COBALT-2 wishlist

[drrich2]

I've been skimming back over the thread & mulling over suggestions. To me, they fall into 3 categories; 1.) Compelling, 2.) Neat to have, 3.) Trivial or don't apply to me. For me:

1.) Compelling - the feature I noted previously, as in the new LiquiVision Lynx, to have the unit detect the direction to find another transmitter - such as a dive buddy or the boat. This technology could be put in both your console & future wrist forms, giving versatility to paired or group divers since a console buddy & a wrist buddy could find each other.

2.) Between Neat & Compelling - GPS functionality. MacDive has a feature where you can pull up a map & pin your dive site. Neat. Now think about those 'unmarked' shore dives done in Bonaire, or the times you dove while on a cruise ship exclusion & didn't get the name of the site, etc... While GPS doesn't work underwater, if the unit would log the entry & exit coordinates, we'd know where we dove, and between entry & exit, in which direction we headed, & how far we went.

2.) Neat - the autoinduction battery charing & blue tooth computer interface to avoid bothering with a USB or power cable. Of course, there'd be some sort of base for the autoinduction charging.

3.) Neat - a console add-on to easily mount an analogue compass for those of us who don't like digital.

Richard.

 

[jlevine]

Hi,

I recently purchased an Atomic Cobalt and have had a good experience with it. Having said that, I have a few suggestions.

(1) The display has a lot of glare in sunlight, more so than my previous Suunto Cobra. An anti-glare screen or screen protector would be a nice improvement.

(2) In addition to a phone number, it would be nice for the owner to be able to enter his/her e-mail address.

(3) I'd really like to see a case for this. I hear it's coming soon.

Thanks!

 

[Atomic Aquatics]

Hello Everyone...Thanks for all the incredible ideas! I know Ron has looked through countless times and responded to many. Jlevine...The case will be out shortly. I know we received a large shipment and they are in QC (Quality Control) before being ready for distribution.

Atomic Aquatics

 

[RonR]

Yes, we do pay close attention to these posts- many of the ideas are things we are already working on, but it's always valuable to hear how people would want to be able to use the Cobalt.

Ron

 

[kevincasey]

What is the negative wish list? If a "stripped down" and less expensive version of the Cobalt were offered, what would people want to do without? Would a non-integrated Cobalt be something users would like to see? One that ran from a AA battery? A TFT color display (like the Petrel) that was nearly as good as the OLED?

I really like the idea of a Cobalt "light", something that would work as a non-integrated backup. It would be nice to be on a trip with the knowledge that I have a backup computer that more closely matches my primary. I think this would work well with the option to buy a male QD fitting that would accept any standard pressure gauge. The QD option would also work well for anybody teaching, boat scrubbing, doing dock work, etc.

And since it's a backup to an already expensive (and beautiful) computer, I would forego a color screen and rechargeable battery to keep both the size and cost down.

With respect to ideas for the full-blown Cobalt, though...

• I'd like to see the primary gas menu changed from a fixed list of three to an infinite list. I seem to have collected a variety of tanks – aluminum and steels with pressures including 2250psi, 2400psi, 2640psi, 3000psi, 3300psi, and 3442psi. It would be nice to just select the tank and "make primary" whenever I switch instead of having to redefine one of the additional mixes. (This of course, is all being done out of the water. I don't do any in-water gas switching – yet!)
• It would be nice to have the option to define what surface interval defines a new dive. It's not uncommon to have my dives logged as a single dive, but downloaded as multiple, repetitive dives. Certainly not a deal breaker, but it would be nice. (I understand that this is probably defined by your RGBM model, but perhaps it could be something just affecting the transfer of dives?)
• I like the idea of Bluetooth connectivity, but that would be a really low priority since it depends on third party support (e.g. Dive Log for iOS).
• The USB connectivity option is extraordinarily well buried. It certainly doesn't need to be a top level menu item, but "Settings > System Informations > USB > (SELECT)" seems like it's something you don't expect people to ever use. I bet you could swap it into the settings menu for something like "Personal Info" or "Calibrate". It's not even really a setting, if you think about it intuitively. I could see it getting moved into the "Dive Log" menu...
• Finally, I like knowing that the device has the engine to handle trimix. Maybe someday I will grow into that. Perhaps, instead of having one interface that has a hundred little options for this and for that, technical users could be given the option to flash the device with a different firmware that would expose the more advanced options.

