Don’ t believe for one minute that the oldfashioned hand signal is on the way out. The immediacy and universality of hand signals underwater is such that they will always be the go-to means of communication for recreational divers. That said, I think that there’ s a place for text messaging, especially in low viz or lost buddy situations. It’ s another tool to aid underwater communication, but it doesn’ t rewrite the fundamentals of diving safety.
Nuts and bolts
So much for the blips and the scripts, now let’ s take a closer look at the computer. As already stated, it’ s a premium smartwatch weighing in at 80.5g without the rubber strap. The case is made of Zirconium-based liquid metal and the 1.5 inch AMOLED display is housed behind sapphire glass. It’ s rated to 20 ATM( 200m) and will function as a trimix computer to 150m.
There’ s a builtin microphone and speakers for taking calls, and NFC( near-field communication) for contactless payments. You’ ll need to pair the watch with a smartphone that supports Android 6.0 or iOS 12.0, or later versions.
To set up the watch, download the Huawei app, then run through a fairly extensive set of options while it pairs with your Ultimate 2. Why so many options? It’ s mostly to do with the health and fitness monitoring, where privacy issues come to bear on your use of the computer. The primary focuses are diving and golf, but Huawei offers a seemingly endless array of activities that can be tracked, logged and stored.
You can personalise many aspects of this device, including selecting the watch face from the 10 stored on the watch itself, or the hundreds of alternatives available via the app. Some of the options require payment.
To set it to dive mode, you press an‘ options’ button on the top right, prompting a series of icons to appear on the face. The top right button turns to toggle through the options, or you can select by touching the screen itself. The bottom right button is‘ select’, so it’ s all quite straightforward and intuitive. Pressing these little buttons would be hopeless in thick neoprene gloves, so you’ d have to set it all up well in advance of diving, including gas selection, timers and so on. The dive modes are standard stuff:‘ Recreational Dive’;‘ Freedive’;‘ Technical Dive’ and‘ Gauge’. You also get a Dive
Tools section with an NDL calculator and a decompression calculator.
Some readers may not feel comfortable with the level of information Huawei’ s app seeks to glean from your activities. This is very much down to the individual. Personally, I avoid giving away any unnecessary data to any organisation, especially my health records. That being said, I doubt my dive profiles and gas consumption rates will be of much interest to any‘ bad actors’ intercepting my data.
Underwater, it’ s great. The screen is bright and clear and there’ s a logical display of all the necessary data. Your oxygen percentage appears at the top in small white digits, while below‘ depth’ appears below in blue and‘ No Decompression Limit’( NDL) commands the centre in a green block. Dive time is presented at the bottom in high-viz white. You can disable the sound, reducing the alert sounds to a more discrete vibration. I’ ve lost track of the number of times I’ ve seen some sensitive marine creature flee when faced with the discordant refrain of beeping nitrox and NDL alerts.
Smart choice?
This is one of the more costly smartwatches on the market, its closest competitor being the Apple Watch Ultra 3(£ 749). Despite being a long term Apple user, I was disappointed at that company’ s licensing scheme for diving functionality on its smartwatches.
Going back to the Ultimate 2... yes it’ s a good dive computer, but does it justify the £ 799 price tag for the black edition, or £ 899 for the Ultimate 2 Blue? It really depends on how much you crave those other capabilities. If you’ re already using a Huawei phone, then you’ ll be familiar with
The trimix function works to a maximum of 150 metres
Adding a buddy for underwater messaging
the Harmony OS operating system and it will work well for you. Similarly, if you are seriously into sports and fitness tracking, this computer has cutting edge functionality.
The Ultimate 2’ s battery life is solid given all this constant health tracking, but you can’ t think of it in the same way as you would a no-frills, dedicated dive computer. It can go 4.5 days on a charge with typical use, or a notional 11 days in power saver mode and light use. However, dive modes eat up battery power. Strictly speaking, you should hook it up it to its wireless SuperCharger at the end of each day... unless you’ re monitoring your sleep patterns as well. Simon Rogerson
SCUBA SAYS
For fitness fanatics and existing Huawei users, the Ultimate 2 is a persuasive package, especially with the DolphinComms underwater texting. It’ s a top end wristwatch computer, though casual users may find most of its functionality distracting rather than essential.
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