Haptics you can feel through a 7mm wetsuit? I'm impressed by that, although I'd not want them turned up that high on my bare wrist!<p>This seems like a winner for vacation diving. For those divers that manage a couple dives a year on the family trip to the Caribbean, you have a device you know extremely well from daily life and that you know you keep charged, rather than a standalone computer you kinda forgot to get serviced or, worse, have to rent. Big, clear ascent rate warnings in color. It looks more accessible than some inscrutable Suunto, especially with a companion phone app.<p>If I had an apple watch I'd wear this it on my other wrist to my Perdix just to get GPS integration and all the health monitoring too - interesting to correlate heart rate with events in the dive, gas consumption and so on.
I think this looks amazing for warm-water vacation divers - typically they are stuck with rental equipment, which usually means a cheap, dated computer on a bulky console. Having a well-designed UI will definitely improve these divers safety - the last boat dive I went on, an experienced diver blew past no-deco limits because he didn't understand his unfamiliar rental computer.<p>That being said, I can't personally imagine taking the Apple Watch Ultra to, say, 80-90 feet if it's only rated to 130. It's just too expensive.
> For access to decompression tracking, tissue loading, the location planner, and an unlimited logbook capacity, Oceanic+ is $9.99 (US) per month, or annually for $79.99 (US). Family Sharing is also available for $129 (US) annually, allowing access for up to five people.
Any HN scuba divers here that would use this as their only dive computer on a dive? I'm not a scuba diver myself but do engage in other adventure sports where reliable equipment can make the difference between a great trip and disaster. I'd be very reluctant to trust my life or health to this.
This reminds me of Linus Torvalds Subsurface project: <a href="https://subsurface-divelog.org/" rel="nofollow">https://subsurface-divelog.org/</a><p>Unfortunately I don't have enough domain knowledge to do a comparison.
I have more than 500 dives under my weight belt, and I have a (regular) Apple watch, but I'm skeptical.<p>First, there's no mention of Nitrox anywhere (except in a screenshot). Most of the serious folks use this mix (basically, air enriched with some more oxygen) for their dives, it's unclear if — or to what extent — this supports Nitrox.<p>Second, there's no mention of the decompression algorithm they use. Buhlmann, Suunto RGBM, VPM are examples of algorithms where the assumptions about human physiology are backed by hundreds of thousands of dives, but what is driving this specific piece is kind of a mystery. As this device comes under "life support equipment" category, I would love to see more information about that.<p>Third, battery life is a concern here, while it almost never is with dedicated dive computers. My main device requires a trip to Switzerland every 10-15 years, and my backup device is serviced locally every 3 years or so; having a "two full days battery life" somewhat pales in comparison.<p>Finally, $10 a month is pretty expensive, especially when it comes on top of $700 down payment. Unclear what happens when you stop paying. I don't doubt that there are people who don't worry about that kind of money: the watch blogs are full with people discussing diving with their Rolexes and Omegas, but I have never seen anyone doing that in real world. 90% of the people use dive computers (owned or rented), and 90% of the rest use basic G-Shocks; you are lucky to see anyone with a mechanical timepiece (which almost always happens to be made by Seiko).
So is there nothing showing tank air? Most of the newer dive computers have tank companions (dongles if you will) that connect wirelessly to display tank air levels. That feature is non-negotiable to me in a dive computer now.
This is great for the scuba community as it will cause other brands to innovate and most importantly bring diving to a wider audience which will help the sport as a whole which will hopefully raise awareness about endangered underwater ecosystems in the long-run.
I haven't dived (dove?) in 10 years. Last gen dive computers are excellent, but super expensive. Before that, I just use a casio watch and gauges. That being said, unless regulations or recommendations have changed, you still need an analog backup gauges that usually have 3 (compass, depth and tank pressure) + extra regulator. So even if the watch decided to die, you are still safe.<p>I just looked at the screen shots in the article, nothing that different than my old dive computer. If I go back to being a regular recreational diver, I probably would get that watch and app.
This might be a pivotal moment on subscription based hardware. Apple is selling their hardware as a software platform _to_ companies that already sell their hardware. Will this force other companies selling dive computers to adapt and also use publish an app for Apple's platform?<p>As a diver it's clear to me that the target audience are future divers. We might delude ourselves on the pros and cons of our current dive computer, models and so on. But I am sure someone entering the sport will consider this along the other options.<p>My personal opinion, a big majority of recreational (shallow) diving does not even require a dive computer and it all comes into LARPing territory. It's good to know your depth and the time you spent underwater, that's all. I have seen people wearing a +1k USD dive computer diving at most <20m. Of course it's none of my business how they decide to part with their money.<p>This much money will give you a very nice dive computer, albeit terribly complex and completely overkill for most of the rec. diving. If someone is willing to spend that much on a dive computer for rec diving, I guess an apple watch is money better spent? Let's just acknowledge that a Shearwater Perdix is a tough sell to someone that wants to spend this much but dives very very occasionally and shallow.<p>I am just sad about the subscription model and the implications this might have if/when it proves successful.
