Hey guys,
I was quite a lucky dog to get one of the new Xen bottom timers to test dive and provide product feedback.
So, I thought it would be informative for the rest of you to get some first impression feedback from a test diver.
First off the "Xen Test diver Package" came with the Xen Bottom Timer unit, an Infrared USB Adapter, USB Cable, bungee cord and Extra batteries.
First thing you will notice in this small form factor is that there are NO buttons! Thats right folks, it sports the same patented "tap interface" that the Liqivision X1 is known and loved for.
The unit itself is of a pretty solid plastic injection molded construction and surprisingly small compared to other color OLED devices out there (pics further down).. Addtionally the Xen is also "Potted"; meaning its injection filled with a gelatinous material, so there is no air spaces anywhere.. And this means its impossible to flood the electronics! (Also carried over from X1 engineering!)
It sports bungee ready mounts on the bottom to which I installed the supplied bungee cord without incident. If bungee mount is not your thing, it also supports depth-compensating straps.
It has a user replaceable battery that's accessed by simply opening the battery compartment with a quarter (quarter was not supplied :cool2
it takes like 10 seconds to replace the battery on this thing.. very convenient.. Another cool thing is that since the unit is potted, the battery compartment can flood completely and you just rinse it out, replace the battery and off you go diving!! Imagine that a dive computer that a user can even screw up the battery replacement, flood it and still works! (btw - I accidentally did flood mine due to user error, and after clean warm water and some alcohol rinsing, I was back n business in no time)
I inserted the supplied battery and after 3 loving taps it woke up in its full color OLED glory.. The screen is absolutely gorgeous and the fonts are tack sharp and super readable.. another trademark carried over from the X1!
The menu system is extremely user friendly and easy to navigate and the upgradable firmware that shipped with the unit was still a beta build but performed remarkably well for pre-release code!
It supports both metric and imperial units and everything on this thing is user configurable! every single label and digit is configurable in color! I set mine up with some cool color configurations that I thought would look cool..
The "surface" mode is where you do system configuration and also has a full on dive simulator! You can take it for "dry dives" in order to learn the unit functions and features... I LOVED this!! I spent hours fidgeting with settings and then simulating dives to see what it does and how in influences the dive displays and interfaces.
It also has a very cool configurable array of alarms like depth, time, ascend speed, descend speed, etc. etc. The best part here was you can for example configure multiple ascend speed alarms, that way you can vary your ascend speed throughout the dive based on your deco profile (Listen up GUE divers!!)
The "dive mode" display has 3 options to choose from with varying amount of info and levels of details.. I dove it mostly in "alternate" that had decent size fonts and enough info on it that i needed.. Cool thing here is that you can swap display modes during a dive!! Mostly the info I cared about was Max Depth, Avg Depth, Current Depth, Dive Time, Stop Watch, Temperature and Battery levels.. (All in different colors) Also, the Depth and Time was always visible while you navigate through menus.. cool..
The dive mode feature that I found most useful was the stop watch.. makes deco a lot easier to have a bright big and accessible stop watch display!
There is no beeper (thank God) on this thing so the alarms are inverted flashing, witch catches your eye very quick!
Throughout dives this thing is awesome! there is zero reflection or dissapearing numbers, you can give it a quick glance and get all the info you need from the super bright OLED display without worrying about shining a light or something on it.. The angled display design of the unit makes it pretty intuitive to position on your wrist and makes readability even better..
Accessing menus like stop watch etc. during the dive was a dream! I have thick dry-gloves and the "no-button" tap system works great with dumb hands and fingers.
Ascent goes without a hitch when you have this puppy telling you ascent rate, depths and rocks a stop watch with easy tapping access.. I did my GUE style min deco ascents with deep stops and 30 seconds interval stop n slides and it performed admirably.
All in all, I found the diving with the Xen is trully a pleasant experience, I did not find myself befuddled with too much info, too small displays or dim LCD's I cant read without a light or funky push button menus.. it just simply worked!
Obviously, I also have to say that this was still a test unit with test software on it, so it wasn't completely without flaws or some gripes, but the real awesome thing here is the guys at Liquivision gave us real divers the Xen to go dive and play with and provide real usability and bug feedback from real dives, gotta love that!
After the dive the "previous dive" info was summarized on the main home screen and you can then off course navigate to the dive log, it keeps a full dive log including awesome depth graph profile and temp graph profile..
The PC download logging software for my Mac isnt quite ready yet, but you can download the dive logs to your PC or Mac with the supplied infrared adapter.. (i'll post updates on this when i get the software)..
So, here are a few quick shots on the surface to give you an idea on size and display readability.. I put it next to the X1 so you can see the Xen has a really bright and readable display that equals the quality you are used to from the X1
I'll take a few pics underwater soon and some more pics from the menus and displays..
Xen display right after you turn it on (and bungees mounted!)
Here is the infrared USB "puck" you get to upload your dive logs
Here is a shot (In dive simulator mode) next to a Scubapro Galileo SOL and an X1 (notice the zero glare and bright display!)
and just for size comparison, here it is next to a Garmin Forerunner watch/gps
hope you guys found this informative! I'll post some more in the days to come,
cheers
Koos
I was quite a lucky dog to get one of the new Xen bottom timers to test dive and provide product feedback.
