New Apple Watch is a dive computer
- Thread starter wnissen
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Belzelbub
Contributor
Agreed. A separate air setting is unnecessary, and depending on how it's handled can be bad. If it's just separate and there is no problem switching between air and Nitrox, then might be OK. At least allows those divers who don't know that Air is 21% O2 from selecting 100% assuming that's what we breathe.
The problem on older computers was that the Air setting didn't track any O2. So if you started the day diving air, it wouldn't let you switch to Nitrox.
While a separate Air and Nitrox mode is unnecessary, as long as it doesn't prohibit switching between the two, then I guess it's OK.
Just about anyone with an Apple Watch now is in the habit of putting it on a charger at night - my Series 6 battery will certainly go for two days, but the charger is on my nightstand so when I go to bed at night, on it goes. If I forget, it only takes about 20 minutes to charge it up in the morning. To me, the battery life isn't the issue - unless you're completely derelict in paying attention, you can keep it charged up enough. The issue is the app software that bricks it if you go too deep. If they want to shut down the display while you're below their limit, that's one thing; not a big deal if it's a backup. But having it lock up for 24 hours and not re-start the full display when you get back above the limit is ridiculous. Hopefully they'll fix that in the next iteration of the Oceanic app, or the next app that comes along will be better.
They won't fix it in the app if the limitation is the pressure sensor, which everything seems to indicate.
Since this isn't a dedicated dive computer they will have gone with the smallest possible sensor they could use, because every cubic micrometer of space in that watch counts for something. Just googling what could potentially have gone into it, here's a couple of ST Microlectronics pressure sensors for wearables which go to 4 ATA (Pressure Sensors - STMicroelectronics). Apparently they used something a little bit better, but I don't know why people find it incredible that it's a sensor limit at 5 ATA.
I bet there's a product manager at Apple who happily made a tradeoff to save a little bit of space and a dollar on the BOM by using a sensor that "only" works in the recreational depths.
Since this isn't a dedicated dive computer they will have gone with the smallest possible sensor they could use, because every cubic micrometer of space in that watch counts for something. Just googling what could potentially have gone into it, here's a couple of ST Microlectronics pressure sensors for wearables which go to 4 ATA (Pressure Sensors - STMicroelectronics). Apparently they used something a little bit better, but I don't know why people find it incredible that it's a sensor limit at 5 ATA.
I bet there's a product manager at Apple who happily made a tradeoff to save a little bit of space and a dollar on the BOM by using a sensor that "only" works in the recreational depths.
Beats me, but I think I read one review where they were able to get some data off the watch that showed it actually kept recording depth data past the 144ft. limit. I'm sure there's a considerable safety margin built into the depth limit to avoid damage to the sensor - it may not function all the way down to the 100m rating on the watch, but I bet it goes considerably past 40m. And regardless, bricking it if it exceeds depth by a couple feet is a choice the developers made.
Well, that’s your assertion.
The behaviour we can see is that when you exceed the 40m limit it warns you, but continues to do its thing (calculating tissue saturation). When ascending above the limit everything is back to normal, dive computer wise.
When some other limit is reached (as far as I can tell around 44m, but this might well vary from unit to unit) it goes into violation gauge mode. It would be a really weird decision to do this in software when you already have the earlier behaviour implemented and don't have to do it for any other reason. I can't see why they would do that unless it's that the depth sensor says "woah, measurement range bottomed out, I have no idea how deep we are", and at that point really the only thing you can do in software is to not assume anything and say "ascend using a backup device", like it does. We can no longer calculate tissue saturation so we can't present a valid deco solution to get to the surface. (It could take a wild guess, but I can see why they wouldn't implement that.)
I get that people dislike Apple and/or Oceanic for various reasons, some of them surely well grounded, but I think we should give them some credit to not assume they make inexplicably stupid decisions when there's a totally natural explanation for the behavior: Apple cheaping out on the sensor, Oceanic doing the best they can under the circumstances.
The behaviour we can see is that when you exceed the 40m limit it warns you, but continues to do its thing (calculating tissue saturation). When ascending above the limit everything is back to normal, dive computer wise.
When some other limit is reached (as far as I can tell around 44m, but this might well vary from unit to unit) it goes into violation gauge mode. It would be a really weird decision to do this in software when you already have the earlier behaviour implemented and don't have to do it for any other reason. I can't see why they would do that unless it's that the depth sensor says "woah, measurement range bottomed out, I have no idea how deep we are", and at that point really the only thing you can do in software is to not assume anything and say "ascend using a backup device", like it does. We can no longer calculate tissue saturation so we can't present a valid deco solution to get to the surface. (It could take a wild guess, but I can see why they wouldn't implement that.)
I get that people dislike Apple and/or Oceanic for various reasons, some of them surely well grounded, but I think we should give them some credit to not assume they make inexplicably stupid decisions when there's a totally natural explanation for the behavior: Apple cheaping out on the sensor, Oceanic doing the best they can under the circumstances.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind Apple stuff at all, and I'm all for the Ultra functioning as a DC. I've mentioned before in this thread that I'd use one as a backup to my Peregrine once my Series 6 watch dies. I can also see the marketing and software development being targeted solely at casual recreational divers and there being liability reasons why the software simply stops functioning below a certain depth. I guess it just seems like quite a coincidence that the sensor goes wonky at what "happens" to be the same depth that's the recreational limit (130ft). And it seems a little odd that they'd use a sensor that would fail only 10% beyond the advertised working depth.
We'll certainly find out as time goes by, updates are issued, and perhaps different app developers get into the game. As a practical matter, the way it is now is probably plenty for most rec divers.
We'll certainly find out as time goes by, updates are issued, and perhaps different app developers get into the game. As a practical matter, the way it is now is probably plenty for most rec divers.
I have a tech diving friend that has offered to take my Apple Watch Ultra on a T1 dive on Sunday. If I am actually able to make that happen, I am planning on having him use the Depth app since he needs the Watch in no way to safely conduct his dive. That should provide a good data point on whether the 44m limit is imposed by the Apple hardware/firmware or by the Oceanic+ software.
I've done four dives now after getting the watch into default SCUBA mode. It works fine in the water but the logbook is so messed up that it makes me question the code integrity in general. It shows a correct profile, but the dive time shows as 0 minutes even though it was about a 60-minute dive. The temperature and max depth are both wrong also. I dove today and the data is the same -- profile looks right but everything else is wrong. Definitely a work in progress.
Balmer was completely ignorant, at the time there were several cell phones selling for $600-$1000, including the Palm and Nokia Symbian phones. I had been paying $639 for my Palm Treo 650‘s and needed a replacement due to my phone getting destroyed and happily paid $450 for the new iPhone! I currently have a series 7 Apple Watch and will probably purchase the Ultra in a year or two when I need to replace it for the extended battery life and durability. Having a backup dive computer, hopefully with software from someone other than Oceanic, will be a bonus as 99% of my diving is within the recreational limits. I still plan on purchasing a new air integrated dive computer in the next 6 months as my primary dc.
Similar threads
