Inductive Charging and Bluetooth Interface?

[cyberdiamond]

Heinrichs Weikamp's new OSTC2 has wireless inductive charging.

 

[jhnmdahl]

Bluetooth will work fine for downloading log data to your computer or smartphone, but won't work very well at all for underwater communication - the frequency is too readily absorbed in saltwater.

 

[tbone1004]

Heinrichs Weikamp's new OSTC2 has wireless inductive charging.

yes, but it takes 7 hours to charge which is quite a while. It has to offset that with a big battery for 60 hours of dive time, but if you screw up, it's certainly not a "quick fix" to recharge it.

 

[stuartv]

yes, but it takes 7 hours to charge which is quite a while. It has to offset that with a big battery for 60 hours of dive time, but if you screw up, it's certainly not a "quick fix" to recharge it.

If you screw up, do you really have to charge it fully? I mean, can't you charge it for, say, 30 minutes to an hour and get a day's diving out of it, then put it on the charger to get a full charge?


I added Qi wireless charging to my g/f's phone. The charging pad was approximately 0.5mm thick and about 25mmx25mm. It fit under the stock back cover of the phone only adding a slight bulge.

IOW, adding Qi wireless charging only need add a trivial amount of size to the device. And they typically can deliver roughly 0.5 amps of charging current. Not as fast as a lot of modern devices that charge at 2amps, but it's not THAT bad. Apparently, the H3 battery, just as one example, holds a lot less juice than a typical cell phone battery (<2 Wh vs 11Wh in my Galaxy S4 phone), so it should charge up a lot more quickly than a cell phone, I would think.

 

[tbone1004]

you still have to bring the charger on the boat with you, or to a dive site etc etc. The other situation is how much is that first hour going to really get you. Not saying it's a bad thing, it's just a thing that you have to make sure you stay on top of. I have QI charging on my Nokia phone, it's great, but if I need to charge it quickly, it gets hooked up to USB because it charges 3-4x faster. You have that option with phones, not so much with sealed devices like these. Charge rate is also determined by the device, just because the charger can deliver 2a doesn't mean the device will take it that fast.

Like everything else, there are pros and cons. I personally don't mind that my Petrel has a battery door. I am also quite large, so I don't mind the size, even when diving without exposure protection. If HW had solid distribution network in the US, I would still go with the Petrel due to the push buttons vs piezo buttons. The only thing the OSTC 3 really offers is the thinner profile, and the OSTC 2 doesn't give a size benefit. QI charging will be nice if they put it in as an option, but you have to evaluate which sacrifices you are willing to make because you can't have it all

 

[stuartv]

you still have to bring the charger on the boat with you, or to a dive site etc etc.

With 60 hours of dive time on a charge you would have to screw up pretty badly to really need your charger on the boat. But, there is no denying that swapping in a new battery on a Petrel would be a lot more feasible on a boat, if you do screw up that badly.

 

[scubadada]

Non-issue, I would just put it on the charger at the end of each day, plenty of reserve if you miss a day. Let's debate important things

 

[stuartv]

Non-issue, I would just put it on the charger at the end of each day, plenty of reserve if you miss a day. Let's debate important things

How about adding Qi wireless charging to the SeaBear H3? And reducing the battery size, if necessary, to make it even thinner? As long as it can last 3 days of diving 3 - 4 dives per day on a charge, and I can set it on my Qi charging pad at the end of the day to ensure a full charge by the next day, I would take that over a thicker model that lasts way longer on a charge than I actually have a use for.

I put zero value on Apple phones, so having NFC and lacking BT is fine with me.

 

[tbone1004]

can't. 3-4 dives per day, 3 days is what the current battery is.... 15 hours of dive time, average dive time of an hour, 3 days is 12 hours in the water, plus the time at the surface. That and I don't think a smaller battery would necessarily be thinner, just smaller surface area. The thinnest cell I'm aware of is about 3.5mm, and the one they're using is probably 4.5mm, negligible in the grand scheme of things.

the value on apple products may not matter to you, but it matters to almost half of the cell phone users in the US. If you ignore those half, that's a huge hit on who will buy the products, which drives the prices up. Removing bluetooth and going with NFC and QI would also remove the ability to use it with most computers without an NFC reader. Better to just put bluetooth in there, it's a really small chip anyway.

 

[stuartv]

Removing bluetooth

I would not advocate to remove BT. But, I thought the H3 had NFC and not BT. So, I was just saying that that is fine with me, so for changes, I would vote for adding Qi charging. If it makes it 0.5mm thicker, that wouldn't really bother me, but being even thinner than it is now would be nice. I think I would even be okay with 8 hours of dive time on a charge, versus 12. I normally plan to charge my phone, my watch, my GoPro batteries, and my light batteries every night. Adding a dive computer to that is not a big deal (to me). Particularly when it has enough capacity to get me through a second day (and even a 3rd day, if I'm only diving twice a day) with no worries in case I forget.

But, I realize that's just me and MY Christmas list....