Apple Watch Ultra, underwater test of the Depth app. Diving enthusiasts can get a better idea of the Depth app of the new Apple Watch Ultra thanks to the test of the youtuber DC Rainmaker, who immersed it in a compression chamber to simulate the various levels of depth in the water.
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In fact, this smartwatch was designed and built by Apple to meet the needs of sports and nature enthusiasts, with special buttons and functions that are particularly comfortable in specific contexts such as diving in water.
The Apple Watches of the latest generations are already resistant in water and can be worn in the pool to monitor strokes and the like, but the new Ultra, thanks to the depth gauge, is able to accurately measure other parameters that can be useful for example for snorkelers. In this context, the question is legitimate: how does this watch go when you go free diving?
The answer, as we said, is in the test documented by the youtuber who for the occasion used one of those decompression chambers that are generally used to test the functioning and resistance of diving equipment by combining it with a computerized depth simulator.
It turns out that the Depth app responds smoothly even to higher water pressure, that is, when the diver dives and descends in depth, correctly displaying the meter readings.
Although Apple Watch Ultra resists dives up to 100 meters, the Depth app is designed to correctly measure depth only up to 40 meters, so going beyond this value the test shows us that the screen turns bright yellow and signals a more generic ” over 130 feet ”(over 40 meters) which reminds us how it cannot determine the exact depth when you are beyond this threshold.
The app is also able to generate a summary of the entire dive, sending session statistics to the iPhone Health app with information such as duration of the dive, water temperature range and maximum depth reached.
Apple warns that the Depth app does not replace the traditional dive computer and therefore cannot provide information on decompression stops or gas analyzes; since it is not faultless, it suggests to professionals to bring along a depth gauge and a secondary timer anyway.
In this regard, Apple has collaborated with the company Huish Outdoors – which produces diving equipment – for the creation of Oceanic +, an app for Apple Watch Ultra arriving by the end of autumn that transforms the watch into a real dive computer for recreational diving including information such as depth calculation and activity duration.
The app uses the Bühlmann decompression algorithm to continuously calculate and monitor the various parameters and also provides data on local conditions such as tides and water temperatures, as well as information shared by the user community such as currents and visibility; without forgetting the related alarms such as decompression limits, ascent rate too high and safety stops, GPS position and more.
