Review Diving the Avelo System

[Divin'Papaw]

Just saw this on Facebook:

 

[Wibble]

It's hard to read through that marketing BS.

#loadofbollox

 

[scubadada]

Just saw this on Facebook:

View attachment 849903

Force E has been added to the list of Avelo Dive Centers

Avelo - Dive Centers

diveavelo.com

 

[EdMcNeill09]

This to me illustrates the fundamental issue. @EdMcNeill09 and others have repeatedly said that Avelo must be tried to be believed, and that upon trying it is superlatively better. This may be true, but then why are you gonna charge me $700 to find out? In my mind, for Avelo to succeed, they need to lower the cost of the initial try. Avelo claims their product is worth 4 grand, that it is simply better scuba, that I'll know it when I try it, then surely they should be willing to let me try their product at minimal cost, knowing that I'll come back for more. Charging me $700 for the initial use of the product seems at best like a turn off and at worst like a con centered around overhyping a product and overcharging on the usage. After all, if I try it and hate it, Avelo has already gotten between 450 and 700 dollars from me, and that's quite a lot.

ok. How much should it be for a certification that includes 2hr elearning followed by a semi private 6hour class led by a senior instructor that includes a 2 tank boat charter? Currently this is $450. I hope it's obvious that free isn't an option. So how much would you like to pay for this experience? What would you consider to be a fair price?

Understand that Avelo is different enough from standard scuba that you can't just slap it on your back and go diving. If we ever do start doing DSDs on Avelo we will not let students adjust their own buoyancy. So if you actually want to play with the pump and purge functions you absolutely need to take the certification. Also to actually experience the wide range of neutral buoyancy you need a water column of close to 60'. So trying Avelo in a pool is pointless. You need deeper water.

 

[Belzelbub]

ok. How much should it be for a certification that includes 2hr elearning followed by a semi private 6hour class led by a senior instructor that includes a 2 tank boat charter? Currently this is $450. I hope it's obvious that free isn't an option. So how much would you like to pay for this experience?

For a certification, the cost is not bad compared to other certifications. However, as they are trying to sell certifications and units, Avelo has the burden to try to convince me that I need to get this. They haven’t done that. At least not for me.

Their marketing focuses mainly on weight and effortless buoyancy. The numbers they use for the standard system weight seems significantly higher than anything I’ve used recently. I just did a few of my typical dives. As usual, I established neutral at depth, then for the most part left it alone until it was time to ascend. And, if necessary, I had buoyancy to spare as my BC has 35lbs of lift available, and when not fully inflated, it’s not in the way.

So to answer your last question. “How much would I like to pay for this experience?” $0. They haven’t convinced me that I need to part with any money based on the marketing so far.

 

[rmssetc]

So to answer your last question. “How much would I like to pay for this experience?” $0. They haven’t convinced me that I need to part with any money based on the marketing so far.

I'd also say $0, but I'm cheap.

Maybe a more reasonable answer would be "the cost of the 2 tank dive". Given that Avelo has a monopoly on the Avelo system, the certification isn't "portable" in any way and the skills don't transfer to any other equipment, it's really post-sales support that happens to be delivered before.the sale!

Another approach would be to apply a large percentage of the training cost (say, everything beyond the cost of a 2-tank dive on the same boat) to the purchase of an Avelo.

 

[SouthernSharktoothDiver]

ok. How much should it be for a certification that includes 2hr elearning followed by a semi private 6hour class led by a senior instructor that includes a 2 tank boat charter? Currently this is $450. I hope it's obvious that free isn't an option. So how much would you like to pay for this experience? What would you consider to be a fair price?

Understand that Avelo is different enough from standard scuba that you can't just slap it on your back and go diving. If we ever do start doing DSDs on Avelo we will not let students adjust their own buoyancy. So if you actually want to play with the pump and purge functions you absolutely need to take the certification. Also to actually experience the wide range of neutral buoyancy you need a water column of close to 60'. So trying Avelo in a pool is pointless. You need deeper water.

I mean, assuming it does require a certification to dive with, and that the certification needs to be as involved as all that (which I'm willing to accept, since I honestly don't know enough to make that call) my argument is simply that Avelo needs to put it's money where it's mouth is.

