Apple launches Oceanic+ app for Apple Watch Ultra

According to Apple’s official website, Apple Watch Ultra ushered in the Oceanic+ App today, turning Apple’s most durable watch into a fully functional, easy-to-use diving computer. The Oceanic+, designed by Huish Outdoors in collaboration with Apple, combined with the new depth gauge and water temperature sensor in the Apple Watch Ultra, allows recreational scuba divers to take their everyday watch to depths never before achieved up to 40 meters.

According to Apple, the Oceanic+ app on the Apple Watch Ultra and the iPhone version of the companion app have all the key functions of an advanced dive computer, which can provide dive planning and a comprehensive post-dive experience.

In the 1950s, when the first scuba divers went deep into the oceans and explored the planet, it was about 30 years before the dive computer was invented. By the 1980s and 1990s, many certified divers were still making their dive planners with pen and paper. They use the Boorman decompression algorithm to record their depth and time underwater, so as to ensure safe diving at the bottom of the sea without overloading their bodies with nitrogen.

Today, Apple Watch Ultra has revolutionized the diving experience, providing recreational divers with an even more convenient device while providing users with all the Apple Watch features they already know and love. In the Oceanic+ App on Apple Watch Ultra, the main screen displays the diver's current depth, no-decompression time, water temperature, and other information.

In the dive planning tool, the user can set the surface stop time, depth, breathing gas, and other information, based on which Oceanic+ can calculate the user's No Deco (no decompression) time - the limit time that a diver can stay at a certain depth. The planning tool also brings together the latest information from the community on dive conditions, including tides, water temperature, and even visibility and currents. After diving, data such as GPS location information for entering and exiting the water, as well as an overview of the user's dive profile will automatically appear on the Apple Watch Ultra. The overview in the Oceanic+ app for iPhone provides more information, including maps such as entry and exit locations, as well as graphs of depth, rate of temperature rise, and no-decompression limits.

One of the most intuitive features of Oceanic+ for Apple Watch Ultra is haptic feedback. This feature combines software and hardware design, allowing the watch to touch the user's wrist through different forms of vibration, allowing divers to receive timely notifications underwater even through a diving suit as thick as 7 mm.

Although tactile feedback is a convenient and simple function in daily life, it can play an unexpected role underwater: allowing important information to pass through the echo of the seabed and reach the user's wrist.

Silvestri said, sound travels much more intensely in water than in air, so if I’m diving with other people and their dive computer is beeping, it’s hard for me to tell whose equipment is on. I can only hear the beep, but I can’t tell which direction it’s coming from. With Ultra’s tactile design, we’ve created a very personal experience. It’s like a gentle nudge to guide you.”

Huish Outdoors has rigorously tested the Oceanic+ App at dive sites around the world in preparation for its launch.

The Oceanic+ App also offers a number of complication features that allow users to have important information and tools at a glance, including no-fly times, surface intervals, quick access to dive planning tools, dive settings, current altitude, maximum altitude limit, and one-touch quick access App. Users can track and compare all the details of each dive, from planning the dive to the first dive and returning to the surface, and share experiences with other divers directly through the app.

The app's dive planning tool provides details on surface temperature, water temperature, wind, UV intensity, and tide for up to three days in the future.

The app, available for download in the App Store, requires an Apple Watch Ultra running watchOS 9.1 or later paired with an iPhone 8 or later running iOS 16.1 or later. The app's Basic plan is free and includes many common dive functions, including depth, time, and recent dives. For $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year, users get decompression tracking, tissue loading, unlimited log capacity, and more

Apple stated that it is necessary to always follow the diving protocol, dive with a companion, and have an auxiliary device.