Feedback Suggestions for the Nautilus Lifeline

[Pearlman]

Hello
I thought I would post my ideas and suggestions for product improvement here for community participation in the feedback process. I have three suggestions to make - the first two of which I feel will make the product design more user-friendly or simply more usable in an actual emergency. The third is a pain point that caused me a great deal of headache and hours of agony at an airport. I am splitting each feedback/suggestion into a separate post on this thread to keep the length of each post short, and for clarity of focus.

1#) Consider a diver lost at sea for hours and hours and look at the pic below:

Now can a human realistically spend his entire time holding the device up in the air without tiring his arms and shoulders? Dropping it down everytime the pain gets excruciating and lifting it up a few minutes later … can a human persist with it for 48hrs when lost at sea, weak hungry, thirsty, sunburnt, on the verge of passing out? In choppy seas where one has to use the arm occasionally to re-adjust gear or fend oneself momentarily from the impact of waves?

Option 1) It would be good if the base of the LL came with a GoPro style mounting option to attach to an extensible actioncam pole.

This way one could extend the pole 6ft up in the air while comfortably resting one’s forearms and hands on one’s belly while lying on one’s back or with arms supported on the chest when at an almost upright angle. The LL with collapsed pole can be easily attached to one’s BP or stowed in a BCD pocket only to be removed in a M.O.B emergency. Also actioncam users who routinely use a pole can clip the GoPro to a shoulder D-Ring and replace with the LL on the pole … the pole has its own tether which one can slip around the wrists when one needs to use the hand.

Option 2) Design a mini floaty with tether that wraps around the body of the LL - Air inflated by mouth so that it does not affect a divers buoyancy when not in use. Now the diver can just let the LL float around within a meter of him with the uncoiled tether clipped to a shoulder D-Ring. It will rise and fall with the waves and stay afloat transmitting its signal all the while.

Edit: Currently without these solutions, users run the risk of keeping an activated device within 16cm of their body for extended periods of time, which is a health risk advised against - in the manual.

Suggestion #2 in the next post.

Thanks

 

[Pearlman]

2#) The antenna retainer can be easily lost while stowing into a pocket - either in rough seas with choppy conditions or because a diver is trembling with extreme cold, after being lost and fidgeting at accomplishing basic tasks due to low sense of coordination induced by the cold and anxiety. I want to propose a push-to-click mechanism inside the lid of the LL such that the antenna retainer can be secured tightly inside the lid itself rather than reach one’s hands down below the waterline and try to insert the tiny floaty object safely into a pocket just by feel without looking (the risk of it slipping out if improperly stowed is high - these plasticky things tend to stick to a thumb or finger and comeback out without one realising it)… (Just ask me - I lost my very first and brand new spool/reel and DSMB from a rental BCD pocket as a newbie diver before I could use it even once )!

After all in the happy cases where a diver is rescued, or just needed to send a position report, he or she wants to reuse it again on every dive (perhaps even go to bed clutching it in one hand every night ). The overhead of ordering a spare retainer lid and shipping international is way too high! At present it is just comes off loose and untethered to anything with a high risk of losing it, if it slips out of a BCD pocket unnoticed…

 

[Kendall Raine]

Hello
I thought I would post my ideas and suggestions for product improvement here for community participation in the feedback process. I have three suggestions to make - the first two of which I feel will make the product design more user-friendly or simply more usable in an actual emergency. The third is a pain point that caused me a great deal of headache and hours of agony at an airport. I am splitting each feedback/suggestion into a separate post on this thread to keep the length of each post short, and for clarity of focus.

1#) Consider a diver lost at sea for hours and hours and look at the pic below:
View attachment 853725
Now can a human realistically spend his entire time holding the device up in the air without tiring his arms and shoulders? Dropping it down everytime the pain gets excruciating and lifting it up a few minutes later … can a human persist with it for 48hrs when lost at sea, weak hungry, thirsty, sunburnt, on the verge of passing out? In choppy seas where one has to use the arm occasionally to re-adjust gear or fend oneself momentarily from the impact of waves?

Option 1) It would be good if the base of the LL came with a GoPro style mounting option to attach to an extensible actioncam pole.
View attachment 853726
This way one could extend the pole 6ft up in the air while comfortably resting one’s forearms and hands on one’s belly while lying on one’s back or with arms supported on the chest when at an almost upright angle. The LL with collapsed pole can be easily attached to one’s BP or stowed in a BCD pocket only to be removed in a M.O.B emergency. Also actioncam users who routinely use a pole can clip the GoPro to a shoulder D-Ring and replace with the LL on the pole … the pole has its own tether which one can slip around the wrists when one needs to use the hand.