It's not an unheard of business practice for a company to make extremely slim margins or even run at net loss while establishing market share (Uber and Amazon both used that tactic for a while), and while I'm not privy to Avelo's financial records or profit margins, I think that if they're product was really as revolutionary and sublime as all that, they'd be willing to adopt a similar approach. In their shoes, I'd say make the elearning freely available, to give people at least some notion of what they're getting into. This would cost Avelo relatively little on an ongoing basis, and acts as a good opening for the cert.

From there, assuming they can't in fact stand to take low margins or losses on the initial "trial period," I'd say focus on shore diving for test dives. There's plenty of places, even in the freshwater lakes where I dive when I'm not in the river, that would give you a sixty foot water column within swimming distance. That would drop their costs for the training a chunk, since no boat charter required. Alternatively, maybe partner with existing charters to do a sort of "learn as you go" thing, where the customer can do their normal wreck and reef or whatever, learn Avelo while they go for an extra fee. Of course, I'm just spitballing here, but I think you can see that there's definitely some ways they could at offer a cheaper entry to their system, perhaps while retaining the private boat charters as a "premium" course?

Tl;dr: I definitely think the course could be made cheaper, if not by reducing profit margin, then by making some tweaks to how the course is set up. And as for what I would pay for the trial/course, @rmssetc has a good point when he says "the cost of a two tank dive."

Ultimately, I think Avelo will have trouble selling a "you gotta try it to believe it" experience at $450 to $700 for that initial try. How they solve that is up to them, and I'm more than happy to be proved wrong. The nerd in me loves the idea, and I'd be thrilled to see them continue and innovate further.

 

[SouthernSharktoothDiver]

The above image is from a post @lowwall made on this thread on February 20th, showing Avelo's estimation of the weight of a standard diving setup at that time, and their estimate of Avelo's weight.

This is a screenshot taken direct from Avelo's website today, July 9th, 2024. Notice anything weird?

The current Avelo system is five pounds heavier than it was five months ago, and, oddly enough, their estimate for the weight of the standard scuba rig is also five pounds heavier, having added a whopping eight pounds of lead to their estimate for what a diver typically requires. Now, I don't know where they got their estimate for the standard scuba setup from, but it seems odd that said estimate should change, and by exactly the same amount that Avelo did in the same interval. I'm not trying to go after Avelo or accuse them of anything, but like, if you're gonna change the numbers on your estimates by such a suspicious amount, maybe include an explanation so that people don't think you're full of it?

 

[Germie]

I'd also say $0, but I'm cheap.

Maybe a more reasonable answer would be "the cost of the 2 tank dive". Given that Avelo has a monopoly on the Avelo system, the certification isn't "portable" in any way and the skills don't transfer to any other equipment, it's really post-sales support that happens to be delivered before.the sale!

Another approach would be to apply a large percentage of the training cost (say, everything beyond the cost of a 2-tank dive on the same boat) to the purchase of an Avelo.

I completely agree. I don't need any expensive instructor if I want to buy or try sidemount equipment (it is optional), and with a good manual I am sure I can dive it without any problems or difficulties. I need 5-10 minutes maybe to get a proper weighting and then you can go.
You also don't need a cert to dive a drysuit (this is also optional if you are unsure).

About the weight mentioned in the tables above. I am sadly a very bouyant person. This means with a 10 liter steel tank, ali backplate+wing, and a drysuit I need about 12kg of weight. If I dive the avelo, this will not be zero. You must be able to get under. Probably it will be 3kg less as I can reduce the amount of weight by taking a steel backplate (3mm steel, 3kg negative). But then you still need the weights, but it is not on a weightbelt. A 300 bar tank is a little bit heavier than a 232 bar steel tank. So this can reduce some weight too, but not that much. At surface the difference is 1-1.5 kg depending on which tank you take. The system itself maybe is also a little bit negative, so that reduces again some weight. But it is impossible to go from 12kg to max 3.

 

[Mod63]

Regulater 2kg
BCD 5,5kg
Tank 14,5kg
Weight 4kg
-> 26kg when diving the Red Sea with AL80
and when I can get my hands on Steel 12l I can drop 2kg of weight on a 12,5kg tank
-> 22kg when diving e.g. in Bonaire
even when diving with a dry suit in Egypt I'm nowwhere near 32kg