I don't think this will be a useful dive computer for most people. When I first heard the Apple Watch would work as a dive computer I was very excited, but having spent some time thinking about it, and having done 20 dives since the watch was announced, I have changed my mind.<p>The first problem is battery life. I didn't have to replace the battery on my computer for the 20 dives over a week I did recently. If I had gotten a low battery warning, I could have replaced the coin cell battery in five minutes. With the Apple Watch, I would be uncomfortable starting a dive with less than 80% battery, which means remembering to charge it before every dive. If I forget to charge it, then I cannot quickly replace the battery, and I cannot switch to a backup computer if I hadn't taken it with me on my previous dives as it wouldn't know my tissue loading. Forgetting to charge the watch before any dive would mean missing the dive.<p>The 40m limit is not a good idea. I imagine Apple's legal department are forcing this one, but it's a really bad idea. I went slightly below 40m a few times last week, I know that breaks "the rules", but I know the risks and they honestly aren't that bad if you don't push things too far. Having my computer lock out, refuse to give me NDL times, depth info or deco stop info if needed is not a good idea, especially when you really need it at those depths.<p>There is also no mention of nitrox, so I assume it's not supported. That would make this the only dive computer released in the last decade that doesn't support nitrox diving. Nobody who is interested in owning a dive computer will want a computer that doesn't support nitrox.<p>The one good thing I see about this is the haptics. It's really easy to get alert fatigue underwater from other dive computers beeping around you. Haptics would be far better.
I can with confidence say that I would not trust a dive computer that is rated to a maximum of 40 meters. It would be a bit like owning a car where the breaks were rated for a maximum of 110 km/h. Sure, most of the time you might stay under that limit, but for safety equipment you do want some margins.<p>If a person accidental loose buoyancy for a moment and end up at 41 meters, they could really end up in a terrible situation. The added stress, not being able to monitor ascent rate, and no information regarding NDL (the no decompression limit).<p>Humans can't survive on their own under water. Visiting there require equipment designed for that purpose. They don't need to be expensive but they do need to do the job. A 90% functional diving equipment can easily result in 100% dead diver.
Sometimes my brain works so weird. When I first saw "Oceanic+," I thought it must be another offering like "TV+" or "Fitness+." I then wondered what it might be and my first thought, I'm not joking, was that this was going to be an ocean nature documentary subscription service to compete with National Geographic on Disney+.<p>Dive computer? OK... that makes way more sense...
> Oceanic+ enables recreational scuba divers to take the watch they wear every day to previously unreachable depths — up to 40 meters, or 130 feet, to be exact<p>This is perfect, as the limit for nitrox diving (ie the most frequently used mixture of gas for recreational dives) is a little over 130 ft.
That is cool. I assume that it has been tested and certified. Dive computers are critical safety gear. You <i>really</i> don't want them crashing on you.
This is still crazy to me that most (all?) smartwatch cannot get past ~50m WR when I can buy a basic casio for a fraction of the cost with 100m to 200m WR.
But then I guess using a tactile screen underwater is pretty hard. I really don't see the Apple Watch being use has anything but a gadget for diving.<p>edit: so the apple watch ultra has a WR of 100m. I stand corrected.
@dang<p>The title should be renamed "Available today, the Oceanic+ app on Apple Watch Ultra"<p>Because the current title of "<i>Apple</i> Introduces Oceanic+" implies this is a 1st party app from Apple, which it is not.
Yet you will still void the warranty if you dive with it:<p>Apple Watch Ultra has a water resistance rating of 100 meters under ISO standard 22810.<p>Apple Watch Ultra may be used for recreational scuba diving (with a compatible third-party app from the App Store) to 40 meters, and for high-speed water sports.<p>Apple Watch Ultra should not be used for diving below 40 meters. Water resistance is not a permanent condition and can diminish over time. For additional information, see support.apple.com/en-us/HT205000.
I truly wonder. Why is Apple doing that? If I'm not mistaken, it is a small niche in terms of revenue.<p>My hypothesis is that this is perhaps a new approach for marketing: find hobbies that correlate the most with the populations with the biggest potential revenue, taking into account the networking and demographic effects within such a population.<p>Just throwing this off the top of my head. Bear with me :-).