Descent MK1 - Surface Intervals in Apnea Mode is nothing more than a countdown timer?

Same question over here!

I'm a SCUBA diver and know nothing about freediving and so am unable to answer your questions.  Unfortunately, Garmin rarely answers questions here so you may not get an answer.

I will say that the primary purpose of the Descent is for SCUBA diving, both open circuit and closed circuit rebreather.  When you consider that purpose and that it also serves as an all day and sports (running/cycling/swimming etc) watch, the price tag is pretty good.

I suspect the freediving components were tacked on without much thought or understanding of freediving.  In fact, some of the decisions that went into the SCUBA side of things were poor so it doesn't surprise me they got it wrong for freediving.

Thanks for Chiming in. 
shame Garmin don’t support on a Garmin forum. 
I am aware that the descent is predominantly aimed at the scuba diver, however it is very much marketed for both with 2/6 dive functions “dedicated” to freediving. My $150 comment is not a gripe on the value. I think it is an incredibly smart watch and am sure for scuba it would prove that further. My point was, it is a very clever watch, apps can be developed and installed on it etc. It is doing far more complicated computations for scuba than a mere freedive computer needs and yet such a simple SAFETY function is ignored. 
As touched on, this is less of a preference on whether my display shows the temperature in the right place on the screen, this is a core feature of what a freediving computer needs. 

ndames13 said:

shame Garmin don’t support on a Garmin forum.

Frankly told, very few companies of this size do it. User forums use to be monitored sporadically, and employees intervene only in exceptional cases. This is the comon tactics for almost every big corporation I know. The reason is simple - user forums are very efficient in providing solution through mutual help anyway, and the answers are accessible publicly, even to passive visitors. On the other hand, the majority of users come here in bad mood (just like yourself), are very critical, and it would inevitably lead to a big number of arguments between customers and employees. Those would be often very difficult to moderate and to keep under control, and while being visible live to everybody, they could harm the reputation of the company much more, than if they stay in the background, and offer the support only on their private channels (phone, chat, email).

As for the functions specific to sports like freediving - they cannot be experts in every sport, and although they consult (and sponsor) top athletes from many sports they support, the development process is very complex, and despite good communication with the consultants, it is a complicated and rarely completely successful taks. Besides that they cannot afford allocating huge resources (time and money) for every such minority sport. For this exact reason they offer the Connect IQ platform, where experts from individual sport communities have the occassion developing their own applications and plugins. Those then usually offer much better suited functionality for diverse special needs.

Have a look at the Connect IQ store, and test some of the Freediving apps, I am sure some of them will offer you what you are looking for. If not, contact the authors, and ask them to add it. They are much more flexible than Garmin, and that's the exact purpose of the Connect IQ technology:

• https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/search?q=freediving
• https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/search?q=apnea 

My mood aside (not in a bad one), I can see why it would be better to not publicly debate some cases. I do however hope they monitor and look at user suggestions for improvement. (Main purpose of this post was to raise awareness of likeminded freedivers and spearos to make Garmin see the importance and hopefully include the function in an update, or to find people who may have connections to those that are listened to by Garmin)
I can also see cost of being experts in every field as an issue. However, as advertised and sold, it is a DIVE watch with 1/3 of its dive functions as freedive modes. I would expect some RnD cost allocated to that. (I mean they thought hard enough about things like noise scaring fish in hunt mode)
Regarding 3rd party apps; following only a couple of searches it was clear that Garmin have locked out any 3rd party dive related apps based on safety grounds. There are 2 that can be found but not through Garmin connect IQ, with warning that it could affect warranty etc. I have not tried either of them for that reason.

in any case thanks for giving your insight into the working of the global corporations!

ndames13 said:

I do however hope they monitor and look at user suggestions for improvement.

I do not think it is in the capacity of the staff. The traffic is enornnous on all the forums cummulated, and most topics get resoved without any intervention from Garmin anyway. They perhaps may have a look at some topics up an then, but I would not rely on it. I would rather use the "Idea suggestion" form at https://www.garmin.com/forms/ideas/ instead.

ndames13 said:

Regarding 3rd party apps; following only a couple of searches it was clear that Garmin have locked out any 3rd party dive related apps based on safety grounds.

