I visited Dubrovnik, Croatia about 20 years ago. When I got into the taxi, the driver was very excited to tell me about how locals would throw dynamite into the water to blow up the fish, though I never verified the truth of that. It made me pause because I wanted to go diving there.
I ended up going diving, and it was quite an experience (https://web.archive.org/web/20020505185554/http://www.bytrav...). The owner of the dive company didn't seem to know about decompression stops, generally. We went to about 30 meters for a short moment, saw a few hollowed out German WWII mines at the bottom, then ascended into a cave at sea level, nary a decompression stop on the way.
Climbing up and down the rocky stairs of Dubrovnik later that day I had the worst headache. I had a flight the next day and wondered if it was a good idea to go up to 30,000 feet. I'm still alive, so it must have been the right decision.
I'm saddened to think people using dive computers will never get to experience the richness of my dive experiences because the algorithm will tell them not to go into that cave with Anton from Dubrovnik.
Can confirm - I did that as a child (with my uncles) in another soviet country. That, and electrofishing by tasing those poor Nemos. To this day I don’t know why we used those methods, but it was mad fun. Maybe literally.
Did you stuff the dynamite into the fish? That is what Borin told me these guys did. Then, you throw the fish into the water? At that point, their fishy friends come up and say "Jeez Svetlana, you looked bloated!" And, then BOOM, the fish all fly out of the water given the large blast zone.
It was really funny to be driving in the dark from the Dubrovnik airport and hearing this cab driver in very limited English describe what he was seeing.
As a non-diver, why would someone with a dive computer not be able to go to the cave with Anton? Wouldn't they just have to make a decompression stop on the way (which is the healthy/safe thing to do anyways)?
I just meant that a dive computer would not recommend I do the things Anton had me do, which was descend to deep water (30 meters) and stay for a significant period of time (five minutes) and then ascend quickly. We wouldn't have been able to see all the caves and stalactites he wanted to show me if a nanny-state dive computer had been there, because that route would not have been safe.
I'm getting downvoted presumably because of my nanny-state joke. Fine, I still think it is funny to assert that a dive computer is actively participating in the nanny state. I'll never back down from that joke.
> Apple is behind the first general purpose programmable dive computer
Unless Apple got into it before Heinrichs Weikamp and the OSTC [1]
This is an Open Source dive computer, that is extremely well regarded in the technical diving world. The firmware is open source and there is a "big" community, considering the niche market.
Unless apple came up with a new decompression algorithm that will model how tissues load and offgas, all you need are tables, a bottom timer a depth gauge and to follow your plan (with contingency for depth and time).
Blindly following a computer will get you in trouble if it fails during the dive.
1) IMHO huge deal with the dive computers is the screen type, all lower-end dive computers have same old LCD displays which have the drawback of being invisible if it's dark (wreck, cave, night, or just poor visibility water diving). Most of them have some sort of backlight, but you have to trigger that with a button, which can be dangerous. Seems like computers with OLED screen, which are always visible, start closer to the price tag of Apple Watch
2) I think the author is overselling the "you don't need that much information" point - comparison of Scubapro in dive mode vs Apple Watch in safety stop mode is apples to oranges. During a (recreational, no deco) dive you need exactly these 4 pieces of information that are displayed on the Scubapro: time, depth, no-deco time, and tank pressure (and if the last one is missing it's not because it's not important, it's because you don't have remote pressure gauge which is a separate piece of hardware, and instead you need to frequently reach for a separate pressure gauge that's physically attached to the tank). To be fair I'm sure Apple Watch will display the NDL time in a dive mode, as long as you paid your subscription, so this is critique of the article not the watch
3) Heinrichs Weikamp was already identified in comments of the article, one more company that worked on an open-source dive computer was Liquivision (which I worked for for some time in college). It was eventually bought by Huish, just like Oceanic :)
I'm a diver, not technical but I've done deep and nitrox.
