Decisions on a Dive Computer

[jadairiii]

Dont know how they are currently but all the Suunto's I've see were ridiculously conservative. My buddy had a Nitrox Sunnto back in the mid 2000's and I had an Oceanic "puck" air computer, by our second dive he would be in deco and I would still have bottom time!! (yes, I know not to trust liberal computers, blah, blah....) It still sucked for him.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Dont know how they are currently but all the Suunto's I've see were ridiculously conservative. My buddy had a Nitrox Sunnto back in the mid 2000's and I had an Oceanic "puck" air computer, by our second dive he would be in deco and I would still have bottom time!! (yes, I know not to trust liberal computers, blah, blah....) It still sucked for him.

That’s one of three reasons I gave. Funny how people get triggers by one.

 

[Scuba Client]

If you're only diving 18 metres, you only need a depth gauge (wrist mount) SPG and compass.

 

[rongoodman]

Dont know how they are currently but all the Suunto's I've see were ridiculously conservative. My buddy had a Nitrox Sunnto back in the mid 2000's and I had an Oceanic "puck" air computer, by our second dive he would be in deco and I would still have bottom time!! (yes, I know not to trust liberal computers, blah, blah....) It still sucked for him.

You can set up a Shearwater to be very conservative too, if you want. The difference is that you know you're doing it, and how.

 

[Wibble]

You can set up a Shearwater to be very conservative too, if you want. The difference is that you know you're doing it, and how.

The difference being that it's a standard algorithm; Bhulmann + gradient factors. This is well understood and a dive 'team' will often talk about this during the pre-dive planning.

The Suunto proprietary RGBM has an "attitude" setting which even at -2, the most "aggressive", still keeps you in the water when ZHL16-B/C with 50:80 gradient factors has cleared your deco. This isn't cautious, this is silly. The algorithm seems to like to keep you deeper too, so if you're diving with someone using ZHL, you're both going to end up spending more time at decompression than on the bottom.

 

[yle]

I was in Coz last month and had a brief conversation with an older gentleman who was complaining about the conservative nature of Suuntos. He claimed a Suunto wouldn't "allow" him to stay under as much as he likes to.

I told him he just needed to chose the right setting: gauge mode. I told him all Suuntos offer this option, and if he chooses this option the computer will "allow" him to stay under as long as he likes.

I hear a lot of anecdotes about people getting so upset with Suunto conservatism, and yet I've been using one for years and have never felt restricted. My week of diving in Coz last month: a two-tank trip every morning, 55 to 70 minutes per dive, my son and I were always the last up from our boat (he has a Suunto also.)

I'm thinking maybe I'm just really good at optimizing the Suunto algorithm to my dives, because I've been using it for so long it's just second nature. Never once have I felt I needed to switch to a different computer, let alone throw it overboard.

Also, as I explain to my students, my dive computer is like a dashboard: it just gives me information, entirely up to me to decide what to do with it. My DC does not "allow" me to do anything.

 

[yle]

My beef with Suunto was that I bought a D9tx which was sold as a tech diving computer. Shortly after it was "upgraded" to the DX which allegedly even included CCR!

So... you spent a lot of money on a D9tx, after thoroughly researching its features and deciding that it was a computer that met your needs? But you're upset because they later released an improved model?

Yeah... I'm upset too. I bought a new car a few years ago. They told me it was the latest model with all the latest technology. Then shortly after, the next year, they released the new model with upgraded technology. They tricked me, those rascals!

I get upset a lot, and I'm sure you do also, since just about every company tricks me into buying things and then later creates an improved version.

Seriously though, I do appreciate your post. Your logic is pretty typical of people that have a "beef" with Suunto.I do find it fascinating that one DC company can attract so much ire and yet still stay in business (and even sell their computers for a premium.)

 

[yle]

the issue I have with Suunto isn't that they had hardware failures - it was how they treated their customers. rather than do the right thing it took a class action suit to force them to take responsibility.

Yup, this is fair. Suunto customer service suffers on two fronts: first, they hand off distribution in the US to another company (used to be Aqualung, now it's not...) so when problems arise Suunto can claim the distributor needs to handle it, while the distributor will claim Suunto needs to handle it. So no one handles it. (This seems to be what happened in the issue that became the class-action.)

Second front, it's possible that the company culture at Suunto is such that they can't believe their products could fail. So they just don't know how to respond when it does. Not an excuse, just an observation.

Ironically, my opinion of Suunto is from never having to deal with their customer service, as I've never had a problem with any of mine (five Suuntos between me and my son... two were bought in 2008.)

 

[formernuke]

Seriously though, I do appreciate your post. Your logic is pretty typical of people that have a "beef" with Suunto.I do find it fascinating that one DC company can attract so much ire and yet still stay in business (and even sell their computers for a premium

Marketing and people refusing to admit they bought junk. I admit my mistake in buying two as my first computers. I learned from it.

But I'd you want to spend money on a company with well known quality control issues and horrible after sale customer service go right ahead. I'll support good company's

 

[yle]

My beef with Suunto was that I bought a D9tx which was sold as a tech diving computer. Shortly after it was "upgraded" to the DX which allegedly even included CCR!

The thing's sitting in a box of old dive crap along with a shaker, a quacker, and a bunch of yellow crap which needs to be thrown out.


The problem is somehow Suunto have made their computers mind-numbingly difficult to use with ridiculous features and a hideously complex four button user interface (with short and long presses, so effectively 8 buttons!)

Serious offer: if you are talking about throwing out your D9tx, I'll buy it from you instead. You're right about the menus being a little complex, but I have them figured out. Sounds like your D9 would be worth much more to me than it is to you, even though I already have a D4 and D6. I'd find use for the D9 sometime.

Let me know. If you want to get rid of it and would rather have some cash instead of throwing it in the trash, maybe we can make it a win-win.