wrist-mounted sonar

[geraldp]

I dove on a charter boat out of Cape Ann, MA last weekend and one of the divers had a wrist mounted sonar. What a cool concept. You drop a transponder off of your boat on a short tether, dive in, and your sonar points your way right back to the boat. At all times during your dive you know exactly what the bearing and distance is to your transponder. Unfortunately I didn't ask enough questions at the time, now I'm curious... who makes such a thing? At what cost?

Thanks, Jerry

[Quarrior]

I'd love to hear about this too, sounds interesting.

[archman]

I think Dive-Trak is what you're talking about. Don't know if they're still made.

[DMDC01]

Let me know if you find any info on it, I know of a few people that could use it!! :LIFSAVR:

[MechDiver]

I dove on a charter boat out of Cape Ann, MA last weekend and one of the divers had a wrist mounted sonar. What a cool concept. You drop a transponder off of your boat on a short tether, dive in, and your sonar points your way right back to the boat. At all times during your dive you know exactly what the bearing and distance is to your transponder. Unfortunately I didn't ask enough questions at the time, now I'm curious... who makes such a thing? At what cost?

Thanks, Jerry

If you do a search on the site using "sonar" you'll get a number of pages of posts to review.

[norcaldiver]

It's probably a Xios EyeSea. They are way cool, if rather bulky. Unfortunatly, they started to have some finalcial troubles, from what I heard. Their website www.xios.ch is down, so they may be out of biz.
Here's a link with a picture so you can confirm if this is what you saw. http://www.saintbrendan.com/cdnapr01/ngear4.html

[geraldp]

I dove on a charter boat out of Cape Ann, MA last weekend and one of the divers had a wrist mounted sonar. What a cool concept. You drop a transponder off of your boat on a short tether, dive in, and your sonar points your way right back to the boat. At all times during your dive you know exactly what the bearing and distance is to your transponder. Unfortunately I didn't ask enough questions at the time, now I'm curious... who makes such a thing? At what cost?
Yes it was the Xios EyeSea he was wearing. After posting this question I did a google search and came up with the Xios, but as norcaldiver mentioned their webpage is down.

The guy who was using it said it was only good for a 150 yards or so from the transponder, and he usually used it in conjunction with his compass. If he went beyond the range the compass brought him within the vicintity, and the sonar brought him home. Besides boat diving, he also used it on shore dives, tethering the transponder to his dive flag. He'd be a good buddy to take on a dive.

[Bob3]

There are some commercial pingers a guy can get if you're wanting to spend some serious $$.
Like the goodies listed here: http://www.amronintl.com/diving/products.cfm?id=301
I picked up a few handheld sonars that look somewhat like a flashlight, you can point the critters around & usually spot that errant buddy or the wreck if its within 120'. They're only pressure rated to 50' though.

[geraldp]

Also check out http://www.rjeint.com/ and click on the picture of the diver. This looks like more geared towards commercial and military, but it also has some gear very similar to the Amron International stuff you mentioned. According to a Sport Diving magazine article they showed off an underwater GPS system at DEMA last year (although I don't see it on their website).

From Sport Diving magazine: "UNDERWATER GPS: A model was shown at the DEMA show, but alas ... Divers or ROVs will carry pingers that relay acoustic signals to satellite buoys floating on the surface. This info is relayed to a command system that displays a three-dimensional underwater GPS position map."

Sounds expensive.

[geraldp]

Also check out http://www.rjeint.com/ and click on the picture of the diver. This looks like more geared towards commercial and military, but it also has some gear very similar to the Amron International stuff you mentioned. According to a Sport Diving magazine article they showed off an underwater GPS system at DEMA last year (although I don't see it on their website).

From Sport Diving magazine: "UNDERWATER GPS: A model was shown at the DEMA show, but alas ... Divers or ROVs will carry pingers that relay acoustic signals to satellite buoys floating on the surface. This info is relayed to a command system that displays a three-dimensional underwater GPS position map."

