@nadwidny To me, there's nothing strictly
wrong with Avelo. It adds a few failure points in terms of batteries, bladder, pumps, and valves, but Battery, pump, and valve failure, while they might ruin your dive day, wouldn't be dangerous, based on how the system works. And realistically, you're eliminating the risk of a popped/leaky BCD, which would also spoil a dive day. The bladder rupturing would be an issue it seems, but I haven't heard of that happening thus far, and supposedly the company's testing indicates it won't. If it were to happen, well, that's why you have a dive buddy I suppose. Additionally, you are eliminating the risk of a stuck power inflator, which is actually a decently risky prospect, albeit an easy one to fix or avoid if you keep your head and maintain your gear well.
Beyond that, it's a clever idea, and does offer a different, if not necessarily
better form of diving. $4000 for the system ($5000 if you want two hydrotanks) is hardly the most expensive form of dive gear ever, but it's still quite a lot considering you'll still need to spend money on a regset (~$600 on the low end), dive computer with AI (which is no longer optional, ~$1000 for a Peregrine TX and transmitter), and Avelo mode ($100). Thus, your "bare bones" cost of diving Avelo is around 6 grand. Compare that to when I bought my dive gear, all new, decent mid range stuff, for $1800 (Cressi Aquawing Bp/w BCD, Tusa Rs1001 regset, Peregrine w/o AI) and can buy AL 80's used at $30 apiece if I'm lucky. Point is, it's an extremely expensive system to own. And you realistically can't travel with it by air, because the tank is part of the system, which is a bummer.
And that's the biggest issue in my book: the tank. A proprietary piece of gear that can't be transported by air without massive difficulty and costs, which costs 2x what even expensive tanks like Faber 149's do, and generally means that, even if you own the system, you're intrinsically tied to Avelo diver centers. Part of the thrill, IMO, of owning your own gear is being able to go where you want and do what you like with it. With Avelo, unless I'm fortunate enough to live in a good location or want to pay for a system to faff around my local lake in (kinda overkill), I'm stuck renting.
Which is fine, I guess, a lot of divers rent gear, but it does seem to guarantee Avelo will have to wait a while at least before direct to consumer sales take off, if they ever do. For someone like me that hates renting gear as a concept, it's something of a buzzkill. Tack on the high price of owning the system, and it does make me wonder if the long term plan even include trying to sell to individual divers, or if Avelo's goal is simply to be a major attraction at high end dive locations and nothing more.