New diver, looking at Suunto D5

[Divin'Papaw]

Had one myself (EON Core), dive buddy had a Suunto too. Both locked out mid-dive, not even violating deco stops. So yeah, I'm done with Suunto computers. Their compasses are great though.

Absolutely! I have my trusty SK7 with me on every dive. For the type of diving that I do, I use it on just about every dive.

But after having multiple buddies have constant lock-outs, I'll never own a Suunto computer. I want a computer that is a tool under my control, not one that thinks it has to babysit me. Dive computer-lock-outs are probably the dumbest idea ever. They end up fostering exactly what they are supposedly trying to prevent which is unsafe diving. They lead divers to do stupid things like pop the battery to reset the thing.

 

[steffi]

If you want a watch style computer like that get a teric or garmin, although they’re both very expensive as well. If you don’t need a wstch style there’s a bunch of different options. I’d stay away from suunto though.

Which Garmin would you recommend? Descent G1?

 

[steffi]

I'll toss in my $0.02.

I dove my first 75 dives or so on the Oceanic ProPlus 4 and enjoyed the large numbers and bluetooth connectivity. It was a great computer to begin my venture into diving and has since been passed down to my 15 year old daughter who has put over 100 dives on it now in just under a year. It's as good as when I took it out of the box.

With that said, I switched over to the Garmin MK2i about a year ago and absolutely LOVE it. My dive/hiking buddy ran the Suunto prior to us both getting Garmins and he said he would never go back to the Suunto. The Garmin is both an everyday watch as well as fantastic fitness/sleep/stat tracker if you are into it. It is a rockstar underwater and performs flawlessly for me. The only issue I have had with it was i locked it out when I was using my metal detector on a treasure dive in one of our local dive sites, but my spg covered me for the remainder of the dive.

The MK2i or ProPlus 4.0 will serve you more than well. Give them both a good look! And enjoy being so close to Monterey! I drive there once or twice a month for the absolutely fantastic diving!

Any thoughts on the Descent G1?

 

[Saboteur]

No, Shearwater leaves the responsibility for subsequent diving in your hands. The tissue levels are, of course, maintained/utilized moving forward.

So … blow off a required deco stop, acknowledge all of the warnings. The computer display would then show a normal display and allow a dive, rightly or wrongly? I guess one could argue that in the hands of a diver not knowing what they are doing this “hands off” functionality could be hazardous.

 

[Saboteur]

Any thoughts on the Descent G1?

I think of the Descent G1 as a smart watch with dive computer add on with lots of features and functions. They may be useful for you. The Teric is a dedicated top shelf dive computer that you can wear as a watch with the best display in the business. For watch style Mares has the new Sirius coming out.. Buhlman algorithm… no satellite radio.

 

[DivinLion01]

Any thoughts on the Descent G1?

I've never used it, so I don't think it would be fair to opine on it. I can say I love the Garmin product and have since bought two (2) of their watches for my kids to use in their everyday life. They love all the stats and data. Doctors for my 14 year old youngest were able to pull some data from her Garmin to assist in the diagnosis of her epilepsy.

The only thing I see with the G1 is that it isn't air integrated. That's the beauty of the MK2i. The air integration was exactly what I wanted and needed and I am so glad I sprung for it.

 

[scubadada]

Had one myself (EON Core), dive buddy had a Suunto too. Both locked out mid-dive, not even violating deco stops. So yeah, I'm done with Suunto computers. Their compasses are great though.

Hi @Cheizz,

Other than violating the decompression ceiling for greater than 3 min, what else would result in lock out? I read the entire Core user's manual and could find nothing other than the deco violation resulting in lock out.

Thanks

 

[Cheizz]

Not sure what it was. My battery was over 50%, never got any insight into what caused my lock-out. I was well within NDL at the time.

 

[rongoodman]

So … blow off a required deco stop, acknowledge all of the warnings. The computer display would then show a normal display and allow a dive, rightly or wrongly? I guess one could argue that in the hands of a diver not knowing what they are doing this “hands off” functionality could be hazardous.

The tissue compartments in the model will continue to off gas until the next dive, at which point they will start to on gas again. How the model behaves from that point will depend on the length of the surface interval and the amount of residual inert gases remaining. A shorter interval would likely have the diver facing deco again before too long. The diver has still been decompressing in spite of missing the required stops, just at a rate too rapid to be deemed safe by the model.

 

[Robert H. Diver]

Jealous? Why would I get rid of a computer that has never failed in 24 years and spent $1,200 for an unreliable Shearwater one. I could always use my Cobra as a backup for when the Shearwater fails.

So what other issues do shearwaters have besides the occasional teric battery?