Open source, I see problems. Questions.

Genesis

I do not believe for a second that there is a way to stop people hellbent on killing themselves via stupidity.

I do, however, believe that there is a lot that can be done to make electronic devices either (1) not fail or (2) fail in such a way that the fact that they have died is detectable, rather than having them just display bad (incorrect) information.

(2) costs a LOT less than (1), and is just as effective most of the time in keeping people from killing themselves.

I honestly do not believe there is a market for RBs in the sub-100' depth regime, simply due to cost. The advantages of CCRs do not become particularly apparent at shallow depths and the price point at which all are sold at (even the Dolphin!) is beyond reasonable.

Until you can sell one for near the price of a decent OC regulator set you're in a market space where you've got a 3:1 to 5:1 or even more cost disadvantage.

(You can buy a very competent and complete OC dive set, with a pair of aluminum tanks, for under $1500. A BOV mouthpiece is half or more of that budget in the CCR world! Until you fix that problem there's no argument to be made for CCRs in the sub-100' depth range.)

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"A venturesome minority will always be eager to get off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks for Godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches - that is the right and privilege of any free American."
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http://www.diversunion.org/liability.htm - Fix the Diving Cert racket

PaulTG2

Hello,

If you produce better idiot proof systems, the world will produce better idiots.

There are alot of excellent analysis, concepts, thoughts, and discussions provoked from this project. That alone make it well worthwhile.

I do believe there may be a slight balance problem between ease of use, idiot proof systems, and the issues inherent in more complex systems. If a system has twice as many modules then it is likely to have twice as many failures. With more complex systems divers will have a far more difficult time determining what has gone wrong... and the chance of them getting the solution wrong increases. They rely more on the system diagonisis which causes an over reliance on the technology and less reliance on understanding it.

Two examples may help:

The first example: Many people assume a two engine aircraft is far safer than a single engine aircraft. What most people fail to notice is that you will have twice as many engine failures as a result. The chance of shutting down the good engine exists because the pilot mis-reads which engine died. The pilot has more options in a twine .... and more opportunities to make a mistakes.

The second example: Many systems have grown so complex it is difficult, if not impossible, for average people (and sometimes experts) to determine what has gone wrong. Microsoft Windows is an excellent example. It generally doesn't pay to actually try to find out what is going wrong... it's easier to just reboot the machine -- or reinstall the software. That's OK on the desktop... probably not OK on the decktop of a ship at 200' below the surface.

How do you balance the complex system against the idiot, against the mistakes, against failure.... hmm... figure that out and you'll be rich.

Here is the big, big, big rub. Training AND proficiency makes all the difference. PERFECT practice makes for PERFECT performance. Practice maintains proficiency which saves lives.

Bottom line truth: Wether a simple non-redundant system or a complex "fail-safe" system, the training and the diver's practices to maintain proficency will determine if they live or die when something goes wrong.

-p

Sponge-Bob

Its only a matter of time before the units are available to anybody who will pay the money on the second hand market. How long before they are on ebay?

A simple way to go would be just three simple courses

Recreational
Trimix 1
Trimix 2

Depending on your experience you can skip level one and go straight in TX. Once you have done your course and logged your hours a simple one day orientation should un-lock your unit to do what ever you wish with.

Its no different than OC Trimix. Once you get your cert there is nothing to stop you going as deep as you want. Since when did TX 1 ever stop people exceeding their depth limits? How many TX 1 divers are working at extreme depth?

Everybody is responsible for their own actions....Into infinity and beyond!

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Mike

Right idea, wrong way around.
You NEED to do level one on any rebreather - as that's where you learn how the specific rebreather is put together, and how it works. Where you learn that the manual O2 add is on the left and the loop runs counter clockwise etc.
However, once you've got that covered, there is no reason to repeat the trimix stuff if you've already done it on another rebreather. (Which is why CCR trimix certs should not be unit specific, but basic certs should be).

Alex - One thing that is confusing me is the cost of the trimix upgrade. You say that you can get the upgrade code just by doing a course, yet you also say that the trimix unit is more expensive.
Does this mean that to go from a nitrox to a trimix unit I'd need to pay BOTH the instructor, AND the manufacturer for the upgrade code?

