Sort of like one of those little "donut" spare tires...
The ease and simplicty and small size all makes sense, until you actually need to use the item for its intended purpose in a real world situation.
In my mind, they are a great execution of a bad idea!
I dove with one from the get-go and loved it, until...
Ended up dealing with an out of air situation with another diver. Donated my primary, put the integrated octo/lpi in my mouth no problem. Then we start to swim...
He's on the "wrong" side of me, so he's now pulling my primary hose across my neck, which is pulling the alt out of my mouth. I'm trying to vent but can't really reach it well because there are two hoses between my hand and the button, can vent by pulling on the corrugated hose because it's in my mouth (and caught up in the primary hose.)
Not an emergency situation and everything was fine, but was a clear illustration of the fact that these things just might not be great.
Next day I switched to 7' primary and bungied alternate. Have had a few situations since where I've needed to donate and swim with other divers and it's just been so much easier. Both to the donee who didn't need to be attached to me, and to me breathing off an alternate that is the same as my primary.
The ease and simplicty and small size all makes sense, until you actually need to use the item for its intended purpose in a real world situation.
In my mind, they are a great execution of a bad idea!
I dove with one from the get-go and loved it, until...
Ended up dealing with an out of air situation with another diver. Donated my primary, put the integrated octo/lpi in my mouth no problem. Then we start to swim...
He's on the "wrong" side of me, so he's now pulling my primary hose across my neck, which is pulling the alt out of my mouth. I'm trying to vent but can't really reach it well because there are two hoses between my hand and the button, can vent by pulling on the corrugated hose because it's in my mouth (and caught up in the primary hose.)
Not an emergency situation and everything was fine, but was a clear illustration of the fact that these things just might not be great.
Next day I switched to 7' primary and bungied alternate. Have had a few situations since where I've needed to donate and swim with other divers and it's just been so much easier. Both to the donee who didn't need to be attached to me, and to me breathing off an alternate that is the same as my primary.