I recently purchased a new Oceanic Atom 2.0 personal dive computer/watch with an extra transmitter for my buddy's (teenage son) regulator so I could read his air status without having to ask. To be prudent (and to save a dive/dive trip), I also purchased a backup Oceanic VEO 100Nx and an analog pressure gauge that mounted out of the way in case the Atom 2.0 should ever fail.
I am SO glad I did because on day 4 (dive 16) of my Caribbean Explorer II live-aboard trip, my new Oceanic Atom 2.0 failed big time! We were diving on Diamond Rock (Saba). Diamond Rock is a pinnacle dive - sand bottom at 80 ft. So imagine my surprise when I looked at my Atom 2.0 at approximately 65' of depth and it is reading 232' for depth -- setting off all kinds of alarms (depth, nitrox, deco ...). Of course, it then locked me out for violating all of the aforementioned alarms. Had I not had my backup, I would have missed at least 24 hours of diving and realistically, given the deep diving profiles of the St. Kitts, Stacia, Saba sites, I would have sat out 48 hours to completely clear nitrogen/O2. Needless to say, the Atom 2.0 is going back to the shop tomorrow. I am really disappointed that a piece of equipment this expensive fails on dive 16. :depressed:
I have completely lost trust in the unit. I have owned several Oceanic computers with hundreds of dives on them (Data100, ProPlus2) and never had any trouble with them.
Definitely consider investing in a backup computer if you don't have one!
I am SO glad I did because on day 4 (dive 16) of my Caribbean Explorer II live-aboard trip, my new Oceanic Atom 2.0 failed big time! We were diving on Diamond Rock (Saba). Diamond Rock is a pinnacle dive - sand bottom at 80 ft. So imagine my surprise when I looked at my Atom 2.0 at approximately 65' of depth and it is reading 232' for depth -- setting off all kinds of alarms (depth, nitrox, deco ...). Of course, it then locked me out for violating all of the aforementioned alarms. Had I not had my backup, I would have missed at least 24 hours of diving and realistically, given the deep diving profiles of the St. Kitts, Stacia, Saba sites, I would have sat out 48 hours to completely clear nitrogen/O2. Needless to say, the Atom 2.0 is going back to the shop tomorrow. I am really disappointed that a piece of equipment this expensive fails on dive 16. :depressed:
I have completely lost trust in the unit. I have owned several Oceanic computers with hundreds of dives on them (Data100, ProPlus2) and never had any trouble with them.
Definitely consider investing in a backup computer if you don't have one!