Teric owners, have you required repair or replacement service?

[lexvil]

While I would have liked to never have known how good the SW customer service is, I do and since I was a very early adopter of the Teric I did have the battery issue, twice. On the second repair I asked for a repair and not just a replacement, they changed the battery and the depth sensor (never had an issue with the sensor but I suspect they knew of a bad batch) before I sent my second one I bought another one from someone on the board, newer than my first on, so far it has had no issue at all and neither does my repaired one.

Originally I charged mine on a flat charger, charged it before each dive session but after the second problem I now only charge on the supplied charger and now only charge when it gets below 40% which takes several dives to get to and I store them turned off.

 

[lexvil]

I don't really understand this comment unless it's meant to be sarcasm. There's definitely way more than 79 terics sold unless that's the number you've come up with that had issues. As for the reputation (if you're being serious), plug in shearwater into the search and all you'll get is praises for their service.

My wife and I have terics as backups to our petrels attached to our rebreathers. We replaced two predators with the terics. I loved and miss my predators, but they were bulky so our goal was to get something smaller since being used as a backup to the rebreather petrel means the backup is only for emergency use to track deco and depths if the petrel dies. To be honest though, if I was getting a single computer for OW or light technical use, I would skip the teric and get a petrel or perdix. The teric is very nice but I find the other shearwaters easier to read with my over 40 eyes and I also find the terics not as intuitive for going through screens as my other shearwaters have become. One other thing I notice is that my wife and I are both choosing to not wear our terics on 90% of our dives whereas with the predators we did. I think it's a combination of we just don't use them since they're emergency use only and the fact that we have to make sure they're charged pre-dive (which we often forget to do).

You got the point, the poll only includes 79 reports, we don’t know how many Teric owners have bothered to take the poll and we have no idea how many people world wide own them, how many of those have never been to or heard of scubaboard. Since they, SW, can repair one and have on they way back in a day I’m just going to guess that the service guy isn’t over worked or overwhelmed, just a guess.

 

[scubadada]

You got the point, the poll only includes 79 reports, we don’t know how many Teric owners have bothered to take the poll and we have no idea how many people world wide own them, how many of those have never been to or heard of scubaboard. Since they, SW, can repair one and have on they way back in a day I’m just going to guess that the service guy isn’t over worked or overwhelmed, just a guess.

Did you vote in the poll?

 

[lexvil]

I did

Did you vote in the poll?

.

 

[MikadoWu]

For the fact that everyone is praising Shearwater's computers and service, topics like these make me doubting very much whether I should buy one... Being not in Canada or in the States would leave me without my computer for way too long if I belong to the almost-50%-group that needed to return it

Only 79 terics out in the wild, quite a large sample to decide on what to buy, probably should buy from a company that has a better reputation...

So after my post I did some research. Apparently, Shearwater really underestimated the potential sells numbers, by 1000's a month. The battery Manufacture could not keep up with the supply and started making inferiors batteries. As @stuartv stated, this has since been resolved.

Both of my returns where for batteries and this is completely out of Shearwater's hands. What is in Shearwaters hands, is how awesomely they take care of you. There was no drama, no accusations, no replacement with inferior devices, no cost out of my pocket. They sent me a label, I mailed on Monday, it was back in my hands the following Monday. Been on my desk in power off mode for a week, and I just turned it on to verify charged and it was still at 99%.

Why did I buy the Teric in the first place. All my other DC's have had some type of Catastrophic failure on a dive day, either on boat or under water. The Teric never FAILED me in 2 years, yes battery ran down too fast.. but that still took days and never hurt my diving.

I do still stand by, Shearwater, and do still believe the have the best DCs and Customer Service in the business. Try dealing with Mares, Aqualung or Huish..... Shearwater is a breath of fresh air.

Why is Garmin already rushing to get the 2nd version of their DC out. I truly believe its because the Teric crushed them. I also believe, any Wrist dive computer without AI over $400, is dumb. GPS is cute, AI far superior.

