Crunch time for DiveLine

[Manjula Ellepola]

Dear SB Members,

I am writing this with a bit of a heavy heart. After nearly two years of development upper management (commercial guys) are threatening to pull the plug on the development due to budget and time overruns.
I am desperately trying to keep it going as I personally think this would really benefit the Scuba community.

For background please see the thread Creating a dive computer with Location and Communications

The navigation side of the product has been particularly challenging and taken a lot of our resources with no end in sight. I have pleaded with them to give me one last chance to conduct a survey among scuba divers to find out if they really would benefit from a product like this. The outcome of this survey is important and can you please give us your honest opinion if you think such a device would benefit scuba divers.

In the previous thread the response was somewhat mixed, some loving the idea and quite a few not so much. In this survey I would like to hear reasons why you would think such a device would be beneficial or not so that I can collate the responses and make a report to present to them.

I thank you all again for the kind support and help given to me by the membership here. You guys are the real deal.

Best regards
Manjula

 

[kelemvor]

I'd be interested in having a working gps type feature in my dive computer. Text messaging on a dive computer doesn't interest me at all. U/W comminication is already being handled by my full facemask with comms transciever. I don't mind spending money on dive gear but GPS would have to be an additional feature that builds on an already high end computer.

Heinrichs Weikamp OSTC4
Shearwater Perdix
Ratio IX3M

Something comparable to those PLUS the additional feature of GPS would get me to consider spending $1,000 on a dive computer. Maybe even $1500. Anything less than the functionality offered by the above models would not interest me, even with GPS.

Heck, the OSTC4 is open source HW+SW. You could base your GPS feature on that OSTC4 and sell it I'm pretty sure.. depending on what open source license they went with. IX3M is extensible in that Ratio supports application development for that DC. I'm not sure what it would take to get the GPS hardware integrated into it though.

 

[RainPilot]

I believe the idea is not GPS but actual underwater navigation. I for one would be VERY interested in a dive computer that allowed me to find the boat, my buddies or similar

 

[CT Sean]

If I understand correctly, this is a device that provides navigation to a set point (does there need to be a transmitter at that point, or does the device "remember" and somehow track movement to know where that point is?) an comms via text to others with the same device and does NOT provide standard dive computer capabilities.

I personally would have no use for the device for several reasons.

• I have no interest in spending $1000+ (technically $2000+ since my wife would need one as well for there to be a point in ownership)
  
• I have even less interest is spending $1000+ when I could get a Nautilus lifeline for 20-25% of the price and have a proven, industry standard, means of emergency contact.
  
• I have no interest in wearing 4 wrist mounted things - dive PC, compass, this device and dive watch - yes my dive watch is "archaic" but I like it and am not gonna stop wearing it.
  
• I'm not interested in a device that would effectively promote buddy separation. Being able to communicate and possibly monitor direction,location and/or distance? means I may get comfortable not being able to physically see my buddy (who will pretty much always be my wife)
• There's probably other reasons that I can't think of right now.

 

[Manjula Ellepola]

Thanks for the replies. What if you could have dive computer, watch, compass, comms and navigation in one device? I get your point CT about bad discipline and separating from you buddy. What if you lost your buddy unintentionally?

 

[KeithG]

Dear SB Members,

I am writing this with a bit of a heavy heart. After nearly two years of development upper management (commercial guys) are threatening to pull the plug on the development due to budget and time overruns.
I am desperately trying to keep it going as I personally think this would really benefit the Scuba community.

For background please see the thread Creating a dive computer with Location and Communications

The navigation side of the product has been particularly challenging and taken a lot of our resources with no end in sight. I have pleaded with them to give me one last chance to conduct a survey among scuba divers to find out if they really would benefit from a product like this. The outcome of this survey is important and can you please give us your honest opinion if you think such a device would benefit scuba divers.

In the previous thread the response was somewhat mixed, some loving the idea and quite a few not so much. In this survey I would like to hear reasons why you would think such a device would be beneficial or not so that I can collate the responses and make a report to present to them.

I thank you all again for the kind support and help given to me by the membership here. You guys are the real deal.

Best regards
Manjula

I personally see no benefit to this type of device. The majority of divers I dive with would not realize any benefit either. Why? Navigation is not an issue.

As warm water vacation divers it is very easy to navigate visually on every dive site I have experienced. Visibility of 50 to 100 feet makes it easy to see underwater landmarks. Distinctive topography in the form of walls, slopes and pinnacles makes it easy to determine which direction you are going ( so really no need for a compass either).

The majority of vacation divers I see do group dives led by a guide. They "navigate" by following the guide.

And as someone who worked in developing some bleeding edge products, I would agree with your management and cancel the product if after 2 years there "was no end in sight".

One product I developed got to the working prototype stage (which secured additional Venture capital funds) but it failed miserably when moved to the next stage of productization. We had to retrench, ask some experts and eventually totaly changed the sensor technology we were using.

 

[Manjula Ellepola]

Interesting, are you saying that ppl only dive in warm high visibility tropical water? Yeah product dev is tough.

 

[KeithG]

Interesting, are you saying that ppl only dive in warm high visibility tropical water? Yeah product dev is tough.

I am saying that your market research should have already determined what type of diver would be interested in your device. Your potential client base is only a portion of the pool of available divers. I am pointing out that it is highly likely that none of the tens of thousands of divers I have seen are a potential client. Of that remaining pool what percentage do you think will actually make a purchase?

How many devices do you expect to sell each year? With 2 years development already invested, you need to be selling more than a dozen devices a year.

 

[lexvil]

I think an underwater GPS type system would be great but no idea how it could ever work given the limited water penitration of radio waves, I think something like the old lorance system could work with low frequency fixed signals although getting something like that approved would be crazy expensive just for the research let alone deployment.


Edit, I was thinking of loran navigation.

 

[KeithG]

I think an underwater GPS type system would be great but no idea how it could ever work given the limited water penitration of radio waves, I think something like the old lorance system could work with low frequency fixed signals although getting something like that approved would be crazy expensive just for the research let alone deployment.

Underwater you will be limited to sonar and inertial navigation technology. Inertial will be incredibly difficult given the range of motion of a flailing arm.

Do a search for Uwatec Neverlost ( there are actually 2 units currently for sale on ebay).