Thank you,
@EdMcNeill09, for your responses in this thread. Avelo has a serious challenge trying to break into a small market with something new, while at the same time overcoming strongly entrenched, firmly held beliefs about buoyancy control.
I am very new to scuba diving - new enough that I should not have yet formed strongly entrenched, firmly held beliefs about buoyancy control since I'm still learning how to control my buoyancy properly, particularly in the shallows at the end of a dive with an AL80 that is getting close to empty. And yet I have been very skeptical of the Avelo system since I first heard of it. The review of Avelo by the OP of this thread (a diver with MUCH experience) moved my needle a little away from "very skeptical", but not very far.
My reasoning was: "Fish use their swim bladders filled with gas to assist with their buoyancy much the same way that we use gas in a BCD to accomplish the same thing. If it's good enough for fish, why are we trying to re-invent the wheel here?"
Any marine biologist reading this (or anyone else who knows more about how the creatures in the sea control their buoyancy) is probably shaking their head ruefully, banging their palm on their head, or pounding their fist on their desk, depending on their temperament. Because, as a little more research has now shown me, that is only part of the story.
My reasoning seems accurate enough - for (most) bony fish. That is indeed how they primarily control their buoyancy (or so I understand - I am obviously not a marine biologist but a pure layman). But my further research indicates that marine mammals like whales, dolphins, manatees (amongst many others, of course) do not have a swim bladder, but control their buoyancy primarily with their lungs (having the advantage of blubber to give them natural buoyancy so they don't have to constantly fight a tendency to sink). And cartilaginous fish, like sharks and rays (amongst others, of course) don't have a swim bladder either - the heavier-than-water oil in their livers allows them to maintain neutral buoyancy at depth (although seemingly they need to depend on hydrodynamic lift to keep from sinking, so perhaps they aren't truly "neutral" after all).
The point being that there are examples in the natural world around us that show that gas in a bladder is not the
only way to control buoyancy, and so the initial reasoning that I based my skepticism on was very flawed.
If I were to post that vintage divers (the ones that don't use anything besides their lungs and weight distribution to control their buoyancy while diving) were "wrong" to dive that way, the post would probably get a bazillion "thumbs down" reactions and likely a kindly message from a moderator. And rightly so. I now believe that it's pretty much the same thing as saying that the way that whales, dolphins and manatees (amongst others) control their buoyancy is "wrong". Totally out of line.
Similarly, for me to hold to this belief that using a water-based system to control buoyancy instead of gas is "wrong" is akin to saying that the way sharks and eagle rays control their buoyancy is "wrong". And when I watch an eagle ray soaring 5 or 10 metres over my head, flapping its wings only occasionally if at all while maintaining perfect trim - I'm in awe. So what it is doing can't be "wrong".
I realize the analogy - vintage divers are like dolphins or whales, "standard" scuba divers are like parrotfish or groupers, and Avelo divers are like sharks or rays - isn't perfect. Sharks and rays, for instance, don't have to stop partway through their day and add more oil to their livers to maintain neutral buoyancy. But Avelo technology is still very, very young - and who knows where scuba technology as a whole is going? Sensors that can automatically adjust to trigger an automatic add/release of air or water as necessary are probably within our grasp someday, if they do not already exist.
One thing is for certain - much of our successful engineering as humans has come from observing and imitating what we see in the natural world around us, and there is clearly a basis in nature for a "heavier-than-air" buoyancy control system. So I'm officially reserving judgement, with my needle firmly set in the middle of the road at neither skeptic nor convert, until I can someday try it out for myself.
However, my intelligence and experience are limited, and the intelligence of the two "research assistants" that I used to help me come to my new way of looking at this topic is entirely artificial - clever computer coding made to look like intelligence even though it really isn't. If my new way of looking at the Avelo system is flawed because the analogy is flawed due to flawed research... please, please let me know.