 

[MikadoWu]

And as I finished my last posted, I browsed over to Shearwaters page and noticed V18 firmware is out. Hmmmmm

For the record, Shearwater updates all their DCS Firmware's annually at worst. They constantly are making their products better experiences. My OCI has not been update in like 5 years, yet there are still being sold.

 

[scubadada]

And as I finished my last posted, I browsed over to Shearwaters page and noticed V18 firmware is out. Hmmmmm

For the record, Shearwater updates all their DCS Firmware's annually at worst. They constantly are making their products better experiences. My OCI has not been update in like 5 years, yet there are still being sold.

Ha, my Oceanic VT3 has never even been on the Oceanic website for firmware updates, perhaps cannot even upgrade. I've had it for 10 years and it works flawlessly. Of course, a much simpler product, but guess it was released in finished condition.

It is interesting. Back in the day, you released a product that worked well, or you suffered the consequences. Now, you release a product with multiple defects and you simply correct them with firmware updates. Believe me, I know that my scenario is overly simplistic.

 

[MikadoWu]

Ha, my Oceanic VT3 has never even been on the Oceanic website for firmware updates, perhaps cannot even upgrade. I've had it for 10 years and it works flawlessly. Of course, a much simpler product, but guess it was released in finished condition.

It is interesting. Back in the day, you released a product that worked well, or you suffered the consequences. Now, you release a product with multiple defects and you simply correct them with firmware updates. Believe me, I know that my scenario is overly simplistic.

I think you missed my point and we are comparing a Pinto (your VT3) a Focus (my OCi) and a Ferrari (Teric). The OCi was released around 2013, the Aqualung i450 around 2015-20-16, and the new i470 a few month ago. The OCi and i450 are the same computer, probably less then 5% deference, including the watch itself. From I have seen, other then Bluetooth, there is very little new in the i470 other then Bluetooth support. They are basic Dive computers, with AI, and for the OCi/i450 a better interface then your VT3. These do the job.

Computers like the Teric and even the Atomic Cobalt among others, have loads of potential ability in them. Unlike Atomic, Shearwater blesses us by adding NEW features and updating the computer. Are there some bugs, occasionally, but Shearwater fixes them, unlike others. Remember, the Teric can basically out live your dive career. OW, Check. AOW Check.. Technical Check, Tri-mix Check, Rebreathers.. Check that too. 1 computer, buy when you are young and have the Grandkids put it in your grave with you.

BTW, I grew up in silicon valley, never have they made devices with perfect software, this includes software used in the Military and on Military Weapons. It seems the older stuff was better, but back then it was 1000 lines of codes, today you are in the millions.

 

[dmaziuk]

It is interesting. Back in the day, you released a product that worked well, or you suffered the consequences. Now, you release a product with multiple defects and you simply correct them with firmware updates. Believe me, I know that my scenario is overly simplistic.

Part of the answer is that dedicated vs. general-purpose computing has always been a pendulum. Back in the day you couldn't run a general-purpose CPU in a watch, off a watch battery, etc. You had to map (parts of) your algorithm into transistor-transistor logic and bake it into the chips. You can't "firmware upgrade" that.

Now cellphones and smartwatches and Li-Ion batteries made general-purpose computer in a watch doable and dive computers are beginning to catch up. Just as the grown-ups are moving back to dedicated ASICs, thanks to bitcoin bubble, and "AI daughterboards" thanks to machine learning, and whatever's the next "it" bubble's gonna be.

At the end of the day, if you have a device that does one thing only, and that thing doesn't change every day, a custom-designed dedicated circuit for it will always run circles around a GPCPU for a fraction of the cost. But you need the sales volume to pay off the initial R&D.

 

[scubadada]

There is now a companion thread Specific reasons(s) for sending in your Teric for repair(s) and/or replacement asking for the specific reason(s) your Teric was returned for repair(s) and or replacement.

It you have voted in this pool that you have had repair and/or replacement, please vote in the new poll.