use than wrist-style computers, but clearly the
team at Oceanic thinks like I do, because I had no
problems at all with the Geo4.Functions
In Time mode you can set day, date and time,
in US or UK formats and, using 12- or 24-hour
notation, set a variety of alarms.
You can even display two time zones if
travelling, so the daily call home can be timed to
cause minimum annoyance.
This is a two-gas – air and nitrox – computer, so
will more than cover the diving requirements of
most divers, few of whom use more than one gas-
mix per dive. You can pre-set depth and time
alarms, or switch them off, turn deep stops and
safety stops on and off and lots more,
customising the Geo4 to suit your style of diving,
and can use it as a back-up in Gauge mode or to
monitor your freediving.
Download the free DiverLog+ app and you can
sync your phone or other mobile device to your
Geo4 via Bluetooth and make all your
adjustments from your device, as well as
downloading dives for logging.
I did this, and it works very well, but once I had
the computer set up as I wanted it I found it easier
and quicker to adjust gas-mixes using the buttons
on the computer. Being somewhat Luddite,to interrogate, and was a world away
in terms of features and usability
from the similarly priced Oceanic
Geo4 I’ve just been using.
In other ways, however, the Geo 4
was a 21st-century version of my first
computer, and I found myself using it
as though I’d owned it for years.
I’m not sure that Oceanic will like
the comparison, but it is meant as
a compliment.The Design
The Geo4 is a watch-style dive computer that
comes with two different-length straps, so it’ll fit
your wrist or around the cuff of your drysuit.
It’s powered by a user-replaceable battery, and
there’s a special tool in the box for changing it.
Also in the box is a clear glass protector film to
cover the face of the computer and provide
protection against scratches, and a Quick Start
guide that I did need to check very early on.
The unit is supplied in a state of hibernation
and needs to be woken up by pressing the
right buttons. After two minutes of futile and
increasingly annoyed and frantic button pushing,
I did a very non-male thing and read the
instructions to discover which the right buttons
to press actually were. After that, everything was
sweetness and light.
I then downloaded the full manual and, of
course, hardly needed it.
My Geo4 was all-black, though it also comes in
white and there are five optional coloured straps.
It sat on my wrist quite comfortably.
I don’t wear a wristwatch normally but didn’t
find myself noticing it in everyday wear, except
when I needed the time. Given that the Geo4 is
a decent size, that’s good.
The model essentially has two operating
modes, Watch/Time and Dive. If you’re in
Watch mode, a long press of the
appropriate button takes you to Dive
mode, and vice versa.
Once in the relevant mode, you can
select parameters to adjust, scroll up and
down menus to select values and
confirm settings with ease.
My first reservation about watch-style
computers is that they are often less intuitive toMY FIRST DIVE COMPUTER COST £313, a
sufficiently odd price for it to stick in my mind,
and it revolutionised my diving.
Like the rest of the club I’d been using the BSAC
88 tables, and while it’s possible to plan a multi-
level profile with them, it’s actually quite difficult if
you don’t know how deep you’re going or the site
you’re going to dive before you leave.
This might sound odd, but my club dived the
Farne Islands a lot and the final choice of site was
made on the day, based on factors such as where
the boat-driver fancied going, where other clubs
were diving and how much more chugging
around the divers onboard could take before
everyone heaved.
In those conditions it’s tough to know if you’re
going to 20m or 30m or, sometimes, stay shallow
enough to need only a snorkel, so there was a lot
of use of the submersible tables that came with
the 88 set. And I forgot to reset the bezel on my
diving watch a lot too, so had to add guesswork
to the overall calculation. Those were the days.
Using the computer, I could just drop in, keep
an eye on my depth and gas and surface safely
without having to worry about transfer tables, C
codes or anything like that, and especially without
worrying about setting my blasted watch.
I used my new computer for the first time at
Scapa Flow, and very quickly realised that by
moving a bit shallower, and then shallower still as
the dive progressed, I could extend my dive-time
considerably without the mandatory deco
required by others still on tables.
Well, I could as soon as I got a buddy who also
had a computer.
I mention all this because that £313 computer
was air only, sampled data at three-minute
intervals, was accessed using
three fingers that you
licked and touched
to recessed pinsWELL AND TRULY
divErNEt.comBuy one of each of
the items on test this
month – dive-computer,
mask and action-cam –
and you’d come away
with change from £500. Are they good value?
STEVE WARREN and MIKE WARDfind outCOMPUTER
OCEANIC GEO4
divEr 70