Log book interface updates

[dirkhh]

Gotcha. I just had to post that once in my SB career. I lot of tec divers prefer the data generated by this product. Just an idea...

SENSUS Ultra Dive Data Recorder by ReefNet - Dive Gear Express

Looks awesome. Doesn't track my tank pressure as the uemis does, but certainly has the right attitude towards reliability and ability to download.

But after paying $2k for a dive computer - do I really need to pay another $200 for a tool that does what for all intents and purposes the computer should do? Am I really asking to much if I want the uemis Zurich to simply expose the raw dive data in its file system?

 

[Kussi]

Hello to everyone

I am a new member in this forum but have followed the threads in here for some months now...

In my opinion, the idea behind Uemis is not just selling a dive computer. It is more creating a community... they call it "Uemis DiveWorld" where you share your diving experience (dives, dive spots, services, etc) with other divers around the world. You combine your data with others and piece by piece the platform is filled with plenty of useful information made from divers, made for divers.
Out of this perspective it does not make sense to allow the owner of an Uemis SDA to download the data just to a local computer where the data is lost for the community. For that reason it hasn't anything to do with the leak of resources that they do not offer this option: It is just against the business idea!
Uemis decision makers are currently locked in this unpleasant situation... Internet connectivity can not be guaranteed by 100% all around the world (you are diving in the middle of nowhere or Uemis services are down, as seen a couple of weeks ago) but they have to satisfy the need of their customers to log the dives somehow locally... without bypassing or giving up the community "Uemis Diveworld". Maybe we will see a solution between local & online in the future... they could allow to store data on a local computer for some limited numbers of dives or with very limited features only. They could improve the user interface in the SDA directly so that divers can update their data in a more simple and easy way without being online.

 

[BB1]

Kussi,

I have added dive info to UEMIS world and would not stop doing this just because I had the option of local PC logging of dives.

I would just like the functionality and convenience of both way of doing things!

Restricting the amount you can do locally is just going to P#ss people off even more in my opinion.

Remember that none of this will change whether people either will or wont participate in the UEMIS world part of the company vision. Some embrace the social media idea in all things and some just will never "get it".

Much better to develop an easy upload button for transfer to UEMIS world.

I would like some of the statistical tools and info that are available on the SDA but not in MyUemis, 3rd party logging software allows that.

Just some thoughts of mine...........

 

[iztok]

Kussi, what is your association with UEMIS?

Secondly, if this was truly an idea behind Dive World it would make sense for UEMIS to open up the protocol so other dive data could be imported in it as well (i.e. from my D9 or Veo 180nx for example - just two I own).

It doesn't make even a little sense to limit the data to UEMIS computers only. After all, we have about a dozen or so in US and maybe a bit more the rest of the world.

 

[Kussi]

My only association with Uemis is that I am a customer of one of their products... and till up to this moment I did never regret it.

It is just an idea and I try to understand why Uemis has a different approach. When they really would like to allow customers to manage their dives locally why they don't want to support 3-party Dive-Log-Apps by giving away the necessary information how to decode the data from the Uemis device?
I think the reason behind is Uemis DiveWorld. The company Uemis tries to build up a own brand (as every small company) and the community thing is a big part in it. Today you get the access to this community with the Uemis SDA, in the future it will be the other way around. I compare the situation with Apple and the iPhone. There is (officially) only one possibility to sync the device with the computer: iTunes. The total control over the interface made the brand strong, well-known and valuable.

Yes, uploading data from other dive computers could be allowed as well! Finally this is a question of how much support you are able/willing to offer to people who are not your customers and therefore do not pay your salaries...

I personally would like to have the option to download my dives on my computer locally when no connection to the internet is available (multiple dives on a safari). As BB1, I would not stop to upload my data online after coming back home... but people must have the choice, that is true.

The future will tell...


P.S: it even created automatically a link to iTunes within my text... I am impressed!

 

[Scubacastor]

I think all comments are valid.

While I am still logging the dives, I don't think it's fun at all so I don't do that often (maybe once I have 20 dives done and for the record only). Sometimes I like to see the dive profile and other stuff such as gas consumptions and temperature profile and import them under excel. That being said, I like the whole UEMIS community thing because I can import/export dive sites and it's somehow very easy to fill the logbook on the SDA and on your computer which is then transferred back to the SDA. I just uploaded into the SDA most of the divesites, I'll dive in September. Exchanging data is somehow weird because while you can share stuff online, it's impossible to share the own data of your account between different computers associated with this account. I had my unit exchanged after the USB interface was declared dead and I had to reenter all data including personal data (training, notes) and non shared divespots. Therefore it's great you can get stuff from the community but on the other hand it's not possible to exchange data between the computers you own or have owned. There are rooms for improvement here.

I guess we all want a way to do the same job of downloading profiles and editing stuff in the SDA database but without the use of the Internet which does not compete with the idea of this community. There are options:
1) having an offline product from something from UEMIS,
2) having an offline data file generated with documented information on how to process it,
3) doing some reverse engineering on syncsda.jar and USB to PC data stream to get to point 2. Jar files are zipped Java files. There are lots of java decompiler available even freely.

Of course, it would be better to get point 1, 2 is optimal to have third party solution and 3 is a risky one as at some point, you need to get directly to the memory of the SDA.

 

[dirkhh]

I think all comments are valid.
<...> I like the whole UEMIS community thing because I can import/export dive sites and it's somehow very easy to fill the logbook on the SDA and on your computer which is then transferred back to the SDA. I just uploaded into the SDA most of the divesites, I'll dive in September. Exchanging data is somehow weird because while you can share stuff online, it's impossible to share the own data of your account between different computers associated with this account. I had my unit exchanged after the USB interface was declared dead and I had to reenter all data including personal data (training, notes) and non shared divespots. Therefore it's great you can get stuff from the community but on the other hand it's not possible to exchange data between the computers you own or have owned. There are rooms for improvement here.

I completely agree - the community is really cool - I have posted my first dive sites and plan to continue to do so. I never saw the offline download ability as an alternative to the online community - both serve different and complementary purposes.

I guess we all want a way to do the same job of downloading profiles and editing stuff in the SDA database but without the use of the Internet which does not compete with the idea of this community. There are options:
1) having an offline product from something from UEMIS,
2) having an offline data file generated with documented information on how to process it,
3) doing some reverse engineering on syncsda.jar and USB to PC data stream to get to point 2. Jar files are zipped Java files. There are lots of java decompiler available even freely.

Of course, it would be better to get point 1, 2 is optimal to have third party solution and 3 is a risky one as at some point, you need to get directly to the memory of the SDA.

1) would be awesome - but the resource constraints that we appear to see at UEMIS may make this unlikely
2) would be the best (realistic) solution, I think. And if it was possible to connect the offline data with the online data it would be ideal. This way one could make annotations, comments, etc offline and then share them in the online community (and it would also solve your problem of being able to combine accounts)
3) is an option and I guess I will end up doing that if we don't get support from UEMIS for (2). I'd be very disappointed, to be honest, and I'd be worried that random changes in the firmware might invalidate all that work...

Can one of the UEMIS people in the forum please comment on what it would take to convince UEMIS to go with (2)?

 

[Scubacastor]

Seems like UEMIS is currently working on the online database (or at least, there are changes on my account):
- it's impossible right now to publicly share dive profiles
- the "add buddy" function acts so weird that it was easier for me to set the buddy from the SDA rather than from the web interface.