The cost of the subscription seems insane. If you plan to do more than 20 dives in your lifetime, buying a dive computer seems way more convenient than this.
The free plan is completely useless for scuba diving.
I take at most 3 trips a year max to dive, usually dive ~5 days per trip, and 2 dives per day. I have maybe 150-200 dives total. If each trip is in a different month, it will cost me $30 a year at the maximum. For $300, I can use this app for 10 years worth of diving and roughly 300 more dives.
Compare the total package to a Garmin or Suunto sport watch that also does diving and all the other smartwatch things. Those units cost $900-$1500; the Apple Watch with 10 years of casual scuba is $1100. I’ll happily wear the Apple Watch every day, versus a stand-alone computer or a Suunto that I’d only wear for specific activities. My cost per day is like 30¢. Doesn’t seem so bad.
Well you can get a solid gold scuba computer for 5 million $
However if we are doing meaningful comparisons, you can get a suunto for ~300€, and you will probably have to change the battery one or two times in 10 years.
Why would you pay for a subscription in months you're not going diving? You don't need to sign up for the yearly subscription if you only do it a few times a year. Just pay for those days or months.
In a conversation based in good faith and not tired nitpicking most people would understand that it being simple to cancel a subscription when you're not using some thing and then easy to restart when you want to use it again would be a positive…
I don't know about you but checking apps that are a requirement for travel/important events is something I already do. If I am traveling somewhere for a convention you better believe I made sure that my airline's app, hotel's app, whatever ticketing app the event organizer is using were all updated, logged in to, and tested before leaving the house.
Any 1 of these having problems could be anywhere from annoying to catastrophic. Why take the chance?
Wow checking all of those apps before travelling seems so much inconvenient compared to owning a 200€ dive computer that lives in the bag with all the dive stuff and one can grab on the way out.
I personally loathe apps. I travel regularly and have no hotel app, no airline app, no ticketing app.
But here in sweden they are moving train tickets online, so in major stations there is ONE ticket machine and in minor station there is none.
You don't check your dive computer before going on a dive? I mean I get that is a much simpler device and more reliable, but I'm not sure that I would make the trade-off of not pulling it out and powering it on instead of possibly getting to wherever I'm diving and finding that it's dead or nonfunctional and being out of luck.
Apple's value proposition is "it's easy and convenient to see what subscriptions you are currently paying for, and to unsubscribe from them in a few clicks—without having to find a form or send an email or call a phone number"
That’s about the rent/buy ratio for anything - it usually costs about X days of rental of electronics to buy it outright, where X is between 10 and 40 or so.
Like always, Apple isn’t innovating but pretending to be.
Garmin released the Descent Mk i 5 years ago : a smartwatch which also does diving. Really great watch (I’m a freediver myself and it does what I want it and, most importantly, does not have a touch screen, something I hate and can’t imagine using under water while holding my breath).
How is Apple different? Marketing, as always. But nothing new under the sun.
As soon as it goes below a certain depth, the watch is locked to use the "official garmin diving app". This is explained to prevent entering in any other app in the middle of a dive.
I feel that the apple watch will be doing something similar (if only to lock the touchscreen under the water).
I played around a bit with SwiftUI and the dive monitoring APIs in the hopes of writing an open source dive computer for the Apple Watch. I spent all my evening hacking hours on my last trip learning UI layout and not much time figuring out decompression algorithms. I might pick up the project the next time I go diving.
> Apple is not a dive computer company. They sell computers. Other dive computer brands also sell computers, but these are not general purpose.
Apple is not a [phone|watch|camera] company. They sell computers.
That's what people said at every single new product that's not in their classic computer product line. Turns out you can get pretty good at products outside your initial niche, and for most people it will be more than good enough.
If you ask most regular people to classify Apple they would probably say "phone company", and by revenue share they would be correct. There's a reason they renamed themselves from "Apple Computers Inc." to just Apple.
The outcome would mean you would want the best designers in the world working on the problem. The use error in both conditions of answering a phone and diving are the same: the human factor. Only the importance of the outcome of the human-machine interaction error differs.
