You have GOT TO BE KIDDING!- New Aqualung BC

[cerich]

Mares Issues Response to Introduction of i3 BCD from the Aqua Lung Group



MARES Officals note “Imitation is the best form of flattery”. Ground breaking AIRTRIM system is joined by the Aqua Lung Group's i3, 6 years after the AIRTRIM's introduction in the USA.



Patented in Italy in 1997 and in the USA in 2001, MARES AIRTRIM system has long been considered to be the most intuitive and accurate system for buoyancy control on the market. Thousands of Divers around the world have been using Mares integrated buoyancy control system called ‘AIRTRIM” and have found it to be the most intuitive, accurate and reliable system on the market because “it is always where you expect it to be”.


6 years after MARES, the world's leading scuba diving brand, introduced the MARES AIRTRIM technology which a number of Scuba diving companies have already tried to copy with mechanical and/or hydraulic solutions, the Aqua Lung group has now picked up this innovative idea and is currently introducing the i3 BCD. MARES welcomes this initiative as it reinforces the innovation that Mares has brought to the market many years ago. However MARES feels obliged to comment and correct a number of misleading statements made in the Aqua Lung press releases in order to properly inform the dive community:


- The MARES AIRTRIM technology in use over 8 years of by thousands of satisfied divers has proven to be to be a unique, reliable and safe technology increasing comfort and fun in diving.


- MARES is using a unique pneumatically controlled and patented technology, forcing competitors who want to copy our design to use a system with mechanical wires or hydraulics.


- In particular mechanical systems controlled by simple strings assembled across the BCD and with a number of mechanical parts to push and pull them are by nature more exposed to potential defects than pneumatic systems are.


- Unlike the MARES AIRTRIM technology, other competitors have previously tried to use mechanical and hydraulic solutions but struggled with a number of technical problems and therefore never reached the acceptance and market penetration that the MARES AIRTRIM technology did.


- MARES is the only Scuba diving company to a complete line of AIRTRIM jackets, such as the Dragon AT, the VECTOR 1000 AT and the newly introduced and attractively priced ORIGIN SPORT AT (Coming June 2007). This allows the consumer to select the jacket of their choice combined with the most advanced buoyancy control system in the industry.


Join the innovation leader with time tested performance and reliability: MARES AIRTRIM, the original.


HEAD USA is part of the HEAD NV Group, which is based in the Netherlands and listed on the New York and Vienna Stock exchanges. The HEAD NV Group is a worldwide sporting goods company that manufactures and markets products under the HEAD brand (racquet and winter sports), Penn (world’s #1 tennis ball and racquet ball brand), and Tyrolia (wintersports bindings), in addition to the three diving brands (Mares, Dacor and Sporasub). HEAD NV’s Chairman is Johan Eliasch

 

[divad]

This is getting good. Where's Agua Lung?

 

[fire_diver]

Read most of the thread...more extremes than middle...is innovation that scary, well yes. Fear is the lack of knowledge. Innovation is a leap of knowledge by those willing to try, not by those OK with present and past.

The one post comparing film versus digital cameras is quite right, and current. History has many of these transformations. Also has some failures.

What's really interesting to me though is if it wasn't for a couple of guys who invented, innovated, leaped forward with knowledge, none of us would be enjoying the very thing we love...please be kind to the hand that feeds you, may not be great food, but nourishment it is!

Hoa!

First, Welcome to scuba board. This is great place to share info, learn new things, and debate topics both important and meaningless.

Comparing scuba to photography huh? Was there a chance that amature photographers would kill themselves with a digital camera because they used it wrong? Don't think so. Is there a chance someone who doesn't know better, following the "advertisement" and getting bent or worse becuase of this product? Yes.

And just for clarification, this isn't innovation. It's not even a new idea. But the packaging, and intended use may be deadly.

Comrade Stroke - FD

 

[fire_diver]

This is getting good. Where's Agua Lung?

Niether Aqua Lung, nor thier French parent Aire Liquide will comment to us. They are about money. They don't give a rat's booty about us who use thier products. They don't even care about thier dealers.

Comrade Stroke - FD

 

[H2Andy]

Comrade Stroke - FD

Comrade Stroke!

When promotion happen!?

Happiness and Luck!

 

[fire_diver]

Comrade Stroke!

When promotion happen!?

Happiness and Luck!

Happiness and Luck to you Comrade!
Promotion after much joyful dive with our Dear Leader! Our Dear Leader impressed much very by kicking of bicylce swimming.

Comrade Stroke - FD

 

[MikeFerrara]

If the mares air trim is the only pneumatic oporated one, then it must be one of those that I did have some experience with.