And did you try the ones from the IQ store I linked above? Some of them are listed to be compatible with MK1, so they apparently are not locked out.

Trux, thanks for the link, I will give it a go. (Useful info and did not know they had a tip line.)

I looked at your links, thanks for trying but most are watch faces and don't cater for the requirement. There are 3 static training apps for breath hold, but again, they are not for diving and do not cater for the requirement.

These are the 2 apps he was trying to link. I don't think they are on the app store anymore but they can be loaded onto the watch with a usb:

https://www.apnea.me/cwt/

https://www.diveiq.com/

I would also recommend the "Idea suggestion" link. There used to be an issue with the NDL alert with scuba diving on the single tank dive which they have seemed to have corrected with the last update. Hopefully there will be another update where they can address your issue (lack of updates on the Descent is a major problem that they need to fix). I've done a fair amount of freediving and some spearfishing with the Descent and I honestly haven't had an issue with this but I've always kept a close eye on my surface interval and my previous dive watch didn't automatically calculate the surface interval either. I do think it would be a great addition to the watch though and would love to try it. Personally, I've never thought of the Descent as a $1000 dive watch but as a $600 gps outdoor watch with a $400 dive computer put in, at least that's how I justify the purchase to myself .

trux said:

Frankly told, very few companies of this size do it. User forums use to be monitored sporadically, and employees intervene only in exceptional cases. This is the comon tactics for almost every big corporation I know.

Agreed.  Apple is a big example for this.

trux said:

The reason is simple - user forums are very efficient in providing solution through mutual help anyway, and the answers are accessible publicly, even to passive visitors.

I can see where this is very true for both Apple, and also Garmin for most of their products.  The problem is that the Descent Mk1 is such a niche product the model fails miserably.

Large numbers of people run, cycle, etc, and Garmin has a large share of that market.  Even though they have multiple products for that market, there will still be high numbers of users of each of those products for the model to work.

There are a lot fewer divers than runners/cyclists/etc and while Garmin (currently) only has one device supporting that market, it is a minuscule portion of the market.  This is why there is so little activity in this forum compared to the other Garmin fora, and why there are so few contributors. 

What is particularly annoying is there is a presence of Garmin employees in the other fora and they regularly answer questions. For example: https://forums.garmin.com/apps-software/mobile-apps-web/f/garmin-connect-mobile-ios  We get basically nothing.

It is somewhat insulting that we pay over $1000 for a device and then have to provide unpaid support because Garmin won't.  And with so few of us, we often can't answer the questions, like this thread right here.  It is only if we have experienced an issue that we MAY be able to provide some help.

TheMtotheJ said:

Personally, I've never thought of the Descent as a $1000 dive watch but as a $600 gps outdoor watch with a $400 dive computer put in, at least that's how I justify the purchase to myself

Yes I did similar and did throw MTB in there too....

Thanks for the 2 links, I have come across them but wanted to avoid them initially based on Garmin warranty warnings. I also noted that the "apnea.me" does not have an automatically changing alarm, it is pretty much exactly what the descent does but aimed at users who don't want to pay the $400 portion of the $600 for the watch. However, I have written to the developer who responded with answers to some questions initially. Hopefully he will come back with more soon and if this feature is added there then . I have not managed to get much info on "diveiq" but what I have found so far is that it essentially mimics the Garmin Descent app and doesn't have any surface time alert. (Again predominantly aimed at scuba)

TheMtotheJ said:

I do think it would be a great addition to the watch though and would love to try it.

It is a great feature, really nice to not watch the watch screen and just focus on the dive ahead. I know the Suunto watches didn't or maybe still doesn't have this feature not sure about the new ones. Although all the freedive specific ones I have used do. Cressi Drake, Omer UP, Mares smart apnea, Seac Driver, F10 etc. They all have some form of algorithm based surface alarm.

I have written the idea to the "idea" link, and will keep fingers crossed. I will attache what I wrote below in case anyone on here likes the plan and wishes to help by also sending the idea to Garmin through the link. Maybe if it is sent a few tie they will be more likely to see it and include it in an update.