Innovation In Recreational Scuba Diving?

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RJP

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So, in my post-DEMA mindset I'm also thinking about the rate and impact of innovation in scuba diving industry.

What do folks consider as an innovation timeline for scuba? For argument's sake, let's start with 1943 and the birth of the "modern scuba unit" (demand-valve diving regulator + tank of compressed breathing gas)

Where do we go from there?

I'm struggling to come up with anything that has fundamentally changed recreational scuba diving since then... other than the introduction of professional instruction/certification. By "fundamentally" I mean something that has expanded the who, how, where, or when of recreational diving in a meaningful way.

I considered the following, but feel they are more "evolution-vs-revolution" improvements rather than true innovation:

Horsecollar BCD
Personal dive computers
Recreational nitrox

I'm also discounting rebreathers as not yet being a recreational scuba innovation given:
1.) Low penetration rate
2.) High price barrier to broad adoption
3.) It's still really just breathing (and rebreathing) compressed gas underwater from a tank you bring with you.

I'm sure I'm missing something. Look forward to people's thoughts.
 
I think you must add the SPG. I believe it changed much in terms of procedure and mindset from using the "reserve" of a J valve to monitoring consumption with an SPG.

Also important, in my opinion, is the adoption of single hose regulators and octopus instead of a double hose regulator.
 
Digital photography has been big. I'm just a snap shooter with an old Canon G10 in a Canon housing & no external strobe shooting in UW scene mode and using Adobe PhotoShop Elements to 'auto levels' some shots to put back in color. So, even with that context I find...

1.) If I couldn't photograph, I wouldn't remember much of what I saw on a given dive for long at all.

2.) Couple of years later, I might as well not have done the dives.

3.) I couldn't put the pics in Blurb books to create 'coffee table' style books of major family vacations.

4.) Between Blurb books, prints, on-screen & e-mail, I couldn't share what I saw and experienced with others nearly so much.

I think GoPro and YouTube have probably had a similar impact for other people.

The Internet, particularly large online forums like ScubaBoard, and the user reviews & ratings at big online vendors' sites, have revolutionized peoples' knowledge of not only diving itself but access to & awareness of different types of gear, and different dive destinations. Decades ago, I might've never even thought of going to St. Croix unless I knew somebody who happened to've been. Now, I can read customer reviews of different dive op.s and dive sites, what hotel they stayed at, how the shore diving compares to other places, etc...

Controversial though it be, PADI's breakdown of training into a modular system more accessible to less dedicated people at a lower physical fitness point of entry has been transformative. Not everybody liked the transformation, but there it is.

Richard.
 
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When I started we had small horse collars with a tiny little inflation valve- the same as used on small smb's. They were pretty terrible, when the water was below 40 degrees, your lips became so numb and so weak, that I remember finding it VERY difficult to inflate the BC. This was a big deal when you are diving over 60 or 80 feet in a 2 or 3 layers of 7 mm wetsuit.

This was before octopus were used too, so when you removed your (ONLY) regulator to inflate the POS vest, you wanted to make double sure you did not misplace the reg as you were plummeting to the depths trying to get a little air in the thing.

Ascents were fun too, because with very cold hands and 7 mm mittens, it was not easy to depress the stupid button and vent the vest,, it was too easy to get your thumb over the hole and prevent the air from leaving.

So when the power inflators came out (and they had large diameter- modern mouth pieces) you could actually orally inflate, dump air and pressing a button to inflate made diving a hell of a lot easier. Not sure if it was fundamental, but it was a considerable advancement.


Dive scooters have also changed things a lot for some types of diving. Even the scooter saddle which is maybe 12 years old? was a pretty big change.
 
If your examples are at the level of impact we are looking for...

The PADI RDP had a huge impact on recreational diving. Before that, diving plans were done on the U.S. Navy tables (including some agencies that just adapted them as their own). The U.S. Navy tables based surface intervals on the amount of time needed to clear the 120 minute compartment. This resulted in extremely long surface intervals that challenged commercial recreational diving operations to operate reasonable dive schedules. PADI decided that recreational divers did not dive like Navy divers. They conducted an extensive research program that determined that for the kind of NDL diving done by recreational sport divers, the 40 minute compartment should control surface intervals. TO make it more conservative just to be safe, they based the RDP on the 60 minute compartment and added many more pressure groups to cut down on the extreme rounding required by the Navy tables. This dramatically cut down on required surface intervals. As a result, divers were able to schedule two tank dives within a more reasonable amount of time.