Sounds expensive.
RJE International makes the Dive-Trak that Archman mentioned.

[Wristshot]

My buddy is a full-time gadget freak, and he has more money than he knows what to do with. He always has to buy every new toy that comes out. He has a Shark Shield even though we have never seen anything more menacing than a 4 foot nurse shark. (please don't lecture me about how dangerous nurse sharks can be, the point here is to paint a picture of a guy that buys all manner of kit)

He has a Xios unit, and he uses it when we dive off of boats in Monterey. The unit is an very expensive toy, but it actually works real well. It points the direction to the boat and it tells you the distance. The first time my buddy used his, he thought it was broken when it started flashing and pointing every which way. It also listed the distance as 35 feet when we were in 50 feet of water. It suddenly all made sense when he realized that we were in fact 35 feet directly underneath the boat!

It is bulky, but it it kinda cool. Certainly not DIR, but it was fun. In an environment with variable currents and poor viz it can help you find your way back to the boat underwater.

I believe that he bought it at Diver Dan's in Santa Clara, but I won't swear to it. There was one other shop in the area that carried them also, so I am not positive where he bought it.

Just some info

Wristshot

[archman]

If those units were significantly cheaper, dive boats would be purchasing them out the whazoo. I looked at the things myself a few years ago... in places like Looe Key in the height of use it could REALLY come in handy!

[AKmountaineer]

I found a relatively inexpensive homing device at http://www.desertstar.com/newsite/sport/sportscout.html
Seems pretty cool, and the sport madel with a range of 4000 feet would be pretty versatile.

[roturner]

I dove on a charter boat out of Cape Ann, MA last weekend and one of the divers had a wrist mounted sonar. What a cool concept. You drop a transponder off of your boat on a short tether, dive in, and your sonar points your way right back to the boat. At all times during your dive you know exactly what the bearing and distance is to your transponder. Unfortunately I didn't ask enough questions at the time, now I'm curious... who makes such a thing? At what cost?

Thanks, Jerry

Could be one of those pingers like Hertz NeverLost

R..

[caveseeker7]

Could be one of those pingers like Hertz NeverLost

The Hertz NeverLost is a rental car GPS & mapping system, I believe. ;)
But Uwatec sold a Uwatec NeverLost (http://www.scubamarket.com/eng/stuw0001.php) for a while. Probably not very well.
I wonder if Hertz had to pay for the name ... .

[Tully]

Ok, time to wade into this one... I used to be the Canadian distributor for the Xios EyeSea product line. It was quite possibly one of the most inovative and actual NEW pieces of dive gear to come down the pipe in a very long time - it wasn't another company deciding that we need ANOTHER split fin design with all the latest features and useless buckles..

Now, the EyeSea uses a transmitter and receiver along with some very high-end sonar acoustic equipment. The receiver units give you, in real time, distance and direction back to the transmitter beacon, displayed on an LCD screen. With a range of 3300' and depth rated to +400' there is nothing else like it available to the civilian market.

Ok, yes, the Scout or NeverLost uses a similar setup (Tx/Rx), however, to compare the two is like comparing a Porsche GT2 and a Toyota Echo - you get my point? In case you don't, these units use a transmitter as well, however, your receiver is handheld with a bunch of pretty lights. To locate the transmitter you must stop, and conduct a 360 degree sweep until you find the strongest signal possible (more lights that shine, the more signal you have). Ok, so now you know in which direction the transmitter is (and hopefully you are not receiving the signal over your shoulder because the transmitter is behind you...), but the big question is, how far away are you? In poor conditions, you could be 10' or the maximum range away.

QUESTION: Can you still buy a XIOS EyeSea Sonar Diving Navigation System.

ANSWER: Yes and No.

YES, if you are able to find one on Ebay, or used somewhere you can gamble your money and hope for the best - if it works, great, if it dies a week from now you are SOL because there is nobody around who can fix it.

