Apple Ultra 2 - not covered for water damage

[jengineer61]

So let me see if I understand this correctly. We have a major company selling timing deices that are supposed to be used in life threatening circumstances. That as long as they are not tampered by non OEM repairmen are expected to get the user safely to an environment that is somewhat less life threatening. That environment is massive quantities of the molecules known as H2O and subjected to elevated levels of pressure. That is the known environment that these devices have been deigned for use by the user.

When a user takes these devices to elevated pressure by submerging them in said liquid environment for which they were designed, they fail which could put the use in proven medical jeopardy, possibly be a leading factor to death. These devices have also been known to fail while being worn is 1 atm conditions.

The OEM makes claims that their device is not warranted for liquid H2O intrusion and subsequent failure of this life support device.

Do I understand the issue?

If so then this may be time for every use that have had these devices fail report to
1. reporting of CPSC CPSC.gov
2. Some hungry lawyer to class action
3. The Dive community to vocally stop using said devices.
3. Purchase Rolex Mariner or equivalent and calibrated depth gauge.
4. Keep that 20 yr SUUNTO Nitrox & Vyper in good repair as these fancy new fangeled Fruits may bee rotten. Remember it takes one bad fruit to ruin a barrel.

Being somewhat cheeky on a SUnday monring, but failure rate, and lack of support, does not warrent use in water.

Joe Engineer

 

[wnissen]

So let me see if I understand this correctly. We have a major company selling timing deices that are supposed to be used in life threatening circumstances. That as long as they are not tampered by non OEM repairmen are expected to get the user safely to an environment that is somewhat less life threatening. That environment is massive quantities of the molecules known as H2O and subjected to elevated levels of pressure. That is the known environment that these devices have been deigned for use by the user.

When a user takes these devices to elevated pressure by submerging them in said liquid environment for which they were designed, they fail which could put the use in proven medical jeopardy, possibly be a leading factor to death. These devices have also been known to fail while being worn is 1 atm conditions.

The OEM makes claims that their device is not warranted for liquid H2O intrusion and subsequent failure of this life support device.

Do I understand the issue?

If so then this may be time for every use that have had these devices fail report to
1. reporting of CPSC CPSC.gov
2. Some hungry lawyer to class action
3. The Dive community to vocally stop using said devices.
3. Purchase Rolex Mariner or equivalent and calibrated depth gauge.
4. Keep that 20 yr SUUNTO Nitrox & Vyper in good repair as these fancy new fangeled Fruits may bee rotten. Remember it takes one bad fruit to ruin a barrel.

Being somewhat cheeky on a SUnday monring, but failure rate, and lack of support, does not warrent use in water.

Joe Engineer

Yes, I would be making pointed references to the "fitness of merchantability" that is contained within almost every state's laws. If you sell it as a diving watch, it better work as such. Certainly it would be a real shame if a diver came to harm if that's not true. But I bet their lawyers would love to hear that Apple was advertising it in public and denying responsibility in private.

 

[Madmax7]

When they specifically call it a water "resistance" rating, that is a red flag to me. No doubt that word was very carefully chosen.

Edit: just looked up the fine print, which includes this statement: "Water resistance is not a permanent condition and can diminish over time."

I suppose that statement could be said about most "waterproof" things, but it does seem to me like they don't really expect it to truly last if used as a dedicated dive computer

 

[Landau]

I've had my original AWU since it was first released. I've used it on over 100 dives including the great blue hole down to 135 feet. In all this time I had only one issue with the first version of Oceanic+ freezing up on me during a dive.

So it only froze on 1% of your dives. This is still unacceptably high.

In over 1000 dives I’ve never seen a computer freeze mid dive for me or anyone I’ve dove with, or heard of it happening to anyone. Of course only a very small fraction of my dive buddies have worn Apple Watches.

I have seen 2 Apple Watches have issues before the dive. One decided the Oceanic subscription had expired, then recovered 2 days later. The other, the owner had set a lock screen to protect his Apple Pay and couldn’t tap the unlock code with his dry gloves on.

 

[mattfish]

So it only froze on 1% of your dives. This is still unacceptably high.

In over 1000 dives I’ve never seen a computer freeze mid dive for me or anyone I’ve dove with, or heard of it happening to anyone. Of course only a very small fraction of my dive buddies have worn Apple Watches.

I have seen 2 Apple Watches have issues before the dive. One decided the Oceanic subscription had expired, then recovered 2 days later. The other, the owner had set a lock screen to protect his Apple Pay and couldn’t tap the unlock code with his dry gloves on.

To clarify: the app froze on the "I'm fit and ready to dive" screen. So it wasn't really mid-dive, but I had already submerged. I had forgotten to acknowledge that screen before I started my decent. It had never happened before, and I've never had an issue with the app since. The AWU is my backup computer. I have a Teric which is my main computer. So for me in that instance it was annoying but not a problem.

 

[mattfish]

Just to avoid folks conflating the physical device (the AWU) with the dive computer app (Oceanic+):

The AWU is just a smartwatch that happens to be highly water resistant (rated to 330 feet) with a pressure sensor that can read down to about 150 feet.

Oceanic made a dive computer app that can read the pressure sensor and run an algorithm to estimate tissue saturation and NDL. Mares, Suunto, or Shearwater could all create an app that could do the same if they wanted to (and Apple allowed them to sell it).