Dive Watches – Safety Equipment and Training Metrics
Dive Watches – Safety Equipment and Training Metrics
Dive watches have gone from a luxury piece of dive gear to being considered almost essential safety equipment over the past decade. There are a wide range of options for free dive watches that vary in capabilities and price.
Dive Watches for Safety
Watches have gained popularity as safety equipment, and rightfully so. Increased research and data from freediving instruction has helped to build a wealth of knowledge about the risks of freediving. The greatest risk being shallow water blackout. The best way to prevent shallow water blackout is to ensure you have a proper breathe up and recovery times from previous dives. The general rule of thumb for most freediving is recovering for three (3) times the time of your dive. This allows you to properly oxygenate your body and prevent a Carbon Dioxide buildup in your body.
The watch is helpful because it automatically keeps track of depth, time at depth, and surface time. Those are the minimum requirements for a watch to be considered a dive watch. The simplest and most affordable dive watch is the Salvimar One Dive Watch. For a reasonable price it gives you the tools necessary to dive safely.
Dive Watches for Training
The other benefit to dive watches is for training metrics. Because they are able to store data from your dives it helps identify areas you can improve as a diver. The bare minimum watches don’t have the best means of transferring data. The Sunnto D4f and the Oceanic F-10 are both great mid level free dive watches that have improved durability. Many of the higher quality watches have apps available on your phone that transfer data via bluetooth. They show your diving data in easily understood graphs and charts and help you improve further. They also have the added benefit of depth and time alarms you can set to help keep you from exceeding your limits while diving.
Other Available Benefits
Some watches, like the Garmin watches, have built in GPS’s which help you to zero your spots while you are diving. They also are useful for active lifestyles that other Garmin products are renowned for. If you want an easy to use watch that is good for freediving, scuba diving, running, hiking, biking, and any other activity you can think of this watch is hard to beat. For more details on the features of Garmin watches check them out here.
