There's literally nothing to learn. If you set limits then it will flash in yellow and you acknowledge that with a press of one button and then you're back to diving. The DC will continue to track everything whether you follow your plan or keep doing whatever it is you were doing.
That's not possible AFAIK. Average depth is based on when your perdix starts and ends your dive. There is zero reasonable reason to ever need to change that. There isn't a "timer" function that I'm aware of. Sounds like you just want to play with your computer when you should be focusing on the dive. Want a timer, look at the clock or dive time that is displayed. Want to take an average depth over time, look at your dive log once you get out of the water. A perdix doesn't have these gimmicks and distractions you're after.
In the end, FTM.
The perdix is very straight forward on its use. Set your mode, set your display, go dive.
I think you don't know all the Perdix features. I would suggest you to read the official documentation, mainly the chapter related to Gauge Mode, page 37 of the following document:
https://www.shearwater.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Perdix-2_Technical_Manual_RevB.pdf
So by being able to simulate a dive in your computer, like other brands allows, give you the following advantages:
- You can see how you screen configuration will be displayed under the water before you go diving. Now you can only assume thing and check it up when in the water and, if you don't like something, you have to wait to the next dive to tell whether your refinements suits better to your needs.
- You can learn and make "muscular memory", putting focus on your dive rather than on your computer. That's critical when doing complex divings.... I don't want to be learning how to set computer stuff when cave diving,
I usually dive in gauge mode mentally managing my dive parameters, and these features are really useful. Gauge mode would be perfect if I could:
- Set up the compass widget in the center line of Gauge Mode home screen. Why?: This mode is perfect for technical diving and, when in a cave, compass is essential. Yes, you ca activate the button line compass, but it will replace valuable information, plus there is nothing in the very center of this screen... why not using it for compass and prevent us from switching the bottom line, just like you can do in OC mode for example?
- Add what Subsurface (and other computers) calls bookmarks. In some computers you add them by clicking a button, similar to a gas switching, but it just mark the current moment in the dive log. Later on these marks can be seen in Subsurface )or whichever software) as bookmarks and you have the chance to both, analyse what happened in your dive, and edit the bookmark to add information, like for example when you reached a specific point (a cave's jump, the end of a ship, etc.., when you changed to a different gas tank (same gas, different tank... gas switching doesn't work here). This allows us to analyse a complex dive to better plan the next one.... see the following Subsurface piedce of documentation:
https://subsurface-divelog.org/subsurface-user-manual/#S_Bookmarks
