Decisions on a Dive Computer

[inquis]

With regard to AI logging your air consumption, it's not difficult to do this yourself if you're on a dive (or even a section of a dive) with a consistent depth. Just write down your time, air pressure, and depth on a slate when you get there and again when you leave. Do the calculation at your leisure to obtain the consumption rate in useful units. (Look up Surface Air Consumption/SAC and Respiratory Minute Volume/RMV for more details and how this might be useful.)

Without question, AI is a "nice to have" but one for which you'll pay a fair chunk of change. Your call on where that fits with the other demands on your wallet.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

wetb4igetinthewater, what is it that you do not like and try to avoid about Suunto?

1) a proprietary algorithm with many variants that isn't well understood. Overly conservative. A much better option is anything with Buhlmann ZH-L16c with GF, so you can specify your own conservatism.
2) class action lawsuits
3) mixed bag of customer support.

You don't need air integration. It's a marketing ploy to part you from yet more money. A lot more money.

The ONLY benefit of air integration is logging your gas consumption. Unless you have a Nerd2, the display is on your dive computer on your wrist which is just as easily accessible as a bog-standard SPG..

So when I dive recreational sidemount with transmitters, you are saying it is as easy for me to look at my wrist than it is to reach back , grab an SPG, turn my head to look at it? You sure about that?

 

[Wibble]

Totally disagree. With a non AI wrist mounted computer, my information would be in two different places. Without looking, I know exactly where my wrist is at all times. An SPG may shift a bit, so it takes marginally longer.

When narked, do you find yourself looking at the computer and not looking at the gas pressures?

Do you *really* monitor your gas when you look at your computer? Therefore you'd look at the depth, the time, then the remaining gas?

The concern is that one looks, but doesn't actually see/comprehend the information as there's so much there. By separating it to a normal SPG you'd doing one task: check gas, which requires a single muscle memory action and looking at the gauge will register in your conscious memory.

I know how I am when I'm off my face with narcosis; not a pretty sight. Almost summarised as object fixation.



As it happens, I use Air Integration on my rebreather, measuring both oxygen and diluent pressures. However, on a rebreather gas pressures don't have the same importance as on open circuit as one uses so little gas, thus it's very much secondary - tertiary? - information, compared with how critical gas pressure monitoring is on open circuit. (And helium's your friend to knock the narc on the head)

The reason for adding it to the rebreather was to clear the front of dangly things which get in the way and can get caught when wriggling around in wrecks.

 

[Wibble]

So when I dive recreational sidemount with transmitters, you are saying it is as easy for me to look at my wrist than it is to reach back , grab an SPG, turn my head to look at it? You sure about that?

The OP's a relatively inexperienced recreational diver. Both you and I aren't!

But I do use SPGs on sidemount With experience, you know how much gas you consume, so checking the gauges is more of a confirmation exercise: I think I've got 150 bar in the RH tank...

 

[Belzelbub]

When narked, do you find yourself looking at the computer and not looking at the gas pressures?

I don’t get your point. When narked do you find yourself looking at your SPG and wondering what it means? I’m very familiar with the layout of my computer and what the numbers mean.

Do you *really* monitor your gas when you look at your computer? Therefore you'd look at the depth, the time, then the remaining gas?

Yes, I do. Since I don’t normally dive with a separate SPG, I’m not sure how else I would monitor my gas.

The concern is that one looks, but doesn't actually see/comprehend the information as there's so much there. By separating it to a normal SPG you'd doing one task: check gas, which requires a single muscle memory action and looking at the gauge will register in your conscious memory.

I guess that makes sense to some degree, however if you regularly go through the same sequence, you build that memory as well. So it’s a bit of a toss up.

 

[Wibble]

I don’t get your point. When narked do you find yourself looking at your SPG and wondering what it means? I’m very familiar with the layout of my computer and what the numbers mean.

Yes, I do. Since I don’t normally dive with a separate SPG, I’m not sure how else I would monitor my gas.

I guess that makes sense to some degree, however if you regularly go through the same sequence, you build that memory as well. So it’s a bit of a toss up.

Does depend how deep you are and the mix you're diving. But if doing a deep "air" dive, it's astounding how crippling the narcosis can be. One of the effects on me is that my short-term memory gets shot away; I look at the SPG, clip it off, then realise I can't remember what I read. Anyway, that's outside of recreational limits, so isn't that applicable.

