Glove promo is over/post reviews here

[Rainer]

I doubt it. For someone who is so positive that they won't improve your dive experience, the only reason you are posting here is to let any know that likes these gloves that they must be somehow lacking in their skills and you will happily be here to point that out.

You'd be wrong. I really am curious what benefit these offer. You seem to see no benefit, so maybe someone else can respond.

I know these won't help me, because swimming with my hands isn't something I'm willing to do. Those we dive with make use of large lights to signal passively. Erratic light signals indicate emergencies (e.g. OOG). As such, we don't move our hands wildly. This type of diving isn't compatible with the gloves.

I've never claimed, not once, that these couldn't be useful to some. I'm simply asking what benefit they offer. Since you can't answer that, please don't bother to respond.

 

[Teamcasa]

You'd be wrong. I really am curious what benefit these offer. You seem to see no benefit, so maybe someone else can respond.

I know these won't help me, because swimming with my hands isn't something I'm willing to do. Those we dive with make use of large lights to signal passively. Erratic light signals indicate emergencies (e.g. OOG). As such, we don't move our hands wildly. This type of diving isn't compatible with the gloves.

I've never claimed, not once, that these couldn't be useful to some. I'm simply asking what benefit they offer. Since you can't answer that, please don't bother to respond.

Fair enough. A diver with a can light, depending on light signals certainly would not want to be using their hands too much. But you and I both know that's not their target audience.

 

[RJP]

Fair enough. A diver with a can light, depending on light signals certainly would not want to be using their hands too much. But you and I both know that's not their target audience.

Right, which comes down to who the target audience is, and what benefit the product provides. Neither of which anyone seems willing or able to identify.

I'm a marketing guy from an academic and professional standpoint, and can assure you that the two most important strategic question any marketer must be able to answer is "Who is our product for?" and "What problem do they have that our product solves?" An inability to correctly and succinctly answer these two basic questions is harbinger of strategic disaster.

 

[Teamcasa]

Right, which comes down to who the target audience is, and what benefit the product provides. Neither of which anyone seems willing or able to identify.

I'm a marketing guy from an academic and professional standpoint, and can assure you that the two most important strategic question any marketer must be able to answer is "Who is our product for?" and "What problem do they have that our product solves?" An inability to correctly and succinctly answer these two basic questions is harbinger of strategic disaster.

I agree with you on that premise. But clearly, at least to me, is the target audience is not the tech diver or diver that has no need to use their hands while diving.

I'd suggest the target market is the basic recreational diver looking to have a little more fun. Maybe they will help, maybe they won't but since I'm always looking to have a little more fun, send me a pair and I'll give them a try.

 

[TheScubaBOB]

You still haven't named a single benefit. Nice try, though.

I was simply responding to your post where you claimed that there is a loss of dexterity with the gloves.

In that respect I hit the nail on the head as:

You claimed they impede your ability to do normal tasks despite the fact that you haven't tried them.

I replied with a list of several things that we did during our testing of the actual product.

BTW, I will say that it was nice to have greater dexterity than the 5mm Neoprene gloves we normally wear in our neck of the woods.

I normally wait until I'm in the water to put on my gloves so that I can get my mask & fins situated without the interference of the 5mm of neoprene but was able to don the Darkfin gloves ever before my BC.

Will they replace my neoprene gloves? Probably not.

Will I use them in the appropriate conditions? Yeah, I'll keep a pair handy

 

[gndpdr]

same here i'll cut of the finger tips to get a better fit over my 5mm gloves ..

 

[pafindr]

I'm going to just throw in a couple of thoughts on the gloves. I'm not going into a deep review right now because I want to try them out a little more before I give the full review.

The gloves actually work pretty well for what they are intended the big problem I see with them is that a diver with poor form (constantly paddling with their hands) will continue to dive this way. Is this a bad thing? YES. It makes it harder for you to stay trim and you begin to use more air. First learn the proper technique before you use something that will encourage poor form.

What are the gloves good for? There were a couple of instances where two of us got to close to each other and it was easier to use my hands to change directions to avoid a collision (read as bumping into). I think they will be good for minor trim adjustments or minor course adjustments but to use these to encourage poor form is a big no-no

The fit of the glove was good and didn't have a problem with over heating. That maybe happening if the gloves are to tight.
While turning on my air and donning my gear I didn't even notice the gloves.

Again I want to put the gloves through a few more dives to see what other benefits I can get out of them. I'm curious to see how they work for spearfishing (can I put my finger on the trigger properly or will the webbing get in the way?)

As to the turtle reference:
A turtle's rear legs are about a third of the size of it's front flippers so using them to say that we should swim like they do isn't right. Proper form for an animal does not mean that it's proper form for us. Our legs are twice as long and powerful as our arms and even more so when we put fins on.

 

[DebbyDiver]

Help me understand why it is so friggin' important to you. I know bait when I smell it.

Methinks you have a reading comprehension problem. There is plenty of info in this thread, the other thread, AND on the Darkfin website about the benefits. None of us feel like retyping just so that YOU can understand. It sure isn't important to ME if you understand the value or not.

 

[Teamcasa]

I'm not trying to be pedantic here, this is what I do for a living. And it's sort of fun, but it's important. This is exactly how I would help a client determine the true value proposition of their product. Asking these types of challenging questions. In 20+ years of doing this I can tell you that I've never seen a product be successful if the "audience" and the "problem" cannot be simply spelled out.

So towards that end, let me pick apart what you've stated above:

What you seem to be saying is that the target audience is recreational divers who are not having enough fun. Have I got that right?

So if that's the case, help me understand the value proposition of Darkfins in solving the problem of the recreational diver who's not having enough fun on his dives currently.

I never said they (us) were not having enough fun, despite your logical fallacy. More like if you normally have fun at parties, better music may just let you have a little more fun.

 

[Teamcasa]

I'm not trying to be a jerk about this - nor a "naysayer" per se. From a practical standpoint a potential customer needs to understand what benefit a product provides before they can evaluate it. This is why I don't want Roy to send me a pair, because I cannot possible give his product a fair evaluation if he won't tell me what Darkfins are supposed to do for me.

So here's my offer to Roy:

Tell me in one or two sentences what the benefit of your product is and I will happily try them and evaluate them against whether or not they provide that benefit. Until I know that, it doesn't make any sense to try them.

Fair enough. Let's hope he can do that.