What brand do we trust the most to do the design job right regardless of context? Well, the brand a lot of people trust has the hardware and ecosystem. Do we trust the app developer, however?
> A "you're holding it wrong" flaw could result in death rather than missed calls
How many people were affected by this, and is this comparable to the failure rate of the dive computer you implicitly trust?
Quick Googling:
--- start quote ---
From our internal information and industry connections, the failure rates we have seen over the expected service lifetime of a computer vary from 0.5% to 50%, based on the brand and model. And don't think that any particular brand makes you safe. For example, while Suunto is generally a reliable brand, the early D3 was a disaster in terms of failure rates. The Stinger on the other hand was very reliable.
--- end quote ---
50% failure rate. For an activity that can kill you. Imagine if these companies were under the same scrutiny as Apple.
Or for example [2]
--- start quote ---
I bought the computer in February 2018
March 2019, the straps + mount started rotting away
April 2019 - software error E6
Enter the Bluetooth connection issues...
November 2021 - E37 error!
July 2022 - button loose (?!), computer floods, game over...
--- end quote ---
Or a settlement [3] "Suunto settles scary scuba screwup for $50m: 'Faulty' dive computer hardware and software put explorers in peril"
> How many people were affected by this, and is this comparable to the failure rate of the dive computer you implicitly trust?
No idea. All the owners of that model of iphone. I have no clue how many units were sold. How is that important?
Failure rate talk is a 14yrs old post from a manufacturer that used to make dive computers but has stopped. Let's ignore that until a better source is given.
2nd link: some contaminant is destroying the computer… I'm sure apple™plastic™ is no more resistant than regular plastic.
The bluetooth is not a life threatening issue. The software issues are indeed worrying.
In any event, those are companies that have sold millions of units. Diving with the apple watch is so costly (hardware + subscription) that few rich hobbyists will do that, and no professional diver.
I'm sure failures and issues will come out, but not in the same numbers, because the heavy users can buy 2 dive computers to have redundancy and still spend less than how much it costs doing it with apple.
> No idea. All the owners of that model of iphone. I have no clue how many units were sold. How is that important?
So, you have no idea how many were affected, but "all users". How is that important? If it was 1% of 1% of users affected, then it's probably better than most diving equipment. If it's 99%, then it's bad.
> Let's ignore that until a better source is given.
And yet, when we talk about Apple it's "I don't know, all of them". Hm...
> In any event, those are companies that have sold millions of units.
So has Apple. Your point?
> that few rich hobbyists will do that, and no professional diver.
How is that relevant to your implicit trust in diving computers and explicit mistrust in Apple because of something that happened 12 years ago to an unknown percentage of users for a phone that in first three days sold more than probably all dive computers are being sold in a year.
> I'm sure failures and issues will come out, but not in the same numbers,
I wonder if you realise that individual models from various dive computer makers are probably selling in the same numbers as what's expected from Apple Watch Ultra.
> So, you have no idea how many were affected, but "all users". How is that important? If it was 1% of 1% of users affected, then it's probably better than most diving equipment. If it's 99%, then it's bad.
I like how you like to make up random numbers with no data to sound very scientific :)
> And yet, when we talk about Apple it's "I don't know, all of them". Hm...
That's because I don't provide random forum posts of something happening to 1 person as "this happens to every user".
> So has Apple. Your point?
Apple has sold millions of scuba diving apple watches to active scuba divers??? Do you have a source on this unbelievable fact you just made up?
> How is that relevant
The thing is that I base my opinions on data, and at the moment there is no existing data.
You on the other hand just type numbers to justify your opinions, and call that "data".
So it is relevant because apple watch will never see intensive scuba diving use, and will thus experience fewer total failures, because of not being used as much.
Like, a car driving constantly breaks way more often than a car that is just being displayed. Doesn't necessarily mean that the display car is better because it doesn't fail.
