Dive Computer Recharger

[rox@ucf11]

Hey manufaturers have you guys thought of makeing the usb upload and download cable on the various computers being able to recharge the battery kind of like the Ipod charger I think this would be a great idea and would be nice to see it in some dive computers in the future

[KGNickl]

That would be a cool feature. But most dive computer use so little battery and last so long I don't think its a big deal like with cameras.

[Mycroft]

I hav ehad my current computer for 8 years. 2 years ago, it went in for service and came back with a new battery, amongst the changes. So now the battery is still above 90%. Rechargable batteries will never last that long. And with the free batteries for life program, I don't pay for battery changes.

[CompuDude]

Better would be the ability to transfer dive data via bluetooth to rid ourselves of custom cables (and the risk of exposed contacts) once and for all. ScubaPro has the right idea with IR, but bluetooth would be even better, since IR is no longer as common as it once was.

[Zeagle Eagle]

Originally Posted by CompuDude

Better would be the ability to transfer dive data via bluetooth to rid ourselves of custom cables (and the risk of exposed contacts) once and for all. ScubaPro has the right idea with IR, but bluetooth would be even better, since IR is no longer as common as it once was.

I'll second that opinion. Do you hear that manufacturers... Give us bluetooth or perish. I want a bluetooth mask and a bluetooth computer. I also want to be able to see what my dive buddies computer is reading at the push of a button too. Some kind of GPS would be nice too.

[fisheater]

And while they're at it, why not open source the cheesy software? I'm sure that the diving nerd community would greatly improve the software, enhancing the desirability of the computers and increasing sales. The cost to the manufacturers? Nada.

[CompuDude]

Originally Posted by fisheater

And while they're at it, why not open source the cheesy software? I'm sure that the diving nerd community would greatly improve the software, enhancing the desirability of the computers and increasing sales. The cost to the manufacturers? Nada.

If they would simply publish the specs for their computer's data format, anyone who wanted to could write software that would flawlessly import and work with the data from any computer. (Like divinglog.de does) That would accomplish our goal much better, with much less legal risk to the manufacturer (if someone monkeys with their software and it messes something up, I could see potential for bad things... very different from simply letting those who are interested read the raw data from the computers).

[hooligan]

My Citizen Cyber Aqualand Nx is rechargable. I don't know if the citizen usb cradle charges the computer or not because I use the IR feature for data transmission. The other thing I like about my citizen is that the battery charger takes normal AA batteries and I just snap the watch into the charger and it will top off the watch battery. No cables, no laptop/usb, and no power outlet needed. I agree that bluetooth would be better, but right now my laptop has a built in IR port so I'm ok with that.

[SynCitizen]

It does seem that with all the tech that goes into DC's in general someone would have integrated blue tooth some time ago. My guess is that they make a huge amount of money selling the lame proprietary data cables for $100+ a piece that are universally not universal.