I did my first 2 actual deco dives with the H3 over the weekend. That yields some new comments.
- We elected to do our final deco stop at 30', to stay down below some of the surface surge. At 30', the H3 would display a next stop of 20' and a time. There was discussion earlier in the thread about not getting credit for deco time done at a lower depth than what the H3 wants. That was supposedly fixed in the current firmware. I can confirm that it does work, but it does not work in a way that I like all that much. It seems to only update the deco time remaining once per minute.
For example, I got to 30' and stopped. My 30' deco obligation cleared and the computer would change to show (for example) 20', 8:50. I stayed at 30'. After 1 minute (approximately), the display updated to 20', 7:50. Then, after another roughly 1 minute, 20', 6:50, and so forth. Until it got down to something like 20', 2:50. All while I was still hovering at 30'. Then, it went from 2:50 to all deco cleared.
It did this on both dives. On the first deco dive I used EAN50 for deco gas and switched at 70', then ascended per schedule to 30'. On the second dive, I used EAN80 for deco and switched at 30' then just stayed there. But, both dives, the H3 was showing something like 20', 2:50, and after only a minute or so, all the deco cleared.
Maybe there's something about this that makes it have to work this way. But, I would really prefer it if the time shown was updating once per second, and if it displayed the time required at my current depth, rather than at the depth for the next called-for stop.
I also do not understand why the time shown for the deco stop seemed to clear faster than the amount of time shown. E.g. it showed 20', 2:50. I was at 30' and the H3 cleared all deco and it definitely seemed faster than 2:50. But, I didn't actually time it. It definitely did not count down any from 2:50, though. It went from 2:50 to cleared (showing NDT 999) with no jump in between.
- The screen brightness is not very good in some surface conditions. I had OLED Brightness set on 10. Surface conditions on Saturday were bright, but overcast. One of those days with a thin solid layer of clouds, so it was bright out but the light was totally diffuse. No real shadow cast from my body, so I couldn't even turn a certain way on the boat to get the H3 in shadow and read it better. When I went into the menu to change the gas settings, pretty much all I could see on the screen was the currently selected line, which is bright white. All the other normal white lines were too dim for me to see.
In the water, while doing a hang near the surface on Sunday, it was bright enough out that the light from the surface made me have to angle the H3 down, away from the surface, under water, to read it easily.
Overall, I could make it work for me, even in the worst conditions. And the readability is great the rest of the time. So, I don't regret my purchase decision. But, I have to say the readability is far from ideal. Just FYI.
- I fully charged the H3, taking it off the charger Friday morning. With Auto Dive Detection set to On. I dived Saturday and Sunday. 3 dives, total. Probably about 2:30 total time in the water. My second dive on Saturday was pretty short. By the end of my dive on Sunday, the battery was still in the Green, so that's good. Based on history, it would not have surprised me to be in the Yellow by that point.
- During deco, I noticed the box on the screen showing times had changed from being 1 line, to 2. 1 line said: T: <time>. The 2nd line said: S: <time>.
After looking at the manual, I have figured out what happened and what it was showing me. When I ascended to 70', it prompted me to switch gases. I couldn't remember which button to press and there was no prompt on the screen, so tried a long press on the left button. That took me to the main menu with Stopwatch selected, with no choice for Exit. So, I did another long press on the left button, which started the stopwatch, but got me back to the dive screen. I did a long press on the right button to inform the H3 of my gas switch and all was good. But, whatever I did with the stopwatch in the meantime was what caused the display to now show T and S lines.
A prompt on the dive screen indicating to long press on the right button to confirm the gas switch would have saved me all that.
- I dived the H3 for 10 NDL dives in Hawaii week before last. I did have one dive where I accidentally scraped my wrist and H3 across a crusty rock. I thought for sure it would be all scratched up. It turns out there might be a little scratch or two in the bezel, but the sapphire face has no visible marks. Nice.
All in all, I am still very happy with the H3. It would be nice if they would add a way to set it for last deco stop of 30'. But, maybe that wouldn't even really be needed if the stop time displayed would just update once per second and be displayed based on current depth. And figure out some way to make it more readable in bright surface conditions. And, of course, release the AI transmitters.