NO, you cannot purchase a new system anywhere because the manufacturer stopped shipping units mid to late last year. If someone still has stock (which is not likely), they have been sitting on it for quite a while and I'd be cautious of it's functionality. When talking with the manufacturer during their downfall, it became apparent that I was the last distributor with product in stock... in the world... This was based on their outstanding orders and the length of time they were outstanding..

XIOS has long since closed their doors and I'm now down to fielding about 8 requests per month asking about availability or places to get their systems repaired.

Something to note to those looking to buy used ones; the last couple months before XIOS disappeared, people were sending their units back to the factory to have the software updated - the number of emails that I have received from people looking to repair their system after this "upgrade" is staggering. It would appear that there was a problem somewhere along the line and the returned and "upgraded" units actually worked worse and had a maximum range of only about 150'. Just something to be aware of.

As for myself, I have a wreck transmitter and two receivers that work perfectly. I don't use the system on every dive, but when I do it is a fantastic piece of equipment to have. Lately we've been using them for some search patterns and long distance traverses and it works beautifuly!

Hope this cleared things up a little bit.

Have fun down there,

[RIDIVER501]

Interesting but sounds like a crutch to make up for underdeveloped navigation skills to me.

[Tully]

Interesting but sounds like a crutch to make up for underdeveloped navigation skills to me.

Well, that is one way of looking at it, and it's usually a view held by instructors...

I fully agree that divers should have sufficient navigation skills, and based on the pictures off your site, in 80' of vis there should be no problem at all.

If you're producing perfect divers who can navigate flawlessly in ANY condition, then for your perfect divers it would be a crutch. However, the harsh reality is that not everyone can navigate effectively, and for those who cannot, this is a safe, reliable, and accurate tool which can reduce stress for a diver which might prevent a larger problem - or if you'd rather have divers surfacing in boat traffic to check and see where they are, or become stressed about being lost to the point where they forget to check their SPG, run out of air, and die - all because they couldn't use a compass well, hey, who am I to argue?

I think it works great when you come across an instructor and his/her students and they're in the process of silting outa square mile... ;) (I used to teach, I know the drill)

Oh, I should also mention that the Police and commercial divers using the system think it's great - and they're teathered!

[Wristshot]

Just for a slightly different perspective:

Sometimes in areas with low visibility and variable currents at different depths, even divers with pretty good navigational skills can end up drifting a bit away from their targets. I have dove in Monterey Bay with 15 foot viz and a gentle current at depth, but with significantly different current at 15-20 feet, and even more current at the surface. I have a couple buddies that surfaced a hundred yards from the boat because the current at their safety stop was different than when they descended, but hard to detect. 5 minutes of drifting put them a distance away, with a difficult surface swim. BTW, my buddy bought his EyeSea right after that debacle.

You are entitled to your opinions, but I don't think that necessarily means that a divers has poor navigational skills. Some tools are there to supplement your existing skills, not as a replacement for skills (for some divers). Just because someone buys an extra tool doesn't mean they can't function without it.


Wristshot

[roturner]

Interesting but sounds like a crutch to make up for underdeveloped navigation skills to me.

That's not fair. If you take that line of thinking then GPS, roadsigns, a compass, asking for directions and maps are crutches for navigation.....

Got any maps in your house?

As for the sornar thing. It sounds like it would have some niche applications but the fact that the manufacturer went t.u. is proof that it's not really something divers are sitting around wishing they had.....

R..

[roturner]

The Hertz NeverLost is a rental car GPS & mapping system, I believe. ;)
But Uwatec sold a Uwatec NeverLost (http://www.scubamarket.com/eng/stuw0001.php) for a while. Probably not very well.
I wonder if Hertz had to pay for the name ... .

oh. I stand corrected. I rememberd seeing the "Neverlost" and the Uwatec name didn't stick..... sorry for the confusion.

R..