Another important but very subtle change was in the approach toward attracting new divers. In the early 1960s, there were essentially two models for reaching and teaching new scuba divers. The YMCA favored working through local clubs, a design that is still working for BSAC but really nowhere else. NAUI came from a non-profit background because their leadership came from the tax payer-based Los Angeles County program. They then became led by a university professor, and they decided to base instruction on college and university classes, with student effectively paying for classes through regular tuition and fees. That greatly limited the potential student population, and scuba was not really growing. Then other agencies decided that the way to attract new divers was by teaching through the local dive shops that sold the equipment. That led to an explosion in participation--scuba was now available to any curious person who could walk through a shop door.
 
similar to aviation and automotive, and even marine boating to some extent, there really isn't much room for true innovation due to the limited design principles. There are only so many ways to convert high pressure gas to breathable pressures, and only so many ways to maintain neutral buoyancy, and only so many ways to stay warm.

Photography isn't really a diving innovation because none of the innovations were originally intended for scuba diving, they were intended for extreme sports in the GoPro realm, and general photography in the SLR/Video realm. Not a whole lot you can do for housings, can only get so small realistically, and that's just evolution. A Gopro is the same technology as your cell phone camera, just optimized in a nice tight package that can now broadcast wifi.

Adaptations of the single hose regulator, SPG, etc are all just variations and evolutions of existing technologies, just specialized for what we do. Double hose vs. single hose isn't really a big leap forward, but having the ability to put a standard LP port on a double hose regulator is nice, a la Phoenix, but going from double hose to single hose didn't really make the sport better or safer, though some would argue it did the opposite.

The biggest innovation is/was the algorithms used to track decompression. Those were truly unique to scuba and are still evolving as we learn more about how the body deals with inert gas loading. Everything else is still just evolution and variation on a theme.
 
similar to aviation and automotive, and even marine boating to some extent, there really isn't much room for true innovation due to the limited design principles. There are only so many ways to convert high pressure gas to breathable pressures, and only so many ways to maintain neutral buoyancy, and only so many ways to stay warm.

That's pretty firmly "inside the box" thinking, no? Of course, that's what the industry thinks too, because we believe we are in the "breathing compressed gas underwater" business.

And even if we wanted to be THAT narrow, why has no one invented a little tiny scuba unit (maybe a spare air on a belt with a first stage on it) that certified divers who have pools can play with? Would certainly expose more potential divers to the sport as they see their neighbors having fun in their backyard pool. Not saying it's a great idea... but it's certainly an obvious application of existing "existing design principles."

There are plenty of other endeavors - sports in particular - that have undergone dramatic revolutions with little or no enhancement of "design principles."

---------- Post added November 24th, 2014 at 10:35 PM ----------

Photography isn't really a diving innovation because none of the innovations were originally intended for scuba diving, they were intended for extreme sports in the GoPro realm, and general photography in the SLR/Video realm. Not a whole lot you can do for housings, can only get so small realistically, and that's just evolution. A Gopro is the same technology as your cell phone camera, just optimized in a nice tight package that can now broadcast wifi.

I agree completely that digital photography/videography has not had an "innovation impact" on diving. This is not unexpected when you think about it; scuba has always been about "seeing pretty fishies" and taking pictures/video of them has been a large part of the sport since it's very inception. But one only needs to spend a half day on a ski slope, skate park, or mountain bike trail to see how things like GoPro have dramatically impacted other activities.
 
Diving is like like bicycles. First there was just a seat, wheels, handle bars, and one speed. Through the years in has evolved to what we have now with multiple gears, lights, computers, high tech materials, but it's still just a frame with a seat and wheels that you peddle.
 
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1) improved materials: ie: silicone vs rubber
2) thermal protection (neoprene / dry suits vs rubber)
3) miniaturization (compare dive lights/cameras 'now' vs 'then')
4) ready access to HP 'air', old tanks were like 1800 psi vs 3000- 3500 psi today.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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