TESTCENTRE
Descent S1 Buoy
COMPANY: GARMIN PRICE: £ 2,129.99 WEB: WWW. GARMIN. COM
Diver to surface comms... with a wristwatch
One of the more interesting innovations in diver communications over recent years has been Garmin’ s SubWave network. This sonar-based technology is an air-integrated system which allows not only an individual diver to monitor his or her gas consumption, but also up to five others. It also has the
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capability to message one another at distances up to 10 metres.
Thankfully this doesn’ t involve lots of furious thumb actions as you type‘ out of gas,’ but uses pre-prepared messages that can be quickly exchanged. All well and good for those underwater, but there wasn’ t a mechanism for communicating with support
Deploying the Descent S1 Buoy boats at the surface. This issue is a perennial reality in recreational diving, which our commercial cousins have excellent comms built into their umbilical systems. Garmin’ s Descent S1 Buoy aims to rectify this age-old conundrum using the same SubWave ecosystem to provide all the above information to the surface, combined with realtime diver tracking while also acting as a navigational device to allow up to eight divers to home in on the buoy for their return journey. The buoy itself is small and rather unobtrusivelooking, with a grey frame / body, topped with a red cover. It’ s compact, lightweight and easily transported or stowed away on a hardboat or RIB. It’ s operated via a simple, single push-button and uses a
LED light to indicate when pairing and in operation. Each individual diver must be equipped with a Descent T2 Transceiver / transmitter, paired with a compatible Descent X50i or Mk3i computer. The Mk2i can be used too, but will only receive, not send messages. If you’ re setting up the SubWave system for the first time then it’ s important to make sure that each device has been updated with the latest software.
The S1 uses the same clip-on charger as its Descent watch range – a full charge should last in the region of 15 hours. The LED indicator shows solid green for 100 % capacity, slow flashing green for 75-99 %, rapid flashing green for 25-74 % and flashing orange when below 24 %.
Switching on requires a two-second press to the button. This instigates a beep followed by a tone, and it flashes white until your device is connected. A five second press turns off the buoy. Creating a diver / surface network requires just a little setting up, initially pairing computer to transmitter then to the buoy. This can be done via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and is a relatively straightforward process. Once paired, they remain so each time the buoy is activated.
The Garmin Dive App is the crucial component which links computers, divers and the buoy. Topside, the dive supervisor is able to see each named diver’ s position, depth and gas consumption either as an