Mustard Dave
Contributor
My computer has no audible alarms whatsoever and I have never got into difficulties as a result. Years ago there was no such thing as dive computers and people had to plan their dives and monitor their depth and time on a mechanical depth gauge and watch. There are still people who choose to dive in this manner and do so safely. The answer is to monitor your instruments more often and don't be reliant on alarms going off.
Whoever wrote that is blaming Suunto for their own shortcomings. There is a saying that I have heard a few times and like to use myself - 'diving is safe, as long as you remember it is dangerous'. If you cannot take responsibility for your own safety, you really need to change your ways or you should not be diving. The person writing that review relied on other divers and a computer, and both failed to grab him, shake him and tell him he has exceeded NDL.
The above review is actually in agreement with you on responsibility; there was no blame on equipment or other persons. I guess you missed the part on the confession and lesson learned of the need to take care of oneself and not rely on others actions. Sometimes one has to FU for a wake-up call. I'm sure I'm not the only person, especially beginning divers, who got lazy counting on the DM when they first started diving. People error and hopefully learn from the experience. For those who are deaf and/or hard of hearing , they should take your excellent advise AND look at the option of using a vibrating computer for the moments when one makes a mistake, either from lack of experience or excitement from such. One shouldn't rely on a computer, but they have alarms and the ability to set dive planning notifications for reasons; even experienced divers and DM's make mistakes. They can also be useful tools outside of alarm warnings. The threads original author was asking for information on a computer that vibrated out of concern for a deaf friend. The review was on aspects of the vibrating TUSA IQ-850, it's pro and cons, and why it could have helped when one cannot hear reminders or warnings on audible computers, such as the Suunto that was in use at the time of my early diving days FU. MY FU mind you (as stated in the review), no fault of Suunto (I love my Gekko still and still have it as a back-up). There are a lot of good divers who love this vibrating function, I being one of them. It hardly ever vibrates these days for the reasons you stated, except as a reminder to let me know I'm halfway through my dive or for setting maximum safe limits with Nitrox (I took the training so I wouldn't be the odd man out again). The passion of photography can do that to you.
