Can't Hear the alarm beeps on our Cobalts

[kroorda]

Three friends of mine, and I, all have Cobalt computers. Likewise, none of us have ever heard a peep or beep out of any of our computers, even though we may have ascended a little to fast or caused some sort of alarm condition at some time or another. (Yes, we have our alarms on). None of us have hearing losses, or high frequency hearing losses. Yet, the alarm on the Cobalt are soooo quiet that we (and/or people around us) can't hear them (or can barely hear them).
ALARMS ARE IMPORTANT.
On all other computers that any of us have had, the alarms are very easy to hear. In fact, as we all know, alarms from most computers can be heard by most everyone within about a 70 foot radius. But, that is not the case with the Cobalts'. Is Atomic doing anything about this? Will there be an upgrade, or even a recall?
As with all computers, Alarms are there for a reason, and a very good reason. For such an expensive computer, shouldn't we be able to hear our alarm clearly?

 

[divad]

Your timing and phrasing is off. (kidding)

 

[Oldbear]

I have never been able to hear mine...I just associated it with being partially deaf.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

First, one of the few reasons I was happy to consign my Cobalt to the gear locker/wife's gear bag was that I hated hearing the alarms. When diving with others who have them alarming, they're quite audible. Are you wearing a hood?

Second, alarms aren't important...not screwing up in the first place IS important.

Third, what firmware are you running? Awhile back they tweaked the alarm frequency to make it easier to hear from inside the relatively massive Cobalt case. Some found it to make little difference, while I found the alarms easier to hear (and thus more annoying) than before.

Because AA is AA, they will no doubt bend over backwards to help with your alarm issues. I'd tell you to go pound sand, myself.

 

[Wookie]

You can come dive with me. I hate audible alarms, in fact, I go out of my way and spend the extra cash to buy computers without them.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Same here. Alarms not necessary or wanted.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[antattack]

I never noticed. My Cobalt seems like the alarms are fine.

But I don't like alarms. Hanging on a line for a safety stop in surge conditions sometimes it sounds like a chorus of beeping watches and computers. Is one of them mine? Doesn't matter. I've already taken a look at my computer and know where I'm at. So the audible alarm is a task loading distraction IMHO.

Many techie divers dive with a depth gauge and an SPG. No audibles on that kit.

 

[RonR]

First question is what firmware version you have. The alarm frequencies were changed about 1.12 to ones that seemed more audible to most people. Since making that change we have seen very few comments about the alarms being too quiet- many more, actually like Dr. Lecter, are wanting an option to turn all of them off completely because they want to stop hearing them (which may happen in a future firmware update). There is a new firmware version, 1.41, on the Atomic website now that all Cobalt users should install- it has quite a few feature enhancements.

Second would be to check if your alarm is working- you can do this by going to the System Info screen and selecting the Demo- this will take you to a series of dummy dive screens , in some of them you can press the UP button to initiate a rapid ascent alarm, others will demo the beeps that happen when getting to a stop or when switching gases. I'll note that in a dive a rapid ascent must continue for some time (minimum 10 seconds) before it generates an audible alarm- this is to decrease the irritation value and tie it more to behaviors with actual deco consequences.

The basic issue is that the Cobalt has a very heavily constructed and quite massive case. That has the effect of dampening the sound coming from the alarm inside it. The sounder itself is the loudest we could find that is practical for power and size- it's actually painfully loud when it's not inside the case. Without putting a piezo disc behind a thin, light plastic door (as many recreational computers running off coin type batteries do), we can't increase the volume. The Cobalt is just a computer that has audible alarms that are on the quieter side- though checking alongside other computers it's not a complete outlier in that respect. There is not any way to crank up the volume without a complete redesign of the case, it's as loud as it can go given the nature of the design and its robust construction.

I'd disagree about audible alarms being a critical aspect of a dive computer. There are some computers that don't have them at all. Even very loud alarms are of short duration and can be missed- they are no substitute for monitoring instruments. And divers in cold water environments with drysuit hoods and insulation are unlikely to hear any alarm, however loud. How important alarms are to you is just one of those things that is a matter of personal preference- that's why the Cobalt's settings for Alerts offer the option of audible + visual, visual only, or off.

If you have any concerns that your sounder might not be working correctly, check with Atomic. But essentially this is one of the inherent aspects of the Cobalt's design, like being a console.

Ron

 

[tridacna]

First thing that I switched off was the audible alarm on my Cobalt. Nothing irks me more than divers who beep, squeak and whistle.

I made my buddy sell his computer that had non-silenceable alarms. IMO - Most annoying feature of any computer.

 

[divad]

I thought the OP was being facetious.....