> I wonder if you realise that individual models from various dive computer makers are probably selling in the same numbers as what's expected from Apple Watch Ultra.
I wonder if you realise instead of buying 1 apple watch you can buy 2 diving computers, have excellent redundancy and save 500$.
> I like how you like to make up random numbers with no data to sound very scientific :)
Says the person whose answer is "I don't know".
I told you why knowing the percentage of people affected is important. You just dismiss it.
> Apple has sold millions of scuba diving apple watches to active scuba divers???
No. Apple has sold millions of devices. Which is important when discussing failure rates.
> The thing is that I base my opinions on data, and at the moment there is no existing data.
No. You base your opinion on "I don't know, all of them, only rich people will use Ultra so issues will not in the same numbers". That's no data. That's pure speculation.
You don't even have failure stats for dive computers, do you? Even given that each particular model of a dive computer is used by potentially as many people as those "only rich people who will use watch ultra".
But sure, "dive computers are used in an activity that can kill you", and the internet is littered with "What happens if your dive computer fails" articles. Dive computer manufacturers explicitly call this put in their manuals [1] And there are literally no standards for verification of dive computers, manufacturers routinely lie about their certifications or skip them [2]
And yet. "I wouldn't trust Apple unlike these manufacturers that have sold millions of devices because data!"
> I told you why knowing the percentage of people affected is important.
It's important… But I have no way of obtaining this information.
> No. Apple has sold millions of devices. Which is important when discussing failure rates.
:D
We are talking about scuba diving specifically. I'm sure apple watches tell the time absolutely fine. What we are discussing here is their reliability under water while tracking the dives.
Can you stop pretending being daft for a minute and admit there are comparatively very very few units that are used for this purpose?
> You base your opinion on "I don't know, all of them, only rich people will use Ultra so issues will not in the same numbers". That's no data. That's pure speculation.
I base my opinion on being a diver and having held in my hands dive computers and watches.
And an apple watch isn't so good in a dive. It's tiny, you won't even see the numbers if your mask is a bit foggy or the water isn't so clear.
It's also harder to use.
Do you know how a dive computer works? You put it on and jump in the water. When it touches water it turns on. You don't need to open the correct app and whatnot.
> And yet. "I wouldn't trust Apple unlike these manufacturers that have sold millions of devices because data!"
I wouldn't trust apple because my macbook fell apart, and so I understand that a flimsy watch won't be as sturdy as a sturdy dive computer.
Anyway, please come back to me after trying scuba diving at least once.
> I'm sure apple™plastic™ is no more resistant than regular plastic.
I would not know about the specific area of dive computers, but in general, Apple can and does conduct materials research and procurement on an entirely different scale from many other companies, so they often ARE capable of using superior materials.
It's more of a gadget fashion/lifestyle brand now. Wearables are a good fit for their target audience. Desktops, servers, or anything that's not on public display, not so much.
I had assumed that the "diving" feature of the Apple Watch Ultra was mostly aspirational. Is there any research on what percentage of Omega Seamaster owners have ever used them on a dive?
The libre/open app issue has been brought up by Apple nay-sayers for time immemorial; Steve Job's response is brilliant here, frankly quite timeless and ultimately (in my view) apropos.
"You've gotta start from the customer experience and work backwards to the technology."
I ended up going diving, and it was quite an experience (https://web.archive.org/web/20020505185554/http://www.bytrav...). The owner of the dive company didn't seem to know about decompression stops, generally. We went to about 30 meters for a short moment, saw a few hollowed out German WWII mines at the bottom, then ascended into a cave at sea level, nary a decompression stop on the way.
Climbing up and down the rocky stairs of Dubrovnik later that day I had the worst headache. I had a flight the next day and wondered if it was a good idea to go up to 30,000 feet. I'm still alive, so it must have been the right decision.
I'm saddened to think people using dive computers will never get to experience the richness of my dive experiences because the algorithm will tell them not to go into that cave with Anton from Dubrovnik.