A few years ago a board member had recently gotten back into diving and had done an AOW class but still didn't feel well prepared for his upcomming trip. My wife an I met him at Gilboa to spend the weekend diving with him. Afterwards he posted here on the board about it so it's here someplace.

Anyway he had this contraption with the inflator plastered low on the left (as I recall) with buttons and it was pneumatically oporated. It also had a plastic backpack that only allowed the tank to get mounted in one spot...too low for reaching the valve and too low to help with trim. We had a hell of a time getting him balanced in that thing.

The delay and lack of feel in the inflator actuation just made things harder on him as well. Specifically, the trouble was getting short bursts out of thing. I won't say that one couldn't get used to it if they used it for a while but it was a complication that he just didn't need.

As I recall, by the end of the weekend his trim was better, he was almost able to use his feet to move himself around and he had gotten his descents and ascents somewhat under control but the equipment his shop had sold him was nothing but one obstical after another.

 

[DiveTub]

What a load of rubbish. More material and sewing in that thing than you can poke a stick at.

Thank God for BP&W's and Scuba Board, so people can actually read how crap a product this is before they spend money and regret it. "keep it simple stupid"

Cheers
Chriso

 

[ClayJar]

I love the way everything is both positive and negative. The pneumatic system works so much better than pushrod technology! But wait, pushrod technology works without air and has better "feel", so it's so much better than pneumatics!

(Might I add one thing? "Thousands of Divers around the world... have found [AIRTRIM] to be the most... reliable system on the market because 'it is always where you expect it to be'." Being "where you expect it to be" is a good measure of reliability for, I don't know, maybe an *anchor*, but it seems to me that perhaps their might be something more *relevant* when measuring reliability for an inflation/deflation system.)

 

[MikeFerrara]

I love the way everything is both positive and negative. The pneumatic system works so much better than pushrod technology! But wait, pushrod technology works without air and has better "feel", so it's so much better than pneumatics!

(Might I add one thing? "Thousands of Divers around the world... have found [AIRTRIM] to be the most... reliable system on the market because 'it is always where you expect it to be'." Being "where you expect it to be" is a good measure of reliability for, I don't know, maybe an *anchor*, but it seems to me that perhaps their might be something more *relevant* when measuring reliability for an inflation/deflation system.)

Being where you expect it to be is important. Most bc's have inflator hoses that are WAY too long. They are often only fastened way up high on the shoulder and they can hang and dangle all over the place and there's no telling where it will be at any given time.

I use a shorter inflator hose and have it bungied to my shoulder strap. Diving with my arms out in front of me or folded under my chest, all I have to do is bend my left arm and my inflator is in my hand...always. If I have to, or just want to, orally inflate it's right there and not rolled up in some stupid pocket someplace.

I use a harness so I have a shoulder strap to strap the inflator to. Some bc's just don't have a place to put it. Of course they tend to give you more d-rings than anyone would ever need but they put them all in the wrong place so you still don't have any that are useful.

The suposed improvements that these contraptions claim to offer can be had by using a hose of a better lenght and providing a fastening point in the right place.

I think the people designing this crap need to take a couple of good diving courses because they just don't seem to have any idea.

There are a couple of converstaions that I've had with bc manufacturers that really stick out in my mind. One was when I tried to tell the genesis folks about integrated weight pouches where the opening points down when a diver is horizontal and is closed with velcro. It was popular on lots of bc's for a long time and I can even count the number of weight pouches that I've found on the bottom and the number of divers that I've caught after their weight pouch fell out. I even had it happen once. They told me I was nuts and the problem didn't exist. A while later the sales rep came in sporting their new bc with plastic latches and telling me how bad velcro was. LOL

Another time a marketing company who was doing some work for zeagle asked me what changes they could make to the ranger or tech to improve it. Two things immediately came to mind. One was that thereisnt any good place to mount a can light. ok, not every one used them but they try to sell these things as "tech" bc's and technical divers sure use them. The other was the poor d-ring placement and in the case of the lower d-rings, not only are they not in the best place but they they are attatched is lousy...they're just lose and floppy and swing in the wrong direction for easily clipping off a bottle. Shortly after that Zeagle came out with that aniversery or classic model (or whatever they called it) and they did things like add more d-rings which were all in useless places and didn't adress anything useful. That about the time that I realized the thing was designed to be a "tech" wannabe bc and not a bc that technical divers could use.

Most of this stuff seems designed just as gimicks to appeal to the impulse spending habits of folks who aren't real knowldgeable or very skilled divirs. They're just fancy, nearly useless, toys.