Garmin entering the dive industry?

[stuartv]

The manual has now been posted, over in the Garmin forums.

@diver_dj : The manual doesn't have any mention of an Auto-On feature? No "setting" for enabling/disabling auto-on? That is kind of surprising.

 

[Rhyno]

Everything I seen (including the instruction manual) describes how to manually switch the device to dive mode before starting a dive. Question - if you don't do that, will it automatically go into dive mode at a certain depth?

Yes, it will. At ~4 ft depth it will auto start the last dive mode you used. (Single-gas/ multi-gas/ gauge/ apnea/ apnea hunt)

 

[stuartv]

The manual says there is a back light? Huh??

I thought it was a color screen with a reflective film behind it and no back light that one would turn on. Just a variable brightness.

I'm confused.

@diver_dj : The user manual says right on p.2 that will start the dive automatically when you descent to 4'.

 

[Landstander]

The manual says there is a back light? Huh??

I thought it was a color screen with a reflective film behind it and no back light that one would turn on. Just a variable brightness.

I'm confused.

Yes, it has a configurable backlight setting for dive mode. By default it's set to "At Depth", which turns it on at a depth of about 20 feet, with a default brightness level of 20%. You can also set it to "Always On", which keeps it at the configured brightness level for the entire duration of dive mode. In both cases, pressing the top left button will bump the backlight to 100% for the configured timeout interval (the default is 8 seconds).

I've found the "At Depth" setting to work pretty well, provided that I'm not doing a night dive. My eyes like a backlight setting of 50% much better than the default, however, but you're really getting into the realm of personal preferences at that point.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I'm another Descent tester, who got into the program thanx to @Rhyno's recommendation. I'm not employed by Garmin, and all opinions expressed are my own.

 

[Nick Ruberg]

Hi guys,
Quite a lot of interest in this computer. Is it still possible to join the testing programme?

Nick

 

[The Chairman]

Garmin started shipping this week. It appears that I'm on a short list to get one, and it might get here before I leave for Bonaire. Now you'll be able to buy your PDC at Best Buy.

 

[DoubleAA]

Picked mine up tonight.

 

[The Chairman]

I got mine yesterday!

 

[mdb]

Picked mine up tonight. View attachment 441624

That is one very clean looking instrument..

 

[The Chairman]

It's been fun learning it here on the surface.

I love that I can see my heart rate. I was able to change the back light, but have yet to figure out how to adjust the contrast. I'm heading for Bonaire on Saturday, so I'll get to give it a good workout.