Dave Bevan
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To be fair if it creates a lot of lower priced non AI perdix that won't be a bad thing 
Very expensive bottom timer
Very expensive bottom timer
Shearwater Perdix AI
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Okay, on the Eon, when you go to the Gas screen you see the Transmitters and they all have the current gas pressure. BUT it still treats them as individual tanks so doesn't calculate the Gas time remaining over multiple cylinders (say if your SM)
Another issue, easier to fix on the Eon with its graphics) would be to have multiple gasses shown at the same time (again SM) with the perdex (as I see it) you are limited for real estate.
I'm a big fan of WAI and occasionally nab my wife's transmitters to add to mine for say 4 cylinders, but gas management is still a PITA.
Another thing I would like, is when you change gases, the computer (seeing the pressure movement) gives you a warning to either accept the new gas - or find out whats going wrong. Rater than scrolling down your gas list to select.
Personally - I don't feel that the classic display (lots of numbers) lends itself to this kinda stuff.
I do like the fact that you are getting closer to a universal transmitter rather than one per manufacturer. Kinda like the USB standard on computers
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@Diving Dubai
Eon steel is not suitable for technical diving due to their algorithm. I do not know of anyone doing proper technical diving with them. While it is trimix capable with up to 10 gasses, the Suunto RGBM is not favored by anyone I am aware of.
Gas time remaining isn't a huge feature for what we do, but I can see a lot of people wanting it, especially for ocean diving.
Eon steel has the same screen resolution of 320x240 as the Perdix so no more real estate, and the Perdix is capable of the same graphics as the Eon.
I wouldn't want the computer to ask about gas switching based on pressure drop because even if you are on stages, you are still using your "backgas" for suit and wing inflation which would show pressure drop on descent.
Eon steel is not suitable for technical diving due to their algorithm. I do not know of anyone doing proper technical diving with them. While it is trimix capable with up to 10 gasses, the Suunto RGBM is not favored by anyone I am aware of.
Gas time remaining isn't a huge feature for what we do, but I can see a lot of people wanting it, especially for ocean diving.
Eon steel has the same screen resolution of 320x240 as the Perdix so no more real estate, and the Perdix is capable of the same graphics as the Eon.
I wouldn't want the computer to ask about gas switching based on pressure drop because even if you are on stages, you are still using your "backgas" for suit and wing inflation which would show pressure drop on descent.
Calm down @tbone1004
I wasn't suggesting the Eon is used for technical diving, I was informing you that the Eon does monitor all the TX at the same time - which is what you were asking about on the Perdix and using it as an example of whats around
While the screens may be the same size, The Eon is more graphical.
Again if you read my post I was suggesting that a graphical method is possibly a better way of displaying multiple gas pressures, rather than numbers which can cause the screen to become cluttered. Even more so with PSI where you have 4 digits rather than Bar needing 3 digits.
I wasn't suggesting the Eon is used for technical diving, I was informing you that the Eon does monitor all the TX at the same time - which is what you were asking about on the Perdix and using it as an example of whats around
While the screens may be the same size, The Eon is more graphical.
Again if you read my post I was suggesting that a graphical method is possibly a better way of displaying multiple gas pressures, rather than numbers which can cause the screen to become cluttered. Even more so with PSI where you have 4 digits rather than Bar needing 3 digits.
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@Diving Dubai I'm calm, I was just responding to your points in the order you gave them.
The eon is only more graphical because that is how they programmed it. Shearwater could do the same if they wanted to since the screens are identical resolution it isn't "easier" to do on the Eon because it already is more "graphical" and there is no more real estate since they have the same number of pixels.
For us, the PSI or Bar is what we need. Graphics are fine for recreational diving, but on a screen as small as both the Perdix and the Eon, it is easier to see PSI numbers. Easy enough to put 3 rows x 2 columns on the Perdix for 6 tank pressures and just number the tanks, but we will see how they implement it. As it stands, it is prohibitively expensive for what we do and it will be a few more years before I think we'll see an improvement in the transmitters themselves
The eon is only more graphical because that is how they programmed it. Shearwater could do the same if they wanted to since the screens are identical resolution it isn't "easier" to do on the Eon because it already is more "graphical" and there is no more real estate since they have the same number of pixels.
For us, the PSI or Bar is what we need. Graphics are fine for recreational diving, but on a screen as small as both the Perdix and the Eon, it is easier to see PSI numbers. Easy enough to put 3 rows x 2 columns on the Perdix for 6 tank pressures and just number the tanks, but we will see how they implement it. As it stands, it is prohibitively expensive for what we do and it will be a few more years before I think we'll see an improvement in the transmitters themselves
What are you figuring for price of transmitters, to come up with $1500?
In a package deal with a computer, the transmitters typically run $275. I figure if you were buying a bunch of them at once - or had a good relationship with your dealer - you would be able to get them for that same price. So, 2 x sidemount bottles plus 2 deco cylinders would be $1100. At the point that you're doing serious cave deco diving, with scooters like are shown in your picture, is that really much more than a somewhat small drop in the bucket?
As for managing multiple bottles, I actually like the way the TX-1 does it, better than how SW does it, in some ways. I think a good way to do it would be:
Transmitter Config screen where you setup all the transmitters you're going to use, relating each one to a slot in the Gases table. I.e. TX1 is for Gas 1, TX2 is for Gas 2, etc..
