I've had it with wireless air integration

[jagreenm]

I love the idea that of having one less cable, but the thing works about as often as it doesn't. I've had this transmitter for a little over a year and had to send it in three times already. So frustrating! Anyone have a different experience?

 

[doctormike]

Preach it, brother. My Vyper air is very unreliable. Maybe that's because I don't re-sync it every time, but even when I do I have had problems during the dive, especially when using strobes at night, for some reason.

I still have one because I kind of like having the data for SAC calculations when it works, and I haven't bothered to remove the transmitter because I don't consider it a huge failure point on my warm water gear. I am going to remove it from my doubles regulators before starting tech training this season.

Brass and glass SPG is the way to go, IMHO! I barely notice that hose clipped to my left hip.

 

[divad]

I would be alarmed not having a mechanical pressure gauge innocuously, but securely, tethered to my first stage by a skimpy unnoticable little hose.

 

[Knackas]

I have dived with an Oceanic Atom since 2005 and have never had a problem. The only thing that frustrates me is as I'm getting older it's getting damn hard to read the small display.

 

[beaverdivers]

We use hose-less air-integrated dive computers in our training and trips. We have had excellent success. In fact, I have noticed a greater failure rate in SPG's.

 

[drbill]

I have never even been tempted to use a wireless setup to dive with. I hear enough horror stories that I would not trust one, although primarily on my deep dives.

 

[scubadada]

I have 358 dives on an Oceanic VT3 since 2010 without more than a handful of brief signal losses. I have not noticed most of these until I saw them on the log detail. I've never needed my Geo2/SPG backup.

jagreenm, what is the brand of your unreliable AI computer?

 

[paulw]

I have two Oceanic Air integrated computers that I have had for about 10 years that have over 1000 dives on them and I also have a Liquivision LYNX that I have had for about a year that I have put about 200 dives on and in all that time with three units I have never had a transmitter or computer go bad. I have tested the accuracy of all three with a SPG and a depth gauge and they were right on. I love my air-integrated computers.

 

[doctormike]

Whenever this topic comes up, we always get a lot of posts from divers who say things like "I have NEVER had a problem with my wireless AI, so I feel that there is no problem with anyone using it".

Let's assume the failure rate of wireless air integrated computer is, say, 20%. That would be ridiculously high and unacceptable, but assume the worst for this thought experiment. Also assume that it's a failure rate per unit, not per dive (that is, if you get one of the bad ones it will fail regularly, but if you get a good one it will work whenever you dive it).

That means that the vast majority of posts (80%) are going to be people who have never had problems with their transmitters, swear by them, and feel that an analog SPG is unnecessary.

Now, I don't actually know the failure rate of analog SPGs, and that would be good information to have. But I would be very surprised to learn that it was actually higher than the failure rate of wireless AI. Of course, I am always open to learning new things!

Mike

 

[tridacna]

I had a an Oceanic VT3. It lasted three dives before it failed on the next dive. That was more than enough. Been more than happy with a "wired" connection since then and will never go back.