Coming Soon – PADI® Certification Cards Transition to PADI eCards™

[Steve_C]

When I am going to be diving, the actual dive part, not traveling to the dive location, I do not take a laptop with me I often do not take my phone with me. A piece of plastic is simpler, waterproof, and does the job.

 

[TMHeimer]

Doubt it fits well into this thread, but years ago I did about 5 specialties in 3 months in Florida. So the (plastic of course) cards had to be sent from RSM Cal. to Canada. Mail U.S. to Canada can be an adventure. Finally after a month or more I informed PADI they hadn't arrived. They sent me all the cards again....no charge. The original ones came after they said they would send the replacements. So, I had duplicates (what's that, about $200 worth of extra cards?). Recently I did lose one, but I had a free replacement!

 

[emoreira]

When I am going to be diving, the actual dive part, not traveling to the dive location, I do not take a laptop with me I often do not take my phone with me. A piece of plastic is simpler, waterproof, and does the job.

It doesn't matter if you don't have your phone or PC with you. If you can show your credential in Internet to the Dive Shop it's enough. Every Dive Shop has Internet connection and a PC in the counter. You can show your credential in the agency web site or in your cloud site like Dropbox, Google docs or Microsoft One drive.

 

[Steve_C]

It doesn't matter if you don't have your phone or PC with you. If you can show your credential in Internet to the Dive Shop it's enough. Every Dive Shop has Internet connection and a PC in the counter. You can show your credential in the agency web site or in your cloud site like Dropbox, Google docs or Microsoft One drive.

Not every dive is done from a dive shop. For example one of the local quarries has no electronics there.

 

[tursiops]

Every Dive Shop has Internet connection and a PC in the counter.

That would be nice, but there are plenty of examples that contrdict your statement.

 

[ToneNQ]

I recall PADI eCards starting as a Project AWARE sales pitch in 2008. I never saw a customer get it. Noone would pay extra for PADI to not do something. They'll be able to have fees for this in their resorts and the DSD factory boats where PADI has saturation coverage. How it goes in local shops will depend on how they deploy this.

My recent SDI/TDI experience is that my account shows all my credentials, the elearnings completion as well as the certification. My local shop prints the cards on the spot, ie hang around for 15mins after the trip returns and they wrap up the cert.

 

[HKGuns]

Anyone who is traveling to dive should already have pictures of their plastic cards on their phone. I have pictures of most of my important cards in case they are lost or stolen.

 

[macado]

You know this is kind of funny.. I sat through a PADI Member Update Forum approximately 3 years ago where the corporate PADI sales representative was trying to explain why and how we should be trying to SELL PADI eCards to all our students. He was trying to give a very convincing sales pitch on the value of selling an electronic record and using the PADI App. When we asked why this wasn't free in the first place, we got back a pretty snide remark that "all this computer infrastructure cost money to build and develop" (not completely untrue).

This was at a time when other agencies (I won't mention names) were already giving eCards away for free.

I feel bad the the PADI students that paid for their eCards...

 

[TMHeimer]

I recall PADI eCards starting as a Project AWARE sales pitch in 2008. I never saw a customer get it. Noone would pay extra for PADI to not do something. They'll be able to have fees for this in their resorts and the DSD factory boats where PADI has saturation coverage. How it goes in local shops will depend on how they deploy this.

My recent SDI/TDI experience is that my account shows all my credentials, the elearnings completion as well as the certification. My local shop prints the cards on the spot, ie hang around for 15mins after the trip returns and they wrap up the cert.

I did a bunch of specialties in 2008 and had the option of paying $5 extra for each plastic card to have an AWARE picture on it. Guess what I did.

 

[ScubaWithTurk]

Others have stated what I a about to say but yet people are still complaining about having to open apps.

Every ecard I have ever received is on my phone. I screenshot it and therefore I no longer need to open an app. Super simple. As divers who are supposed to be guardians of the oceans shouldn't we be happy about any agency who is finally going away from plastic cards?