Oceanic lineup

[scubadada]

The Veo 1 and 3 have been discontinued. The Veo 2 is the only computer left in this line. I wonder what Oceanic has in store, especially the the sale of Pelagic Pressure Systems to Aqua Lung

Hi Craig,

Thank you for choosing Oceanic and for the email. You are correct the VEO 1 and VEO 3 have been discontinued and are no longer available. The VEO 2 will continue to be in the Oceanic Line. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you for choosing Oceanic!
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[gopbroek]

That's to bad, I have owned both a VEO 2.0 and currently have a VEO 3.0 and find the three buttons on the 3.0 much simpler to operate. All is not lost as I have found with the Aeris A300 which was discontinued over 2 years ago, new units are still available from the various vendors inventory, so I suspect that the 3.0's will continue to be available for awhile.
I would not be surprised if Oceanic started using color displays in their mid priced lines as that seems to be the industry trend. My concern is that hopefully they can achieve a reasonable battery life. So far I have not been impressed with the power consumption on the active color displays.

 

[RonR]

That's to bad, I have owned both a VEO 2.0 and currently have a VEO 3.0 and find the three buttons on the 3.0 much simpler to operate. All is not lost as I have found with the Aeris A300 which was discontinued over 2 years ago, new units are still available from the various vendors inventory, so I suspect that the 3.0's will continue to be available for awhile.
I would not be surprised if Oceanic started using color displays in their mid priced lines as that seems to be the industry trend. My concern is that hopefully they can achieve a reasonable battery life. So far I have not been impressed with the power consumption on the active color displays.

I'm curious what you would regard as reasonable battery life, in hours of diving, for either a rechargeable battery that didn't need to be removed or for a disposable battery?

Ron

 

[runsongas]

15 to 20 hours should be reasonable to achieve at a minimum for rechargeable

the ostc computers are 40+ i think

the mares icon hd really needs a longer battery life

 

[RonR]

15 to 20 hours should be reasonable to achieve at a minimum for rechargeable

the ostc computers are 40+ i think

the mares icon hd really needs a longer battery life

Thanks for the input. Power management is a real challenge, but what you ask for is exceeded by most color computers. The Atomic Cobalt gets 30-60 hours of dive time on a charge depending on screen brightness, the new Oceanic console (available?) claims about the same. Suunto Eon Steel is I believe not much behind. Shearwater definitely gets that much life out of disposable batteries.

Some new to the market computers that I suspect may be using generic boards and packaged OS's to make development easy and provide phone like features (which also come with a lot of overhead) may have much lower battery life, but I think Mares is the outlier among mainstream dive computers. Color screens will never have the year plus battery life you see with segment based LCD's, though. They require much more power.

-Ron

 

[gopbroek]

I'm curious what you would regard as reasonable battery life, in hours of diving, for either a rechargeable battery that didn't need to be removed or for a disposable battery?

Ron

40 - 50 hours would be reasonable with brightness at a 'usable in daylight' level and the ability to 'hot swapp' in a replacement. I am not a fan of rechargeables that are built into the unit because in the event of a low battery, charging may be problematic due to time requirements, equipment required or location. I checked out a VTX (rebranded A300CS) a couple years ago and observed batteries discharging in about 4 hours unless the brightness was turned so low as to basically make the unit useless, that frightened me.

 

[BoltSnap]

Color screens will never have the year plus life you see with segment based LCD's, though.

Not sure that I understand what you said Ron, do you mean that the color screens will go bad in a year?

 

[drrich2]

I'm curious what you would regard as reasonable battery life, in hours of diving, for either a rechargeable battery that didn't need to be removed or for a disposable battery?

For me, on a live-aboard or other trip with, oh, say, 25 dives for the week, not having to recharge it more than once, assuming I charge before the trip, plus it shouldn't be near dead when I recharge, and this ought to be performance after 3 or 4 years of occasional use, not just when it's new.

I like how sealed inside rechargeable batteries don't require the effort, stress and flood risk of replaceable batteries. How well they'll endure over time, and what happens when and if battery life drops substantially, is a concern. A pretty cheap replacement available long-term by the vendor would be a nice reassurance.

If the battery is replaceable, then having the product engineered so that if I screw up & flood it with salt water, I can rinse, dry, pop in new batteries & go would be a nice plus.

Richard.

 

[RonR]

Not sure that I understand what you said Ron, do you mean that the color screens will go bad in a year?

No, color displays will last many years. Computers with segment style LCD displays, typically lower cost puck styles, can be made to draw so little power that they can run for a year or more of normal diving on a small coin cell. That's never going to be possible with a color backlit display. They require much more current than a coin type cell can supply, and will always need larger batteries, at least with any existing technology. My reply was unclear- I edited it, thanks.

Ron

 

[RonR]

40 - 50 hours would be reasonable with brightness at a 'usable in daylight' level and the ability to 'hot swapp' in a replacement. I am not a fan of rechargeables that are built into the unit because in the event of a low battery, charging may be problematic due to time requirements, equipment required or location. I checked out a VTX (rebranded A300CS) a couple years ago and observed batteries discharging in about 4 hours unless the brightness was turned so low as to basically make the unit useless, that frightened me.

That's very short battery life. Emissive color displays are always going to be more difficult to read in very bright sunlight, we find that unless you can shade the screen with your hand or turn it away from the sun it's hard to read any of them topside in direct sun. Once you get down in the water a bit things improve rapidly. But we get 20+ dive hours even at max brightness. And once the ambient light is less with depth the greater contrast makes them much easier to read than grey LCD displays.

Some screens use polarizing filters that improve bright sunlight visibility, at the expense of colors. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and bright sunlight is usually not our problem... For those lucky souls who are always in the tropics it may be a concern.

I think that having enough battery capacity so you have plenty of time and options to charge is a prerequisite for a sealed rechargeable. Needing to charge every day or two could be a problem, every week much less so. We enable charging directly from any USB charging source or battery packs, I have a compact solar one about the size of a small smartphone that would keep me going indefinitely.

To Richard's question about battery life, lithium-ion batteries start to lose capacity after 500 or so charge cycles- even at an average of 40 hours per cycle that's a lot of dive time- over 2 years of 24 hour days. We occasionally see bad ones, but have not seen any reach the point of wearing out as they might in a smart phone when being used daily.

I think Richard's point above about sealed battery compartments for disposable batteries is good, as each time you open the compartment there is some non-zero chance something will not seal properly. If it's sealed all you lose is a battery.

Ron