Gas Config screen that lets you define any gases you might use, and enable or disable them.
Gas Switch screen would show you the list of enabled gases, with the tank pressure for any gas that has a transmitter associated. You could switch to a new gas from this screen, if you want, or just review the gases and their pressures and stay with your current gas.
Gas switches would work like they do now where if you ascend to a depth where you have a better gas, it gives you a prompt to let you quickly and easily switch to that gas. Otherwise, you can always go into the Gas Switch screen to do it.
Of course you would still be allowed to go into the Gas Config screen on the fly and change or add a gas definition or enable a disabled gas.
Optional feature, if you switch to a gas with a transmitter associated and the tank pressure does not start going down, the computer does something to warn you that you may not have switched to the gas you told your computer you switched to. Maybe as simple as change the displayed tank pressure to display in Red or something like that.
I think this whole subject is not as hard as some people make it out to be.
Also, since the Perdix AI displays tank pressure in the user-configurable fields in the middle, and there are 3 of those fields, I think, it should allow you to configure it where the tank pressures of both tanks in a sidemount config are displayed. If it doesn't now, a firmware update should be able to provide that capability.
Hmm, I think mine was $720 new. Not exactly the kind of price decline from retail I was hoping to see
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I think Subsurface does not have a mobile device option, at this time, other than a companion app to let you capture GPS coordinates for dive sites. I haven't used it, so I'm not sure what all the companion app does.
Subsurface itself runs on a laptop or desktop and supports Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. But not, currently, an iPhone or Android device (like I said - except for the mobile companion app).
When I started using it, I found some aspects of the UI to be, ummm, "quirky". But, now that I understand how it works, it seems fine. I think some of it is simply the fact that it's an app intended to work on 3 different OS's. Every OS has its own quirks that its users get used to and expect things to work in a certain way. So, a multi-platform app like Subsurface eventually ends up as an amalgam of those things and has a little something to baffle its users, no matter which platform they are running it on.
I really like that I have or have had 4 different computers and all the dive data from all of them is collected in one log. And when I download the same dive from 2 or 3 different computers, Subsurface automatically merges them together as one dive, but I can still toggle the Profile display to show me the data from whichever computer I want.
But like my grandmother used to tell me, what's why there's chocolate and vanilla. You enjoy your vanilla now, ya' hear? ;-)
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@stuartv I was going off of the price that DGX has on their website. I'm sure I wouldn't pay retail on them, but I haven't seen the dealer pricing on them yet. Requirements for that dive are 4 transmitters ignoring deco, or 5 with the deco bottle, not including buddy bottles that could pose problematic as they aren't planning on being used and may go to a team-mate so the sync abilities of the transmitters matter.
Regarding the gas switching that works fine for ocean diving, but in cave diving where depending on how big the dive is you can have 4-8 bottles with the same mix, I think it would quickly become impractical to assign them to individual gasses. Like I said, that's all in software and since Shearwater is good about updates for usability, it is highly likely they will evolve over time.
For me right now, while $1500 is certainly less than the cost of any of the scooters on that platform and quite inexpensive compared to much of the gear we use, it is about value. I don't think WAI really needs analog backup gauges in the water. I'd keep a few at the surface so I don't have to scrub a dive before hand, but if it does in the water, it's a gear failure and the tank and/or dive is done. Each of those tanks have $60 worth of SPG and hose on them. Let's assume I get a stupid good price on the transmitters and they are $240 each for easy math which is probably close to what I would actually pay for them. I have to justify 4x the cost in some sort of functionality, or over $150/bottle of increased functionality to warrant going to AI. The transmitters are still very big and fragile in comparison to an SPG which makes some rigging a little interesting, but assuming they come down to a big button gauge size, I still have to warrant the cost.
WAI is more precise than analog SPG's, and it would be nice to be able to go to a screen on my computer and see all of my gas in one screen. I could probably justify 2x the cost for the precision and convenience, but not 4x, especially with the size constraint.
Regarding the gas switching that works fine for ocean diving, but in cave diving where depending on how big the dive is you can have 4-8 bottles with the same mix, I think it would quickly become impractical to assign them to individual gasses. Like I said, that's all in software and since Shearwater is good about updates for usability, it is highly likely they will evolve over time.
For me right now, while $1500 is certainly less than the cost of any of the scooters on that platform and quite inexpensive compared to much of the gear we use, it is about value. I don't think WAI really needs analog backup gauges in the water. I'd keep a few at the surface so I don't have to scrub a dive before hand, but if it does in the water, it's a gear failure and the tank and/or dive is done. Each of those tanks have $60 worth of SPG and hose on them. Let's assume I get a stupid good price on the transmitters and they are $240 each for easy math which is probably close to what I would actually pay for them. I have to justify 4x the cost in some sort of functionality, or over $150/bottle of increased functionality to warrant going to AI. The transmitters are still very big and fragile in comparison to an SPG which makes some rigging a little interesting, but assuming they come down to a big button gauge size, I still have to warrant the cost.
WAI is more precise than analog SPG's, and it would be nice to be able to go to a screen on my computer and see all of my gas in one screen. I could probably justify 2x the cost for the precision and convenience, but not 4x, especially with the size constraint.
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