Option 2) Design a mini floaty with tether that wraps around the body of the LL - Air inflated by mouth so that it does not affect a divers buoyancy when not in use. Now the diver can just let the LL float around within a meter of him with the uncoiled tether clipped to a shoulder D-Ring. It will rise with the waves and stay afloat transmitting its signal all the while.

Suggestion #2 in the next post.

Thanks

Good point. I saw this photo and thought “preposterous.” The arm will tire in minutes. A telescoping pole can be bungied to a back plate and stay out of the way until needed. Alternatively (better), the Nautilus can be secured to a d ring on the top of a DSMB thereby being higher than a pole/arm without the need to carry additional equipment. The DSMB needs to be tensioned to remain upright, but that can be done either by hand with minimal fatigue or secured to a scooter ring with no fatigue at all. Of course, this presupposes the diver has the good sense to use a BP/W in the first place

 

[Pearlman]

Alternatively (better), the Nautilus can be secured to a d ring on the top of a DSMB thereby being higher than a pole/arm without the need to carry additional equipment. The DSMB needs to be tensioned to remain upright, but that can be done either by hand with minimal fatigue or secured to a scooter ring with no fatigue at all.

I thought about it but unsure how a DSMB can hold the weight of the Nautilus LL at 131gms - without it folding over and collapsing? I don’t know what a scooter ring is - could you explain? (Edit : Or do you mean those using DPVs?)

PS - I also don’t have anything on my DSMB to attach the LL to at the top. I heard there are DSMBs that allow you to mount lights on them? Need to research that and then perhaps design a compatible mount for the LL … ?

 

[Pearlman]

#3) You don’t need to RTFM just to insert batteries … or do You??

The very first thing I did when I got my hands on the LL was unscrew the lid and insert the shiny new batteries I got. After all who doesn’t like to immediately switch on their newly purchased gadget that they just unwrapped, and have their eyes glaze over just by watching the flashing LEDs … sending them into gadget heaven??!! The printed manual was too tiny to read without carefully adjust the distance to my bifocals in any case…

Too late…!! I did this on the very first attempt …

After half an hour spent trying various screw heads to remove the newly inserted batteries I give up. The printed manual is unreadable and so I head to the company website to download the manual and read this (Siiiigh!) :

Why?? Why?? Why on earth do the screws have to be so fragile? Can better quality of screw metal/material not be used to make them more immune to even the slightest over-tightening pressure?? What are the technical challenges? Note that the supplied screwdriver in the box is tiny and does not lend itself easily to the application of too much force… even then … !!

“Big deal…” I thought… “I will worry about it after my upcoming vacation next week.. “ , in reality I was not so lucky unfortunately!

I head to the airport. I have the LL in my carry-on because of the lithium batteries. No problems on the first hop of the flight. No luck on the second hop - the security staff manning the X-Ray call me out for the device. “What’s this?” They ask, I explain but… “Its a GPS communication device? Not allowed!” She said. I explain again… “it’s not a walkie-talkie…”, I try to convince them showing them how I can’t unscrew and remove the batteries hence I cannot check-in the device. “Talk to the supervisor…” they said. I head over to the security in-charge, who pulls out a big bundle of files with directives from the aviation authority. Due to the security threat perception in my country there is a clear mandate that “satellite and GPS devices” are not allowed in carry-on. I argue about the missing comma … “Sir, it does not say “satellite, and GPS”, it says “satellite and GPS” meaning a satcom terminal with GPS frequently used for terror activities in Kashmir. No luck… these guys are from the rural hinterland of India who barely speak English and they are not going to take English lessons from me… A good 90 mins pass in the counter-arguments and a stalemate ensues. My flight boarding is being announced. I am frustrated and stressed out, with just 3 hrs of sleep before I reached the airport at 530am… I want to take a piss badly and dancing on the spot as subtly as I could but do not want to lose time leaving the desk searching for the restroom… I have two choices - drop the $250 device I the dustbin kept for disposing not permitted items or go back outside the security zone and deposit the device somewhere.

