Hi gang,
Here's some comments on the last 3 postings (above).
Capt. Jim (COST)
Agreed, I don't like the high cost - and future designs will allow lower cost (fewer parts / less labor to assemble). The Scuba industry is small, and unit-volume determines price I pay for parts... our costs from the various vendors would drop 50% only if our volume was 10X higher or more than it is now -- and I would be happy to pass the savings along, because I'm in this to help make diving safer. The idea of profit-gouging on something like seat belts / airbags is disgusting.
Also, the radius of the domes of the 4.5DD creates a stronger Rx power, which requires the CoverLens... which then requires the retractor (normal $25 retail for just a high-quality retractor). If we sold the mask alone with no accessories, the cost would be lower but divers would suffer bad overall "usability."
KidSpot (FOGGING with S-1 skirt)
Now BOTH S-1 and S-3 skirts come with NanoFOG coated lens. Originally, we started shipping only the S-1 skirts with lenses that were hardcoated on both inside and outside. But also during the last 3 years we were formulating our NanoFOG coating. About 1 year ago we switched to all lenses made with NanoFOG coating on the inside (HC / AF), regardless of which skirt. So your mask with the S-1 skirt was from earlier inventory. While the skirts are not interchangeable on the current 4.5DD (permanent snap-fits), current lenses are easily changed. Future mask designs will have easy to replace skirts and lenses... but we'll have to scrap current molds (BIG Ouch!!), so a new 4.5 is a ways off. You can either upgrade to a new NanoFOG lens or I can e-mail you direct pre-dive procedures for the original HC / HC lens which truly do work, but requires lots of elbow-grease.
Mike / Merxlin (BIFOCAL)
The
flat-portion of the
hybrid lens of the Zero-D behaves the same as any flat mask -- so will not solve your presbyopia problem (need for reading glasses / bifocals). But we will have an optional bifocal section for that. At the dive show when you hung your head over the side of our test tank, I suspect the light-level caused your pupils to constrict slightly. Light level -- for us aging divers -- dramatically improves our ability to focus close (the lesson is to have a good reading light at your desk / bedside). All that said, the
"magic-bifocal" phenomenon of Double-Dome lenses (OK, I confess it
is marketing-speak for simple physics, nothing I invented)... truly is cool instead of a small / fragmented bifocal area. But since your Lasik is full correction, you would indeed have to wear disposable contacts. Which I know sounds crazy. OK, there's nothing magic about sticking contacts in your eye... but the net benefit truly works like magic when you need to shift your vision fast from close to far to make sure you get the shot before it gets away.
or is this only available on the S7 skirt?
