Digital or analog compass readout

The recent rather neglected thread on "locking in a heading" on the Suunto D9 got me to thinking.

My Liquivision X1 has a compass in it, but I don't use it. Tapping through the menu to display the compass is too cumbersome, when I have a Suunto compass on my other wrist. But I don't look at the face of my compass. I only look in the side window, and read the heading. I have predetermined the desired heading, and I know what the reciprocal is. I find the top display nothing but confusing most of the time. I do not use the bezel at all. (I do use the analog display when I'm scootering, because I'm looking down on the compass, anyway.)

But I got to thinking that it wouldn't be all that difficult for these gauges with built-in electronic compasses to read out the heading digitally, and incorporate that on the display screen, either as a continuously available datum or scrolling, or selectable. Being able to glance at one gauge and get my depth, time and heading might be quite pleasant.

What do the rest of you think?

I'm a big fan of analog compasses.

I have both (for use on land), but I always end up relying upon the analog compasses. I find it quicker to "acquire" my azimuth visually by a glance while looking at the terrain, as well. Also, the round face with 360 degrees makes it very easy to compute reciprocals and patterns at a glance.

I dive a Liquivision X1 (I chose V-Planner for my software) on one wrist and my SK7 compass on the other. I prefer to use my SK7 for navigation, but enjoy having the redundancy of the electronic compass within the X1.

For me, it's not that I find the X1 cumbersome to operate (I think it's a breeze to operate), but it's that the SK7 is just SO easy to use for quick readings that it's just become my default.

For scootering, I've got an additional SK7 and bottom timer on the instrument mount. I find I use the compass on the scooter but find myself looking at my X1 on my wrist for depth and time instead of the BT on the scooter due to the screen on the X1 being so easy to read without additional light (so I don't have to move my light to read my gauges).

On the other hand, I know several people who much prefer the digital compass on the X1 to a traditional compass. They especially like that it can't get bumped off-kilter, and if for some reason they needed to recalibrate it while diving, it's simple to do the calibration underwater in 30 seconds.

-Doug
Marketing Director
Liquivision Products, Inc.

I have wondered the digital switch as well as my new analog computer that I got with my Gekko computer is clearly off on its readings, so debating on switching over to a wrist style digital compass..