I leave the security zone and plead with the Airlines staff back at the check-in counter and they offer to stow it in their airport office locker until I come back two weeks later. Whew!

Also by coincidence, I had removed a lithium power bank from my carry-on and mistakenly put it into my check-in overnight for the 2nd hop of the journey due to lack of sleep and muddled thinking and so I am escorted to the high-security zone underground where the check-in luggage is X-Rayed with special machines and was asked to remove it (My gawd! If I had not gone back then my luggage would have not have made it on the flight?? It was a bi-weekly flight that too… ). Now I could have tried slipping in the device I had in my hand into the check-in but I do not want to risk flight safety by lying to the security that the batteries are not lithium (CR123 batteries do not look like the typical lithium batteries), besides that I am not sure if the machines detect lithium batteries or it was just the size and shape of the power bank that alerted them. In any case I have seen the few videos of Tesla cars catching fire and there is no way I am breaking the rules to risk everybody’s life on the flight and play the lottery for my personal convenience…

Eventually, I deposit the device in the Airlines office locker, head back to security, unload all the electronics into the tray painstakingly once again (that’s almost 4kgs of my 7kg carry-on limit) … unbuckle my belt, remove my shoes… in short - do everything short of unzipping my pants, and clear the security gates finally… for a second time in 2 hrs!! WHAT A PAIN IT WAS!!

In Summary -

1. Either use more robust screws to prevent damage so easily or
2. Put a sticker on the device that reads in bold “DO NOT OVERTIGHTEN”

Trusting people to read the manual from top to bottom before they get a basic feel of the device can lead to needless customer frustration from unexpected quarters…

Thanks for reading the longish story. But this has been a very stressful, exhausting and frustrating experience for me - all thanks to the choice of the screws decided by the product designers… point being that - A device meant to be used in extreme environments is generally expected to be more robust to abuse, but sadly the LL appears to be equipped with delicate jewellery type screws…

PS: Only recently a few weeks back I got help from an engineer to get it unscrewed using a sharp flat head mini screwdriver, which is how you see it in the pic attached.

 

[Still Kicking]

Overtightening can also crack the case ....ask me how i know

 

[Kendall Raine]

I thought about it but unsure how a DSMB can hold the weight of the Nautilus LL at 131gms - without it folding over and collapsing? I don’t know what a scooter ring is - could you explain? (Edit : Or do you mean those using DPVs?)

PS - I also don’t have anything on my DSMB to attach the LL to at the top. I heard there are DSMBs that allow you to mount lights on them? Need to research that and then perhaps design a compatible mount for the LL … ?

Test it and see if your DSMB stays up-may need a thicker/bigger one. DSMB should have a d ring at the top (see attached). If yours doesn't have/do both get one that does. Same with an attachment bolt snap on the bottom. DSMBs are not created equal. Avoid the cheepo ones

A scooter/DPV are synonymous. The ring is on the harness crotch strap.

I prefer to use a closed cell lift bag (left photo) instead of a tube style cell (right photo) as a DSMB (I also carry a tube type for surface deployment) because 1) it's nearly spherical and if it falls over due to lack of tension it still maintains a bigger cross section (more visible) than a tube and 2) has multiple applications (i.e. proper lift bag in addition to being a marker). Note it is has a top d ring and a bolt snap on a leash. It will amply support an LL/PLB

 

[Tournesol2000]

My go pro selfie stick doubles to hold my LL using rudimentary bungie cord and I’m trying time do something for my flash light as it has sos option.

 

[PamelaH]

I'd like to echo a better design for the antenna cover. A hinged cover that moves out of the way so the antenna can come up would ideal. When I took mine off (testing on land, thank goodness) it flew across the room. I cannot imagine retaining that thing if I actually had to use it at sea.

 

[JohnnyQuest]

You need to understand that this device is something that you will most likely never use, and hope you will never use. As a diver, your midset should always be to do everything possible so you never, ever have to use such a device. And it's certainly not something that you'd ever use twice! If you lose the cap, who cares? I think of it similar to a car's airbag. I forget that they even exist, and if it saves my life once, I've more than gotten my money's worth. It's a device to help a rescuer find you in an extremely unlikely event. It's not like an SMB.

As far as holding it up "for hours," there are few places where there is only one boat (like Malpelo). If anyone ever has to use such a device, it would be almost impossible, even in the most intense currents, to be more than a couple of miles from your intended surface point, so any ship should be able to find you in short order.