What is applicable is the look but don't see psychological problem. Having too much information available can make your brain filter it out, much like adverts on a website. This is very sub-conscious, so you need to make sure it is your conscious "brain" that's in use, not the muscle-memory dominated subconscious brain (which was happening in that narcosis example).


Meh. It's all cool. But paying loads of money -- hundreds of dollars -- to those marketeers for information that's just as visible on a plain-old-SPG without spending those hundreds of dollars is a personal choice. For someone starting out: don't bother with AI, spend your money on diving or decent training. For someone who's bought into the AI philosophy; fill your boots!

 

[yle]

wetb4igetinthewater, what is it that you do not like and try to avoid about Suunto?

People that drive a Ford truck will tell you to avoid Chevy trucks like the plague. People that drive Chevy trucks will say the same about Ford trucks.

It's the same dynamic with dive computers. Some people will swear that the one they have is the best and all others are trash. But the reality is that they all perform the same basic functions while they have slightly different non-essential bells & whistles.

Figure out what you need a dive computer to do for you, and then find one that does what you need. The bells & whistles are nice, but not essential. My dive computer (a Suunto) I bought 13 years ago tells me my depth, NDL and water temp. It does nitrox and basic dive planning. And it has a logbook function. That's all I need... which is why I've been using the same DC for 13 years.

 

[Wibble]

People that drive a Ford truck will tell you to avoid Chevy trucks like the plague. People that drive Chevy trucks will say the same about Ford trucks.

It's the same dynamic with dive computers. Some people will swear that the one they have is the best and all others are trash. But the reality is that they all perform the same basic functions while they have slightly different non-essential bells & whistles.

Figure out what you need a dive computer to do for you, and then find one that does what you need. The bells & whistles are nice, but not essential. My dive computer (a Suunto) I bought 13 years ago tells me my depth, NDL and water temp. It does nitrox and basic dive planning. And it has a logbook function. That's all I need... which is why I've been using the same DC for 13 years.

Not quite the same thing.

The entry-level Suunto computers are great. Good value; tell you what you want to know; well known and pretty reliable.

The top-end Suunto computers aren't that good. They're sold as "tech" computers and they're nothing of the sort, for myriad reasons (48h lockouts; overly conservative; wrong calculations, e.g. MOD; multi-dive penalties; proprietary algorithms...). There's many better computers available than throwing money at the Suunto premium ones -- especially if you're thinking of going down the tech path.


I went into a local dive shop yesterday for the first time in ages. Chatting to the owner whom I've not seen for years and the subject of Suunto vs Shearwater came up. He told me that Suunto called him and asked why he's not sold any Suunto premium computers recently and the answer was that he's sold dozens of Shearwaters. OK, it's one LDS which means diddly squat in the grand scheme of things, but it does fit into my personal experience (I can't talk for others) where the Suunto's are horrible to use in comparison with the Shearwaters (and other similar computers).

 

[HKGuns]

Well this has certainly gone off the rails. Clean-up, aisle three.

 

[yle]

Not quite the same thing.

The entry-level Suunto computers are great. Good value; tell you what you want to know; well known and pretty reliable.

The top-end Suunto computers aren't that good. They're sold as "tech" computers and they're nothing of the sort, for myriad reasons (48h lockouts; overly conservative; wrong calculations, e.g. MOD; multi-dive penalties; proprietary algorithms...). There's many better computers available than throwing money at the Suunto premium ones -- especially if you're thinking of going down the tech path.

Meh. Okay, maybe it's not the same thing as Ford/Chevy truck owners. But your post sounds just like the kind of thing a Ford owner would say (i.e. a list of reasons why Chevy trucks aren't as good as Ford trucks) when trying to convince someone that Ford trucks are better.

I don't know which Suuntos you consider "top end" and who is trying to sell them as "tech" computers (or why that would even be a selling point for a recreational diver.) I know that when I bought my D4 in 2008 I was not told it is a "tech" computer And it has served its purpose for a long time. I've changed its battery every few years, and that's been all it's needed. I won't claim that it's better than any other computer... as I've previously posted, they all perform the same basic function.

The point of my post is to suggest to the OP that when anyone suggests that their DC (or truck...) is the best and others are trash, the OP might want to consider that person's opinion might be slightly... just slightly... tainted by the subconscious need for affirmation.