If yes, you are, with all due respect, completely ****ing nuts if you think people are going to be happy paying ~$3k just so they can use a different gas in the unit that they already own. ($1.5k for the instructor, $1.5k for the manufacturer - you stated much more than 10% of the cost of the unit) Unless you discount the units to be cheaper than currently availiable units if sold as Nitrox units.
If no, how will you recoup the cost of manufacture of the units?

The whole code locking thing really just seems like a smokescreen to try and make the real cost of the unit look lower. I'm yet to meet a eccr diver who wasn't already doing deco dives, so the majority of the user base will need to pay full price, which seems to be: base nitrox cost + training + trimix course + training (+ full mix course + training). Sounds like a lot of cash...


Mike

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AD_ward9

This depends on the marketing channel and varies from client to client.

The feedback on this will be passed back to the clients and they may reassess their methods. At the moment, our clients like the idea of a firmware upgrade route rather than changing out hardware.

The whole purpose is to get eCCRs into use much earlier in diver's careers: even as Open Water units. Most divers do not do deco.

As regards the costs, the upgrades require an instructor or a card. We fully accept a trimix card on one unit is good for another unit, but the basic training on the unit has to be repeated when doing a swap over.

Alex

Genesis

Rebreathers will never be commercially successful so long as this sort of "tax" structure is imposed on users.

Do you really think that someone should have to buy a new card (take a class, etc) when they buy a new dive computer? Do you need a card to use a VR3 instead of a Suunto Vytec, and more importantly, should you be required to take a class before you can have the activation PIN for the VR3?

This sort of thing is a very nice "lock-in" for agencies and instructors, along with manufacturers. It is more commonly known as a "tied sale" in the United States, and it raises serious legal questions in many nations vis-a-vis anti-trust considerations, including in the United States.

The ugly part of these sorts of problems for manufacturers and agencies, if someone comes after a manufacturer or agency (or both!), is that violations of these laws (in the US again) entitle the person injured by them to treble damages as a matter of statute, and inherenty create a class action situation as well.

IMHO this has not gotten attention yet because the market is too small for anyone to find it worthwhile to press the issue.

Of course the hope you have is that the market will be very large. But if you are correct and it is, then suddenly it becomes worth it for an enterprising landshark to take a run at you.

Contractually requiring people to do this doesn't get around the problem; you can't enforce a contract to do an illegal thing.

IMHO if you're going to require a class at all there should be a generic CCR class.

If you do not write a user manual that is sufficiently complete that a person ordinarily skilled in diving a CCR can use your product safely (thereby requiring no class specific to your unit), then I would argue that by definition you are intentionally participating in a scheme to constrain trade by causing an "immediate deprecation of value" to take place in the form of the "throw away" cost of the class required (the "tied sale") to make the purchase.

This would never be tolerated by buyers of dive computers, and we should not tolerate it is in the Rebreather marketplace. Further, I do not believe that such a policy would withstand scrutiny should a critical mass of sold units be shipped that is sufficient to entice someone to take a run at you in the court system - at least in the US.

(note: IANAL, but I do understand the precepts of these matters, having paid for plenty of this sort of legal advice over the years)

__________________
"A venturesome minority will always be eager to get off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks for Godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches - that is the right and privilege of any free American."
http://www.denninger.net
http://www.diversunion.org/liability.htm - Fix the Diving Cert racket

AD_ward9

Can you clarify exactly what it is you are taking issue with. Is it:

1. Sale of a unit with training, such that once training is done, the unit is able to be used but not before? Nothing appears to be illegal in that.

2. Sale of a unit with additional hardware features that cannot be accessed, unless additional firmware and software is purchased and installed? Nothing illegal in that: software companies do it all the time, such as Cadence, Mentor, Synopsis when the packages run into millions of dollars per seat (ASIC design packages).

There is no question of the unit being sold without a manual that allows anyone to understand it full, if they study the manual sufficiently. One client is even considering an internet course.

Alex

Mark Chase

I trained on a Classic, I dived a vision, no big deel, I dived a Hammer Head no big deel same for the Shearwater unit

Christ i can even operate a VR3

All of them by reading the manual after finally running out of idea's on the primary learning rout of just pushing all the buttons and seeing what happens.

If this new controller needs more than a brief cross over course or in depth reading of the manual and a couple of try dives, its either too complicated or you underestimate us.

