Equipment Trends: The BCD

[shoredivr]

Agreed. I have never even seen a BP/W. BCDs only for us vacation divers.

When my current BCD wears out (in about 10 years?) I will consider a BP/W. But only if it is lighter in my luggage...

Giff, c'mon down to Humber Bay on Sunday morning if the ice is out and I'll show you a BPW ;-)

---------- Post added February 20th, 2015 at 10:00 PM ----------

Some good points already. If the BP/W is to increase notably there must be some slight design changes to appeal to the majority of bcd buyers. I get a lot of feed back from my students/customers that can be interpreted as this;
The BP/W must be made to look more appealing.
It looks uncomfortable and rigid.
Aesthetically boring and unpleasing to the eye.
Too technical.
Why aren't there more?

Some progress has been made in this regard however, the essential positives of the unit must remain while appealing to a larger market. Some of these steps have been taken but for there to be a "movement" it must be very significant.

So, let's see the softer backpads, shoulder harness, pink trim, the absence of shiny steel fittings and a truly integrated, multi-use line of bp/w's brought forth by the big manufactures. Do not lose the elements that make the BP/W an excellent bcd but diversify keeping in mind economy and instead of a try it dive to prove how good they are, maybe more people will see them as simply bcd's and buy them off the shelf.


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As long as I can cut off the useless (to me) padding.....
and shiny d-rings are threatening??? Huh.

 

[Patoux01]

With new divers I was referring to certified divers not OW students. I think that divers with 50+ dives in know a bit about what they want.

And wrong you are...
I see them daily, "Hey guys, I've done 359 dives, looking for a new BC what would you recommend?", and there's hardly anyone suggesting BPW.

I know about 1 shop that would strongly suggest a BPW to anyone. All the others will tell you "get a jacket, they're really good, tons of pockets, loosable weights, and if anything breaks you're f*cked". When I ask people why they don't want a BPW, "there's no pockets". Interesting thing is, when I ask those same people "what do you put in your pockets?", I get all kind of answers, spool, smb, slate, camera, ... which are all things I have with me on every dive, without pockets, and still no clutter (forget about the torch on the profile pic, that's a temporary clip-off). But if people really wanted pockets, there's ways of adding that. Same with weight pockets. Kind of defeats the whole purpose imho but they exist.

To me, this setup is not popular due to 2 things:
- shops (and then their customers) who don't have them will tell bull**** about it
- shops who have them won't explain to their customers how to use them. (ie fitting, but also how to add your own gear to it, torches, spools, smb, ...)

Edit: Of course, this is what I see around me, here in Sydney...
Edit (once more): Ah, and people tend to prefer plastic to metal... less "aggressive" look I guess

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

The whole world of dive gear is really stuck in a ditch right now. It's been close to 15 years now that BP/W has been "out of the bag" so to speak as a viable option for single tank use. I'm really surprised it's acceptance and use has been this slow.
I'm noticing that BP/W stocking by dive shops is a fairly regional thing. I'm going to venture to say that there are more shops on the east coast and in the midwest that stock BP/W system then on the west coast. The only places in California for instance that have BP/W are a few in LA and maybe one or two in the Bay Area...that's not a lot.
There are no shops in Norcal or the city that carry anything close.
I have mentioned this to them (and I have gone into many shops in the state) and they all have a similar attitude, that BP/W are only for tech divers and some will even take it a step further and say only for "those DIR people", if they have surprisingly been paying attention enough to even know about DIR in this day and age. They obviously don't know that there are probably more non DIR BP/W users that there are DIR users.
I sigh and shake my head. Not one of them has ever used one or do they know the first thing about them.
They almost have an aire of contempt when they are mentioned.
The BP/W continues to be an internet phenomenon. Unless you are the internet and go on forums, chances are you will not know much about BP/W's, where to get one, or how to use one....sad really.
This is the parallel universe I talk about, the dive shop world, and the internet world.

The big companies sure know about BP/W and I think they are watching, and a few have already stuck their toe into the water to see how cold it is. However, notice how some BP/W's have already been "fluffed up" to appeal to the crowd on the fence. You have to realize that big companies are in this to make money not necessarily help divers. If they had the best interests of divers in mind there would be a lot of things different. Big companies also in a way run dive shops as far as what shops carry. They come out with a new BC with all the bells and whistles and the shops slobber all over it and hang it up. The dive shops will carry what the big companies present to them. If they are primarily an Aqualung shop or Scubapro shop then those will be the BC's you'll see. Both manufacturers and dive shops like gear that looks great in the shop on display, feels great trying it on on dry land, and has enough design pazazz to satisfy the same fascination as sitting in a brand new car, and sells.
Some petite little thing will go into a shop with her new hubby to get certed to go to Hawaii and see a big hunk of metal hanging on the wall with a few plain straps on it and a single waist buckle, or a plush padded jacket with colors, sewn in piping, some high tech looking mesh here and there, easy to put on, feels great in the store...what do you think they are going to buy?

I got a good laugh the other day along with the shop owner (surprisingly). He had a new Scubapro BC on display and I noticed that the weight pockets had a plastic squeeze clip that you had to pinch to get to open to be able to pull the weight out. I mentioned that 'aren't weights supposed to be just yanked out and they should come free'? He laughed and said that Scubapro did a survey and found out that nobody ever pulls their weights so they decided that they didn't need to be ditchable in an event! They had too many complaints about the old system falling out on their own so they decided to make it so you had to work at it to get them out....unbelievable!!
All I have really seen different in BC's in shops in the last 15 years is pretty much a full commitment to integrated weights, the above semi non ditchable weights especially with thick gloves on, a few more design features that are useless underwater, and the elevator lever. Other than that they are basically the same as they were in 1999-2000.

