By Carys Mahoney,
When starting off in the world of diving and progressing into more frequent dives, experience and training, you tend to want to pick up some of the cool gadgets and gear along the way, masks, snorkel, fins, computers are essential to diver mental and physical comfort as well as knowledge of reliability of equipment.
Since beginning my Divemaster my computer has become my best friend, its always keeping me in check, telling me to slow down and making sure I don’t exceed my limits, on the odd occasion I forget it on a dive I feel lost.
For now I would like to talk about a few of the newer, easy to use dive computers out there and how they can be used for training, recreational use and free diving as well as easy to use for first time dive computer buyers.
Suunto D4I Novo
This is a watch that has been updated from the Suunto D4I and restyled to accommodate people looking for something that stands out but still does all the necessary logs, free diving and scuba diving modes of the original version.
The first thing that you see with this computer is the colours, most computers are pretty plain, black, white, grey whereas Suunto D4I, come in a stunning array with Blue, Pink, Lime then standard black and white, which you just don’t see on the market. Personally I love it, its easy to see and you can wear it everyday and know one would know it was anything other than a standard watch. Price range £295 – £325
Features:
• New soft velvet feel, silicone strap in 5 colours
• 3 dive modes: Air, Nitrox, Free
• Wireless transmitter option 300 bar
• Depth notification
• Surface interval alarm
• 140 log hour memory
• Alarm clock
• Calendar
• Dive profile graph
• Day history and lifetime history
Mares Smart
This is the computer I chose to be my first and I have to say I’m incredibly happy with it, the style is easy on the eye and fits In to the standard watch look, I chose black and white strap over black and grey, just my preference. Its easy to use especially after a few youtube videos for guidance, my only issue with the computer is the sensitivity level with depth change if I rise or fall a little to quickly it has no issue beeping loudly with SLOW appearing on the screen.
Otherwise I have no problems with reading the screen even when I don’t have perfect eyesight, comfortable strap and a range of modes easy to access. It also won SCUBALABs 2014 best buy award! Price range £185 – £200
Features:
• 2 gas mixes
• Surface interval countdown timer
• Temperature
• Alarm
• Maximum and average depth
• Oxygen toxicity
• History log
• Free diving and dive mode
ScubaPro Mantis
Another wrist watch style with easy to use features but hitting the top market level of quality, features, design and personalised data through the use of biometrics. Designed to help you know whats happening with your body at the surface and at depth using top of the line technology to track your heart rate, skin temperature to follow nitrogen release and change in temp can effect such functions, stroke counter when training for free diving or pool activities and by combining heart rate and work load data you can create a calorie burner for the fitness conscious. Pretty cool stuff you rarely see in computers to date but ScubaPro pride themselves in new age technology. Price range £490 – £540
Features:
• 316L stainless steel case
• Adaptive Algorithm
• Micro bubble Settings
• Heart Rate Monitor
• Skin Temperature Monitor
• Profile Dependent Intermediate Stops (PDIS)
• Gauge mode
• Apnea mode
• Deco mode
• CCR mode
• Swim mode
• Active reverse backlight
• Bookmark function
Tusa IQ 1201
This computer has been updated for the purpose of pushing people into technical diving abilities with added features of 2 mix gases such as air and nitrox compatible, but can still be used for recreational and novice divers. This computer also has selected blue or pink panels for personalisation, another computer following into making equipment more appealing to the eye by colour customisation.
A good feature to this computer is that you can replace the battery on your own without sending it to a shop and all data will be saved thanks to there data retention setting. Another good computer by a reliable brand a little pricey but in this game you pay for quality. Price range £400 – £440
Features:
• Air, nitrox, gauge and free dive modes
• Dual time compatible
• Backlit display
• Computer compatible
• Audible alarm
• Scroll back feature
Cressi Leonardo
Least but not last the Cressi Leonardo is a no faf easy to use, does as it says on the box for a good price dive computer. The computer has been very popular throughout the dive industry especially for beginner divers or divers progressing that want to be eased into the understanding of computers and want an easy layout with no bells and whistles. It has a big clear screen no led back light and comes in black, white, black and blue on strap or black with pink strip on strap, single button interface assures easy menu navigation and is fairly conservative and adapted to offer safe decompression dives when multi day diving, great for liverboard and dive specified holidays. Price range £150 – £170
Features:
• Sample tissues, 9 with saturated hemi-phases between 2.5 and 480 miniutes
• Audible alarms
• Dive time 0-225 minutes
• Thermometer
• Watch
• 24hrs display
• 3V battery 2 years average life
• Nitox compatible
• No gas switching