you're talking about a lot of money there for these dreams. People that buy my interfaces and kits do so to save money. I plan on keeping my cobra for a long time and so will a lot of other people so there'll be a need for cable interfaces for a while. If they were to be obsolete tommorrow, trust me, I won't lose any sleep over it. I make them to help, not to pay the bills.
Suunto's software doesn't look for usb ports so thats why it will never recognize it.
The Cobra and the mosquito use the same interface, the cobra and the stinger don't. that was the point. Some people do want to download both. Some people have had a mosquito for a couple years and just now added a stinger for instance, but don't want to lose all the dive info they had in the mosquito so they would appreciate being able to use one interface with both. It doesn't cost any more, its just an added convenience.
IR cost money and if it goes out, you lose the ability entirely. Remember how finicky remote controls can be... a lot more possibilty for corrupted transfers in my opinion. Not really an improvement worth the additional cost unless you just want to be able to say its IR. My cobra will never be IR and the same can be said for every dive computer suunto sells up to now and in the foreseable future. Not that many offer IR and the only reason I see that they are is to make it almost impossible for anyone to easily make their own interface for it. Is that what you support? A monopoly on these interfaces so we'll have to pay even more?
No Dreams of a better interface... just an improvement on the one I make that saves people a heck of a lot of money. Someone that dreams of all the gadgets you do probably doesn't care to save money and has no use for my interface. I offer a product that does the same thing and more than Suunto's interface for less than half the price. If Suunto decides to go IR, i won't make them for people anymore obviously, no big deal. People make a big deal about usb and say if I want to improve my interface to make it with a usb plug. Suunto doesn't offer it with usb, why should I? If I did offer it with a usb plug, it would cost the same as if you go out and buy an adapter. Suunto determines the type interface you use, not me.
Finally, I have to say... Come On, give me a break. How hard is it to use an interface? Why do you want it to be easier? All you have to do is plug the thing in and attach it to your dive computer for a few seconds. The Suunto holds 36 hours of dives (at 20 sec sampling) and there's no reason why you have to download the info as soon as you pop out of the water. You went on the dive, it should be fresh on your memory.
Oh yeah, you don't need to download your dives to be able to plan your next dive so the bluetooth/pda idea seems far fetched, impractical, and unneeded as far as my needs are concerned anyway. Just a waste of money, but if you have the money to waste and thats what you want, go for it. The dive computer does that for you, its called the plan button and it gives you all the info you need. Whats that saying... Keep it simple stupid. If you're speaking of planning your dive based on the amount of air time you have, you should know your SAC rate already as it remains fairly constant. Don't get me wrong, if gadgets are your thing and money isn't an issue I see nothing wrong with your ideas except that I believe IR is nothing more than a ploy to force feed us expensive interfaces by taking away the other options we have now. You seem to be in support of us having to pay whatever price the manufacturer wants us to pay. Why would you want me to not be able to make interfaces for people and save them money. Do you also support the pricing policies of the dive industry? Could I also assume you are against divers buying from places like Leisurepro because they save people money? Thats all I do is save divers money... If you want an IR interface, go buy a uwatec. Those things are perfect fo you, they only hold like 6 full dives so you could download your info via IR all the time. For me, I'll download my info when I have time and be happy as I can be that I didn't give my LDS $175 for one or leisure pro $115 for one along with a lot of other people.