Buddies with air-integrated computers!

[Turtle Dude]

Arrrrrrghhhhhh. Sorry have to let lose my frustration.

I dived with a novice this weekend, who had been out and bought an air-integrated computer (on advice from a shop).

It is so frustrating, as when diving I could show him my simple analgue gauge with how much air in, but in me looking at his air (more import) I had to stop, physically hold it and work out what the f*ck it was saying! So many big LCD numbers to confuse and not allow you to quickly asses the situation, even after he had run through it with the buddy check.

Not been able to just glance and see their positon on air is so fustrating and potentially dangerous.

May be it is just me being simple and an old fogie

[nigelH]

Originally Posted by Turtle Dude

May be it is just me being simple and an old fogie

I go with that.

None of my gauges ever hung where you could see them. I was taught that danglies were wrong from day one.

The nicest configuration was clipping them to a chest D-ring then twisting them to face up so I could just glance down and read them hands off. I suppose if you swam up behind me and peered over my shoulder...

[h20mrv]

Hi bud,

I have always dived with Air integration, 1st a air - x, then an Air -x nitrox and now a Air - z nitrox and have always found them very easy,

perhaps the novice needs a bit training on his shiny new thing?

RG

[Keith Whittaker]

I may be being dense here but why couldn't you just ask them how much air they had ? Surely even novices are taught the basic 'number' signals. How are you going to get confident, self-sufficient divers if you babysit them to the extent of monitoring their air ?

[turbanator]

IIRC we learnt (25 years ago, God!) on my electronics HND that you get about 17% of the info from a digital meter that you'd get from a digital one.

You can tell from a glance what a student with an analogue gauge, often without having to ask them. That way you can monitor discretely.

r
P

[Garf]

Originally Posted by Keith Whittaker

I may be being dense here but why couldn't you just ask them how much air they had ? Surely even novices are taught the basic 'number' signals. How are you going to get confident, self-sufficient divers if you babysit them to the extent of monitoring their air ?

what he said. If you absolutely positively had to check for yourself itmight have abeen a good idea to check out how the display functioned BEFORE you got in the water. Nothing wrong wrong with the kit, this was just a breakdown in communication.

[RogerViking]

as battaries are needed i like to have a good old fashioned spg . that way if my computer goes belly up i still have backup and can still read my gas.

[Silent Diver]

I used to use a Vytec with air integrated, (my wife still does), but I still had a single analogue gauge to show my buddy or just in case the transmitter lost its connection with the wrist unit (although in over a hundred dives it never lost its connection).

If this person had been told by the shop to only use the computer and not have a analogue gauge fitted as well then maybe someone should try educating them on the need for a backup system/redundancy.

[recurve]

Originally Posted by Silent Diver

If this person had been told by the shop to only use the computer and not have a analogue gauge fitted as well then maybe someone should try educating them on the need for a backup system/redundancy.

Presumably you don't dive with a redundant SPG, so why should someone with an electronic one do so? Sorry, it just seems like a classic case of technophobia and making the assumption that the electronic device is more likely to fail. Arguably the weakest failure point on a conventional rig is the hose and any swivel connections, which are done away with on a wireless air integrated set up.

And for the first poster, the biggest number followed by 'bar' is usually a give away as to which one to look at.

Air integration can give a relative novice an enormous degree of confidence in their air consumption and time remaining, lets not slate them because you can't deal with the technology!

[Silent Diver]

As a matter of fact when I first started diving with a twin set I had an SPG on each reg.

Now I am on a rebreather I still have 2 SPG's