Smart sonar buoy aids divers in navigation and safety

It’s plenty easy to lose your bearings while scuba diving, which is why Garmin’s new Descent S1 Smart Buoy could really come in handy. It helps submerged divers figure out where they are, plus it lets them communicate with their topside crew.

Although the floating device can be used with up to eight divers at once, it should be noted that each diver must be equipped with both a compatible dive computer and a linked Garmin Descent T2 transceiver module.

Utilizing the company’s SubWave sonar networking technology, the buoy continuously sends out spaced sonar pulses, which are detected by the transceiver. Each time the transceiver picks up one of these signals, it responds by sending a sonar signal of its own back to the buoy.

The Descent S1 Smart Buoy tips the scales at 2.2 lb (981 g) and is IPX8 waterproof, meaning it can withstand being submerged to at least 1 meter (3.3 ft) for 30 minutes

By tracking how much time elapses between a buoy signal being sent and the responding transceiver signal being received, the Smart Buoy is able to determine how far away the diver is. The direction in which the diver is located is determined simply by the direction from which their signal is received.

Utilizing this data, the anchored or boat-moored buoy is able to track the location of each of the eight divers simultaneously, relative to itself. Its own geographical location is ascertained using GPS.

All of the information is transmitted via Wi-Fi to the surface-located crew (up to a distance of 60 m / 197 ft), who view it in the form of a real-time map on the Garmin Dive app. It’s additionally transmitted down to the divers’ computers via coded SubWave sonar pulses received by their transceivers.

Along with the features shown here, the app also creates a heat map that can be reviewed after the dive

The SubWave tech is also used to automatically send data from the individual dive computers up to the buoy, indicating how much air is left in each diver’s tank. It can likewise be utilized to send short preset text messages from the divers to the crew, from the crew to the divers, or from diver to diver via the buoy.

The system has a claimed maximum underwater communications range of 100 m (328 ft), with one charge of the buoy’s swappable lithium-ion battery reportedly being good for up to 15 hours of runtime. It ain’t cheap, though. The Descent S1 Smart Buoy itself is priced at US$2,499.99, plus each Descent T2 transceiver goes for an additional $499.99.