By Evan Ackerman
You can make a cell phone call from the top of Mt. Everest. They’ve got internet on the ISS and even further. So it seems like the only places left that you can’t have something more important that you should be doing are caves, and the ocean, but Ocean Reef has gone and ruined a whole bunch of that with their underwater cell phone. Learn how, after the jump.
I mean, seriously now. An underwater cell phone? Why on earth in the water would you want or need something like this? Okay, I can understand that maybe it would be nice to be able to talk to another diver, assuming you bought a couple of these systems and got decent cell reception wherever you happened to be diving. But what do you really need to say besides, “come look at this fish!” Or “wet enough down here for ya?” Or “gadzooks, I seem to have been eaten by a shark!” ‘Course, if that last one had happened, it probably would have severed the cable that connects you to your phone, which sits safely on the surface. Yeah, there’s no super cool technology here, just a glorified underwater Bluetooth headset that’s attached to your cell phone (voice dialing only) with a 40 meter long cable. Your phone, meanwhile, gets its own little waterproof case and life preserver and floats comfortably on the surface, where it’s likely to get seasick and throw up its SIM card.
This convenience (or whatever) doesn’t come cheap at about $1800, which doesn’t include the cost of the phone itself. If I were you, I’d spend that amount on a sweet BCD, regs, and wetsuit… Or for that matter, a trip to someplace like Fiji.
[ Ocean Reef ]
[ Skymall ] VIA [ RGS ]
