Sharing a dive computer....

[ianr33]

I think it's OK to rely on another divers computer with a couple of big IFs

1)IF you know what you are doing and

2)IF your profiles have been similar (not the same as identical!)

In the event my computer dies on a deco dive first backup would be my buddies computer. Backup to that backup would be tables and bottom timer.
Most everyone I dive with has the same computer .

Now if you are talking about same ocean buddies with wildly different profiles sharing computer info is not a good idea.

Amazingly enough some people don't even need computers!

 

[Nemrod]

....actually works pretty well based on empirical evidence over 20 dives my wife and I conducted. Wearing identical dive computers we surfaced from each of these dives with identical time remaining (within the same minute), identical nitrogen loads. My conclusion is that, if needed, we could run a single computer without problems.

You know, this "argument" goes back to the beginning. This could have been said in 1966 that a buddy team could share a watch, depth gauge and tables. You guys are always quoting the padI rule book and I would just have to say, it is not a good idea to share critical equipment, for one thing you partially loose the redundancy that a buddy team affords and as well, you and your buddy/wife/husband/so etc may not always make every dive. What if she opts out of one dive? I think this falls under the category of going to any expense to save a dollar and in this case the expense (of not having the required equipment) could be significant.

N

 

[Max Speed]

While you're at it, why not share the same gas and BC?

That is called "rescue class".

 

[Mossman]

You know, this "argument" goes back to the beginning. This could have been said in 1966 that a buddy team could share a watch, depth gauge and tables. You guys are always quoting the padI rule book and I would just have to say, it is not a good idea to share critical equipment, for one thing you partially loose the redundancy that a buddy team affords and as well, you and your buddy/wife/husband/so etc may not always make every dive. What if she opts out of one dive? I think this falls under the category of going to any expense to save a dollar and in this case the expense (of not having the required equipment) could be significant.

If she opts out of a dive, he wears the computer.

 

[TSandM]

It's not recommended.

And sometimes it doesn't work.

But if you have good buddy skills and stay close together as a team, your exposure should be very close, and within the uncertainties of decompression calculation.

We tell people not to do it because you can't count on folks remaining that close together (or together at all, in some circumstances) and if you are even ten feet apart through most of the dive, your exposure is quite different -- if those ten feet are vertical. My husband and I actually had a dive like that, where he shot pictures from below, and I posed above, and we ended up with 7 minutes difference in deco obligation (on a staged decompression dive, according to our wrist computers. Of course, that isn't how we planned the dive, and subsequent analysis showed that the way we planned it, the deco would not have been different. Whether that is an advertisement for computers or the reverse is up to you to decide )

 

[USVet96]

The thing that you are marginally thinking about is this:

When you say you did your "data testing" to PROVE your theory is feasibly accurate (20 whole dives , you paid extreme attention to be identical in the water and during the profile for the sake of the test and to compare computers at the end of the dive.

If having gotten those results and then subsequently when into water with ONLY 1 computer, I would be WILLING TO BET that during THOSE dives you WOULD NOT be as close to your buddy as the testing dives, and you WOULD NOT do identical profiles. Reason is that in YOUR MIND since you have already "established" that you are OK diving with ONE computer, you will be diving to dive and NOT diving under the same controlled situations and guidelines (I.E. Trying to prove a theory) and accordingly will end up diving not quite the SAME profile.

This will ultimately CHANGE everything.

IMO, it's a "suggestion" and a "practiced guideline" that is followed for safety reasons; and is based on EXTENSIVE RESEARCH and TESTING over the span of hundreds of thousands of dives.

Be SAFE and Be SMART.

"Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean its a GOOD idea to DO it"

 

[AfterDark]

It comes down to skills and experience. Many dives were made before computers and still are. If you both know what you're doing you can get away with using a buddies computer but I wouldn't make it standard operating procedure. The more you do outside the norm in diving the better chance you have of something going wrong. I wouldn't abort most of the diving I do because I left my computer home,with or without a buddy. However deeper dives where the depths may vary having your own computer is quite useful. You don't need $1000.00 computer to do the job. I have one for under $200.00, I use all the time, and I'm still alive!

 

[ajduplessis]

No! This issue is that if the person with the DC makes a mistake you are both impacted (depth, NDL etc). Lost buddy also adds to the mix. You both have DC's, use them!

 

[herbdb]

For the vast majority of my dives, my computer would allow longer, deeper dives with shorter surface intervals than most dive boat schedules would allow. Most of us are not pushing NDLs on dive after dive or doing deco diving.

For the tech diver sharing could be a big problem, for us recreational divers most of the time the computer is just a recording depth guage. In my family, we all have and use computers, but the are not really essential equipment.

 

[Insta-Gator]

Good job, Max Speed.