I'm newly certified and am looking to start buying my own gear. The are so many manufacturers I don't know where to begin. Is there a manufacturer or two that would be considered the Apple of the scuba world? I.e makes amazing products, easy to use, solid, reliable, they really think through how the user will interact with the product, stands by their products and continually innovates?
My limited experience with five or six companies so far makes me think the people who work at the companies never use their own products, and just crank out stuff with no thought about the design or purpose.
Like DevonDiver and several others reponded, I would suggest Halcyon as the most "Apple-like" in the dive industry.
Back in the late 90's, George Irvine, Jarrod Jablonski, and several other WKPP members were calling up each of the major BC manufacturers ( including Scubapro and Diverite of course) and asking for a backplate and wing system, along DIR guidelines...and this would have had over 100 orders for it immediately...so you would think it would have been something the big bc guys would have considered....but at the time, they felt the dive industry was not moving in that direction, and they had no interest in going with the "function-based requests" of the WKPP people.
Robert Carmichael, owner of Brownies 3rd Lung ( and a WKPP team member), had his own little R&D department at his Brownies Factory in Fort Lauderdale. Robert had always been a "tinkerer", and he really believed the spec on a bp/wing system the WKPP was asking for, was something that had to be followed....so, Robert took the WKPP spec and had his team at Brownies "create" the system being asked for. The WKPP loved the function of Carmichael's bp/wing, and how modular it was for all of the diving a WKPP member would be involved in. After the rapid demand for more units for team members quickly morphed into demand by friends of team members, Carmichael created the Halcyon brand name, and went on to keep improving the system with WKPP team feedback.
Function was everthing. The one color ( black) was in stark contrast to the dive industry big boys who were busy "busting out" their radical new bright colors and bigger pockets and basic "Supersize me" approach to "pretending" they were selling so much more than last year's model.
At the time, ONLY Halcyon was trying to meet the required functions of DIR, or really, of technical diving in general. If you saw { today--like in a "museum of stupid"} some of the huge floppy vest, double tank system BC's, the dangerous solutions they created to fix issues created by the BC itself....the massive convoluted logic that led to their "functions", it really would have to make you either laugh or cry.
This was the world back in the late 90's, and Halcyon alone set about changing this.
We put the word out about the new Halcyon system back then, on the cavers list and tech diver lists, as well as rec.scuba....insane flame wars would follow, the likes of which scubaboard regulars may not even be able to imagine
But at the first DEMA show Halcyon showed up for..their first year.....this was a treat.
With a microscopic budget, we ( I was Marketing Director of Halcyon back then) were about to go "toe-to-toe" with the big BC mfg's, who were basically still spitting on our ideas of function in a tech rig that was also perfect for recreational diving with a single tank. We had a very small area...and several hundred yards away you could see a Car Dealership sized little city with Scubapro signs all over it, the same for Mares, Dive Rite abit smaller but still way bigger than us, and in general, there was a huge staff at each of these mfg areas, expecting to be flooded with interest in their new gear...They had massive ad campaigns, the best brochures, and pretty female models to look hot in their stuff.
We were dressed in black, to go with the Halcyon gear, and we were expecting "some attention" each day, but we were not prepared for what happened.
Within minutes after the start, we had the largest line to look at gear of any of the BC mfg's. It got bigger and bigger as the day progressed, and we were running out of our newly printed brochures, and we were soon having to make xerox copies to give out, and this was hard to keep up with.
The DEMA show was big for Halcyon, and it was a scary wakeup call to a few of the big BC companies. They suddenly realized that there WAS a large group of divers ouyt there, even in the recreational diving realm, that were looking for more than new colors and more attachment straps.
It would take them years to do anything about this....but today, there are several OTHER good choices in a bp/wing system.
But as far as
who the game changer was, this really was Halcyon. They really should be your "Apple", for the purposes of this thread...and people should know that Halcyon really did do things none of the other mfg's were willing or able to think about.
Regards,
DanV