So yes, scuba gear has stagnated and nothing much has changed. I see this as one of the many reasons dive shops are suffering.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

He had a new Scubapro BC on display and I noticed that the weight pockets had a plastic squeeze clip that you had to pinch to get to open to be able to pull the weight out. I mentioned that 'aren't weights supposed to be just yanked out and they should come free'? He laughed and said that Scubapro did a survey and found out that nobody ever pulls their weights so they decided that they didn't need to be ditchable in an event! They had too many complaints about the old system falling out on their own so they decided to make it so you had to work at it to get them out....unbelievable!!

What's unbelievable about it? Halcyon uses the same basic system for integrated weight pocket retention. Sure, it's more of a risk to an unthinking, panicked diver without fine motor control - but it's less risk to every other kind of diver in every other scenario. You pays your money (you hopefully drills with your gear), and you takes your chances.

 

[Centrals]

What's unbelievable about it? Halcyon uses the same basic system for integrated weight pocket retention. Sure, it's more of a risk to an unthinking, panicked diver without fine motor control - but it's less risk to every other kind of diver in every other scenario. You pays your money (you hopefully drills with your gear), and you takes your chances.

Unacceptable 15yrs ago!
Time has changed!! You pays your money.......
It is not what you want, it is what customer want. Can they educate the customer?

 

[Rich Keller]

I went to a BP/W because it is smaller, lighter and packs flatter for travel. Performance in the water is no different then a jacket. Only on the surface where it wants to hold you face down a bit is there a slight difference. I dive with a snorkel so this is not an issue for me and this would be my normal position on the surface anyway. For a new diver a jacket might be a better choice as it will hold their head up with air in both the front and back of the jacket when they are on the surface.

 

[boulderjohn]

In my role as a teacher, I encountered an interesting study done a couple of decades ago that may shed light on this. The study was done in elementary schools. Teachers were told to read specific instructions to students and not vary from the script. They were to show students pictures of people, and the students were to rate the pictures on a scale according to how successful they thought those people were in life, using whatever definition of success they wanted to use and whatever clues they saw in the pictures. Before doing this, the teachers told what the test makers thought the results would usually be. They turned out to be right. In every classroom, the results were what the examiners had told the teachers they would be.

The problem was that each teacher had been told something different. That means that in some unknown way, the teachers had communicated their expectations to the students, and the students had responded accordingly.

I am sure the same thing happens in a scuba shop. Even if the employee assisting the customer tries to be neutral, that employee's personal preferences will come through and steer the customer accordingly.

I saw it happen recently. I was in the back room of our shop working with the shop's newly appointed Director of Instruction on something. He wants to widen the range of instruction for the shop to get much more local OW instruction going on, which means cool water diving in 7mm suits. As we were talking, a customer came to the store and asked about OW instruction. We listened as the store manager waited on him. The store manager is a warm water, resort diver, and as he explained the instructional options to the future student, that preference came through loud and clear. It would be a miracle if that student chose the local, 7mm option. It would also be a miracle if that customer were to select a BP/W for personal gear, even though the shop sells them.

 

[Rich Keller]

He had a new Scubapro BC on display and I noticed that the weight pockets had a plastic squeeze clip that you had to pinch to get to open to be able to pull the weight out. I mentioned that 'aren't weights supposed to be just yanked out and they should come free'? He laughed and said that Scubapro did a survey and found out that nobody ever pulls their weights so they decided that they didn't need to be ditchable in an event!

Who did Scubapro survey? Did they survey divers or just their next of kin?

 

[Centrals]

You need a very knowledgeable person to sell BP/W. The complexity of the system can easily put people off.
I dive BP/W for both rec and tec for several yrs and still amazed by the varieties offered. The accessories are really mind boggling.
Is BP/W better than jacket in recreational diving? I am not sure. But I do believe it is the mind set of the diver which is most important. A careless misplaced frogkick will cause as much damage as flutter/bicycle kick.

 

[boulderjohn]

There can be another reason for customers to be directed in a specific direction in terms of equipment. A few years ago the shop I used to work for changed agencies, but before they did, they had the head of that agency come in and do a week-long seminar on scuba marketing. I attended the entire seminar. Gear sales, including BCDs, was at the heart of it.

His idea was to maximize profit margin on each sale. What the shop should do, he said, was identify specific models with good profit margins to begin with and steer customers in that direction. You can sell other gear if students really want it, but you should try to get students to buy that specific model. The reason is that if you sell higher volumes of specific models, the vendor will lower your price on them and thus increase the profit margin on it. The shop was told to require all instructors to purchase and wear those specific targeted models and tell the students that we had personally chosen those models because they were the best. IT was called the instructional uniform.

The shop decided to use those tactics, and that is when I left (for that and other reasons as well). If I had stayed, I would have been required to purchase and wear while instructing the following gear: Seaquest Balance BCD, Atomic regulators, Atomic SS1 integrated octo, Suunto Cobra III, Aqualung Slingshot fins, and a Henderson wet suit. I can't recall which model of snorkel was required. I could only have a free choice of my mask model, since that is so individual. The wet suit is the only item on the list I would have purchased without being required to as a condition of employment.

If you had gone into the store looking for gear and without knowing what you wanted beforehand, you almost certainly would have come out with most of that package.