New Apple Watch is a dive computer

[dougmatic]

36 hour battery life in normal mode means how many hours in dive mode I wonder?

 

[Divin'Papaw]

This is quite an interesting development.

 

[stuartv]

it probably needs daily recharge (36 hrs, and up to 60 hours extended). But at least it is relatively easy to charge apple devices with power bank these days.

People knock the Teric because, when a Teric battery goes bad, you have to charge it maybe once a week. But, I bet many of those same knockers will flock to the Apple Ultra, even though they'll have to charge it every single day, for diving. LOL!

Really interesting, think its a smart move by apple. Won't really compete too much with Garmin/Sheatwater but man any of the mid tier dive computers are going to hurt I think.

I suspect the Oceanic Dive app is going to cost money. And who knows how much? It could be a $20 app, or it could be a $500 app. We'll have to wait and see.

Regardless, I think it's going to put a serious hurting on Garmin's dive computer sales. And, it's also going to be VERY hard to sell a Peregrine to any diver that is also an iPhone user. So, I suspect it will put a hurtin' on Shearwater, too.

36 hour battery life in normal mode means how many hours in dive mode I wonder?

I don't know, but the Teric is good for about 50 hours as a watch, and about 30 hours in dive mode, IIRC.

I expect that the Ultra will need to be charged every single day, when used for diving and when not. Unless you use some kind of battery saving mode (which always means reduced functionality in some way).

 

[Christian Remwood]

36 hour battery life in normal mode means how many hours in dive mode I wonder?

My Garmin gets 25 hours in dive vs 25 days above water. So maybe a few hours with the apple watch? hard to say.

 

[vondo]

36 hour battery life in normal mode means how many hours in dive mode I wonder?

It all sort of depends on what sensors are running and how frequently. But I generally find that the 18 hours of life it normally gives goes down to about 9 when it's actively measuring a workout with GPS and heart rate, etc. So it will drop some, I would expect. But my guess is it won't have any trouble keeping up with 5-6 hours of diving in a day.

 

[Christian Remwood]

It all sort of depends on what sensors are running and how frequently. But I generally find that the 18 hours of life it normally gives goes down to about 9 when it's actively measuring a workout with GPS and heart rate, etc. So it will drop some, I would expect. But my guess is it won't have any trouble keeping up with 5-6 hours of diving in a day.

Hopefully! Though 5-6 hours would still give me battery anxiety lol.

 

[vondo]

And, it's also going to be VERY hard to sell a Peregrine to any diver that is also an iPhone user.

Or convince Shearwater to make an AI Peregrine. That I'd buy. I have a Perdix which I use strictly recreationally but am looking for my wife's next computer.

 

[vondo]

Hopefully! Though 5-6 hours would still give me battery anxiety lol.

Well that nine hours of activity is for the "all day battery life" of the normal watches, which works out to about 18 hours. The watch under discussion is double that. So my guess is you'd get 16+ hours of dive logging out of this device, but who knows until someone tries it.

 

[drrich2]

A.I. or no go for me. If they get A.I., then I'm in a quandary. I'm an Apple user - macs, iPhones, kid's got an iPad Mini. I use a modestly priced Casio G-Shock watch because I don't want to live in fear of scratching the display, have to charge it (I use battery powered; had a solar-powered version, hassle to keep charged, finally lost it), and I'm a bit rough and careless (bull in a china shop kinda guy).

If I bought one of these over, say, a Teric, the purpose would be to use it outside of diving as a daily watch, yes? Well, then we're back to whether I want to wear an $800 watch on my wrist in daily life. A Teric could be used as a daily watch...but I wouldn't do that. I'd store it to save for diving. But oddly enough, I wouldn't 'save' an Apple watch, I'd wear it.

How many of you want to wear your 'dive watch' all the time? Or prefer a watch that's pretty expensive (say, significantly north of $100)?

 

[doctormike]

People knock the Teric because, when a Teric battery goes bad, you have to charge it maybe once a week. But, I bet many of those some Nancys will flock to the Apple Ultra, even though they'll have to charge it every single day, for diving. LOL!

Right, but the Teric is a dive computer. The Apple Watch is a watch. I have no data to back this up, but I would guess about 5% of Teric owners wear it every day, as opposed about 95% of Apple Watch owners. And virtually everyone with an Apple watch has some sort of smartphone. Which generally just gets plugged in to the charger overnight, just like the watch.

Of course, not EVERYONE does that, but I'm sure that the vast majority of people who use this technology already do that. Which is the target market for this product. Which means that for the vast majority of people who might purchase this, they just put it on in the morning and it's ready to go.

Here's some stuff I made a few years ago...