By the way I herd AP were doing a cross over course for the Classic to the Vision but I know very few people who bothered to do it. In fact apart from instructors i dont know any one?

ATB

Mark Chase

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I took my unit to the dive shop and demanded they bolt on every thing that would fit.

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Joe

Why?

Most OW divers who are not doing deco dives do not have the experience to fall back on to be able to effectively manage a crisis situaton. If you can do the dive as easily and effectively on an Al 80 why introduce the added risk of a Rebreather?

WRT trimix, either you understand mixed gas He diving or you do not. If you do not you probably do not need to be diving a Rebreather because IMO, the only valid reason to use a RB (excepting specialized uses such as photography) is to enhance the safety of extended range diving where the risk of the RB is overshadowed by the inherently greater risk of doing the dive on OC.

I do not believe rebreathers are for the masses and I think it is a mistake to encourage divers to get into Rebreather's until their diving evolves to the point where they have a need for one.

Genesis

You need to look at something called "forced tied sales" Alex. They are frequently violations of the law in the United States.

IBM got their tits in a knot over this back in the 1960s. It used to be that you could not buy an IBM mainframe unless you also purchased "maintenance and service", along with an operating system license, from them. This resulted in what was held to be an illegal tied sale arrangement, and IBM was forced to discontinue this practice.
That is legal provided that you do not also condition the purchase on a second tied sale (e.g. you can sell a Trimix PIN, but if you condition ITS sale on a second class you could get in trouble.)

The degree of scrutiny that such arrangements reach has to do with their effect on commerce. To the extent that any such "tied sale" requirements become "disposable", and therefore tend to promote destruction of the purchaser's value, they tend to lessen competition and are more likely to be ruled unlawful.

A class that is unit-specific by definition destroys the purchasers value as it conveys no value to the purchaser that is "durable." It is thus effectively a "tax" on the purchase of the unit and tends to lessen competition because it chills both resales of the units and mobility of users between vendors.

This is a "good thing" from the standpoint of the builders of the units and the vendors of said classes (after all, getting to sell the same thing to the same person more than one, and being given a mechanism to FORCE the second purchase is a boon to agencies and instructors) but paradoxially to the extent that this promotes unit builders' and instructors interests it increases the risk that such an arrangement will be ruled unlawful as it damages the consumer's interest and denigates rather than promotes competition.
A device that is not delivered with sufficient documentation that a person ordinarily skilled in the art of whatever it is that is being used (e.g. diving a CCR) can safely utilize it is, I would argue, in violation of the implied warranty of fitness for the purpose it is sold.

Requiring the purchase of a class (whether over the Internet or not) in which such information is conveyed does not "cure" this deficiency - if anything it exacerbates it due to the tied sale concerns.

Attempted parallels to "type ratings" for aircraft (which I've heard people attempt to draw before) are invalid. You can purchase an aircraft without any license whatsoever, and there is nothing preventing you from using it. That there may be a law prohibiting operation without a specific license is an entirely unrelated matter - governments are not subject to anti-trust constraints, but private corporations and citizens most certainly are.

I believe the only reason nobody's gotten sued in the rebreather space over this so far is that market penetration has been insufficient for an enterprising attorney to be interested in it. When you deliver 100 units even a "treble damages" award on the cost of the requisite training is only $450,000. That's not enough to be worth it.

Sell 10,000 units and add into this the potential for a racketeering allegation (collusive action between multiple vendors - sellers of units and training agencies, all acting in lock-step with their policies) and suddenly things change.

I suspect that somewhere before you reach 45 million reasons to chase this industry sufficient enticement for someone to take a run at it will be established.

Indeed, if what Gordon Smith told me a couple of years ago about WHY they started requiring certifications to purchase their units is correct (he stated that the agencies ALL told him they would not offer a class for his SPORT KISS unless he conditioned the sale of ALL of his units, including the Classic, on prior or concurrent purchase of a class from a recognized agency) then IMHO evidence of collusive activity with the intent to restrain trade would be trivially easy to establish.

I have no idea if that sort of thing is unlawful in Canada, but it sure as hell is in the United States.

__________________
"A venturesome minority will always be eager to get off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks for Godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches - that is the right and privilege of any free American."
http://www.denninger.net
http://www.diversunion.org/liability.htm - Fix the Diving Cert racket