Thanks for your thoughtful and responsive replies!
Kevin

 

[GMScuba]

I love my Cobalt but I have just two minor complaints that I would like to see resolved. Now I know I have mentioned this before in another thread, but having the Cobalt start a new dive after being on the surface for two minutes can be a real pain. Since I work as a Divemaster, there are times when working with students, we may come to the surface for longer than 2 minutes but less than 10 minutes. On another computer that I have used, it didn't register a new dive until after 10 minutes of being at the surface. If this can't be done, at least have an option to combine multiple dives together on the computer somehow.

My second complaint is the responsiveness of the compass. I love the fact that it has a digital compass. The students and the staff that I work salivate over this, however the compass is not responsive enough. Now granted, this is almost comparing apples to oranges, but what would make the compass perfect is if the compass could be as responsive as a compass on an iPhone. The slightest change in direction on the iPhone is reflected on the display.

 

[RonR]

Good comments all. The issue with multiple dives after a short surface interval is tough. The two minute figure is when the algorithm sees it as being a repetitive dive for deco purposes. However, we do want to look at ways to merge such short dives in the log. And I know what you mean about the compass- it's about as fast as we can make it update with this microprocessor- Apple has far more processing power, and a dedicated graphics chip- we are a bit more constrained in that department, and do give priority to deco calculations over updating the compass display. That said, we are looking at improvements in that area, so stay tuned.

Ron

 

[Akimbo]

How difficult would it be to change firmware so the display update rate for depth is increased when the Cobalt calls for stops? There are times when there is no visual reference mid-water and the slow display rate and averaging make it much more difficult to hold a stop than with an expanded-scale analog gauge. I don't see a need to change what is recorded, only displayed.

 

[RonR]

How difficult would it be to change firmware so the display update rate for depth is increased when the Cobalt calls for stops? There are times when there is no visual reference mid-water and the slow display rate and averaging make it much more difficult to hold a stop than with an expanded-scale analog gauge. I don't see a need to change what is recorded, only displayed.

I'm not sure I understand. The depth is sampled every two seconds during a dive, and it is updated to the screen immediately if there is any change, which could be 1 ft or a tenth of a meter if you are in metric. The reading is an average of several samples that take place over a < 1 second span. So as it stands the most delay there should be in updating a depth reading is about two seconds. Is that not what you are seeing?

Ron

 

[Akimbo]

I'm not sure I understand.... Is that not what you are seeing?

Ron

Yes, that is about what I see. However, 1-2 seconds is a long time to drift up or down when the digital display is your only reference and you are swimming a heading. The cumulative effect of the delay, averaging, and rounding tends to cause over-correction. It isn’t just the actual vertical distance you travel, it is which side of halfway the number rounds to, which can exaggerate your perceived change over time. Let’s say you drift from 15.45' to 17.55' in 1½ seconds. That 2.1' of travel reads 14-18', or nearly twice the distance.

I was wondering why I was having so much trouble holding depth with dive computers compared to the days when I used a compass board with a gas-filled analog depth gauge (which has an expanded scale at shallower depths). It was easy to hold deviation to +/- 1' even at night. It finally occurred to me what was happening.

Try it yourself. Try holding depth at 10' using the Cobalt and blocking out all other visual reference. Have your buddy hang on a pier piling or on a down-line watching over you… using a rebreather would be cheating. A video would be interesting.

Just brainstorming here: What you really want is to make it easier for a diver to hold their stop. Instead of changing the depth display, what if you show an arrow at some higher frequency indicating that they are drifting up or down? I don’t know what the optimum sample and display rate would be but about 1/10th second would be a guess.