So, I thought it would be informative for the rest of you to get some first impression feedback from a test diver.
First off the "Xen Test diver Package" came with the Xen Bottom Timer unit, an Infrared USB Adapter, USB Cable, bungee cord and Extra batteries.
First thing you will notice in this small form factor is that there are NO buttons! Thats right folks, it sports the same patented "tap interface" that the Liqivision X1 is known and loved for.
The unit itself is of a pretty solid plastic injection molded construction and surprisingly small compared to other color OLED devices out there (pics further down).. Addtionally the Xen is also "Potted"; meaning its injection filled with a gelatinous material, so there is no air spaces anywhere.. And this means its impossible to flood the electronics! (Also carried over from X1 engineering!)
It sports bungee ready mounts on the bottom to which I installed the supplied bungee cord without incident. If bungee mount is not your thing, it also supports depth-compensating straps.
It has a user replaceable battery that's accessed by simply opening the battery compartment with a quarter (quarter was not supplied :cool2
it takes like 10 seconds to replace the battery on this thing.. very convenient.. Another cool thing is that since the unit is potted, the battery compartment can flood completely and you just rinse it out, replace the battery and off you go diving!! Imagine that a dive computer that a user can even screw up the battery replacement, flood it and still works! (btw - I accidentally did flood mine due to user error, and after clean warm water and some alcohol rinsing, I was back n business in no time)I inserted the supplied battery and after 3 loving taps it woke up in its full color OLED glory.. The screen is absolutely gorgeous and the fonts are tack sharp and super readable.. another trademark carried over from the X1!
The menu system is extremely user friendly and easy to navigate and the upgradable firmware that shipped with the unit was still a beta build but performed remarkably well for pre-release code!
It supports both metric and imperial units and everything on this thing is user configurable! every single label and digit is configurable in color! I set mine up with some cool color configurations that I thought would look cool..
The "surface" mode is where you do system configuration and also has a full on dive simulator! You can take it for "dry dives" in order to learn the unit functions and features... I LOVED this!! I spent hours fidgeting with settings and then simulating dives to see what it does and how in influences the dive displays and interfaces.
It also has a very cool configurable array of alarms like depth, time, ascend speed, descend speed, etc. etc. The best part here was you can for example configure multiple ascend speed alarms, that way you can vary your ascend speed throughout the dive based on your deco profile (Listen up GUE divers!!)
The "dive mode" display has 3 options to choose from with varying amount of info and levels of details.. I dove it mostly in "alternate" that had decent size fonts and enough info on it that i needed.. Cool thing here is that you can swap display modes during a dive!! Mostly the info I cared about was Max Depth, Avg Depth, Current Depth, Dive Time, Stop Watch, Temperature and Battery levels.. (All in different colors) Also, the Depth and Time was always visible while you navigate through menus.. cool..
The dive mode feature that I found most useful was the stop watch.. makes deco a lot easier to have a bright big and accessible stop watch display!
There is no beeper (thank God) on this thing so the alarms are inverted flashing, witch catches your eye very quick!
Throughout dives this thing is awesome! there is zero reflection or dissapearing numbers, you can give it a quick glance and get all the info you need from the super bright OLED display without worrying about shining a light or something on it.. The angled display design of the unit makes it pretty intuitive to position on your wrist and makes readability even better..
Accessing menus like stop watch etc. during the dive was a dream! I have thick dry-gloves and the "no-button" tap system works great with dumb hands and fingers.
Ascent goes without a hitch when you have this puppy telling you ascent rate, depths and rocks a stop watch with easy tapping access.. I did my GUE style min deco ascents with deep stops and 30 seconds interval stop n slides and it performed admirably.
All in all, I found the diving with the Xen is trully a pleasant experience, I did not find myself befuddled with too much info, too small displays or dim LCD's I cant read without a light or funky push button menus.. it just simply worked!
Obviously, I also have to say that this was still a test unit with test software on it, so it wasn't completely without flaws or some gripes, but the real awesome thing here is the guys at Liquivision gave us real divers the Xen to go dive and play with and provide real usability and bug feedback from real dives, gotta love that!
After the dive the "previous dive" info was summarized on the main home screen and you can then off course navigate to the dive log, it keeps a full dive log including awesome depth graph profile and temp graph profile..
The PC download logging software for my Mac isnt quite ready yet, but you can download the dive logs to your PC or Mac with the supplied infrared adapter.. (i'll post updates on this when i get the software)..
So, here are a few quick shots on the surface to give you an idea on size and display readability.. I put it next to the X1 so you can see the Xen has a really bright and readable display that equals the quality you are used to from the X1
I'll take a few pics underwater soon and some more pics from the menus and displays..
Xen display right after you turn it on (and bungees mounted!)
Here is the infrared USB "puck" you get to upload your dive logs
Here is a shot (In dive simulator mode) next to a Scubapro Galileo SOL and an X1 (notice the zero glare and bright display!)
and just for size comparison, here it is next to a Garmin Forerunner watch/gps
hope you guys found this informative! I'll post some more in the days to come,
cheers
Koos
