The Scuba Gear Lab

Best Dive Computers for Extended Liveaboard Trips

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When you're diving four or five times a day for a week straight, miles from the nearest dive shop, that dive computer you love on weekend trips might completely fail you. This episode tackles the specific demands liveaboard diving places on your gear, from battery life that actually lasts through 35+ dives to algorithms that won't leave you bent by day five. Ray Hollister draws on four decades of commercial and recreational diving experience to explain why most dive computers aren't built for intensive multi-day use—and which ones are.

  • User-replaceable AA batteries beat rechargeable units for liveaboards. Rechargeable computers claiming 15–20 hours often die by day four or five under real conditions, while AA lithium batteries deliver 30–40 hours and can be swapped in 90 seconds with a coin.
    • Algorithm conservatism matters more on liveaboards than any other diving. Aggressive RGBM variants without gradient factor adjustments have left divers exhausted and bent by mid-trip, even when technically staying within no-deco limits.
      • Your computer should penalize repetitive diving appropriately, getting progressively more conservative as the week continues rather than treating your fifth dive of the day the same as your first.
        • O-ring specifications reveal a lot about durability. Look for Viton or silicone seals, double o-rings with grease channels on battery compartments, and bonded rather than pressure-fitted screens. If a manufacturer won't publish their o-ring specs, they're not expecting you to service the computer in the field.
          • Exposed metal charging contacts are a liability. They corrode after a week of saltwater exposure even with daily freshwater rinses—magnetic charging is better, but user-replaceable batteries eliminate the problem entirely.
            • Wireless air integration adds useful data but requires redundancy. Always mount an analog SPG as your primary gas reference and treat transmitter readings as supplementary information, especially since some transmitters develop signal loss at depth or in high-salinity water.

              • Read the full article: https://thescubagearlab.com/best-dive-computers-for-extended-liveaboard-trips

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              The Scuba Gear LabBy The Scuba Gear Lab