problem with this at all. John has made it clear that there are specific reasons why this is one of the protocols for his courses, and has taken the time to describe them for the readers of this forum.

Consider too that John is providing instruction based upon his specific experience and knowledge. He is well versed in the Shearwater computers that he specifies and it would be contrary to his personal standards, and outside of his area of expertise to require him to become familiar with workings of all of the other computers that are currently available. He does not prohibit students from using whatever instruments they own as secondary units for his courses, but insists that they use products that meet his parameters and which he is intimately familiar with as their primary computers. It’s not his job to learn the intricacies of your computer, let alone become familiar enough with its operation in an emergency, either actual or simulated. If you do not have the Shearwater that John requires, he will rent one to you for about $10.00 per day. I’ve seen operations offer Zoop rentals at higher rates than that.
On his website he lists specific models of gear he recommends, which makes me wonder if he gets some payment from the manufacturers.
 
On his website he lists specific models of gear he recommends, which makes me wonder if he gets some payment from the manufacturers.

Probably not, he probably get some gear for free now and then, but considering that he has such a varied about of companies I doubt anyone is paying him to say it.
 
IAs the OP, I wanted to keep the conversations focused on the statement, not the person. That's why I avoided mentioning where I got the statement from, but I guess Google got in my way.

Anyway it's been a hugely useful thread for me and I can't thank all of you enough for your contributions. I'm already a better diver thanks to all that has been said here, and I guess that's what SB is about.

Training with the gentleman who made the statement isn't an option for me though, we're half the world away. I'm starting my wreck course in Subic, Philippines, tomorrow.

Safe dives all.
If you are training with Andy I would love to hear how the course goes!
 
If you are training with Andy I would love to hear how the course goes!

Andy isn't answering my messages..... It's been already a few days so I had to look elsewhere..... Sad as I was looking forward to training with him. I might be able to squeeze in a couple of days 1:1 on my technique though if I get an answer in the next 24 hours though. I'll keep you guys posted.
 
I just finished Trimix a few days ago with John Chatterton. I did what *should* have been done before this point in this thread: I asked him. The answers are mostly what you thought: 1) On the Teric, you can’t change GF underwater. 2) The Teric goes to the cloud, and we used Shearwater Desktop in class to analyze our dives. Too hard to put up multiple cloud profiles from different users (and logins and passwords), and the cloud does not yet have all of the info John wants (though he says he hasn’t checked in a couple of months on this). 3) We did a *lot* of computer work underwater, and the Teric interface is different, which makes it difficult for both instructor and student.

As for ‘financial interests in brands’: brand never once came up. I did have a Perdix, but probably not one other brand mentioned. Didn’t come up at all. I’ve never met an instructor with such an obvious history of experience who was more open to new or different things than John. If he had experience with it, he would ask you why you did or didn’t do something, then tell you his thoughts, then ask you to decide what *you* were going to do and why. If he didn’t have experience, his comment was usually something like, “let’s see what it looks like on the next dive.”

I’ll write a review in a couple of weeks (I like to reflect before reviewing), but I wanted to put some from-the-source information to counteract the random speculation thrown out here.

ETA: Sorry for the “righteous scolding”: I was negatively responding to the general tone of cynicism and outrage in this thread. So much ignorant nonsense irritated me.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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