Process of Lifeline
The 9thThe diving gears to be used in the special environment as underwater are lifelines for divers.
To maintain the safety, how do engineers in manufacturers keep researching? Is there any
inside stories in development?

This time, we would like to introduce you a handy

underwater transceiver. Development had started with a wish of an inventor which was tospeak with his daughter underwater.

Many difficulties were ahead in development of theelectronic underwater product. Through struggles, the underwater transceivers werecompleted and still keep evolving.

SPEAKING IS RELEIVING.
NEW FUNCTION ON INTERFACE WITH DIVE COMPUTERS
Takashi Suzuki, Marine System Dept., Yamagata Casio Co., Ltd.

Communication with speaking is a relief
If you have problems when you are in other country where you can not speak their language,I am sure we all would feel nervous. Whenever I see crying baby, I wish I could understandwhy he/she is crying.

Anyone who has been aboard or in raising child must have realizedeven a little communication could give you a relief.
Thanks to cellular phones, you can talk to anyone in anywhere in the world. Nowadays, youcan even talk to an astronaut far away from the earth. On the other hand, you can notconverse even a few meters away if it is underwater.
Why only the underwater world is the world of silence?

This question was occurred to me

when I was trying to get scuba diving certification with my 10-year-old daughter 5 years ago,
and it was a trigger to start development.

Concept of Logosease
Logosease is the only one underwater communication device in the world with which needs
just normal mask and regulator (* 1) . There are 4 concepts of this product.
● Able to converse with keeping a mask and a regulator● Easy to set or remove with no cables attached● Do not interfere existing diving gears● Market price is less than JPY60,000 in Japan(* 1) Checked by Yamagata Casio in Jan. 2015

3 years development
It took us 3 years to realize the concept.
The most difficult one was underwater environment.

If it is not underwater, instruments as

oscilloscopes or spectrum analyzers are available and continuous developments for 30 – 40hours are also available. But these instruments can not be brought into underwater and max
working time underwater in 1 diving is as much as 1 hour.

We faced the difficulties indevelopment environment. The development and evaluation of microphone that can record
the voice while putting regulator in our mouths was also through the trial and error.
was no microphone that could work underwater from the beginning.
“0”.

There

We had to start from

The bone conduction sound vibration was imperceptible which varied sound quality

and sound volume a lot depending on the position of where the microphone was set.

And

the positions where microphones would not interfere other diving equipment are limited.
Where and how the microphone should be embedded?? We had proceeded development in
the largely constrained situation and finally microphone was embedded as current position.
The integral structure of Logosease with cableless, switchless and picket-size (Fig.1)
completed at last through hard development is highly acclaimed.

Can feel speaking buddy’s location
Logosease was designed and made dedicated for communication performance, especiallyto be able to get a feel of the location where your speaking buddy is. You can not see so wellunderwater compared to on land. Even in the good visibility, it would be as much as 50m,
which is completely different from on land. We believe knowing each other’s location in
activities in a poor visibility is very important.
The communication range of Logosease is around 100m if facing each other, but it will be
shorter depending on the facing directions of each other. Just like conversation on land, thebest direction is facing each other. Logosease is not good at having conversation with aperson behind you. In this way, by the volume of hearing voice or its articulation rate, you
can guess where your buddy is located. Fig. 2 is the result of evaluation in the visibility of 5min the offshore of Yura in Yamagata Pref.

After launch of Logosease
More than 2 years have passed since launched on Jan. 18, 2013. Our target customers
were recreational divers.
In the first year, we could not convey the value of underwater communication well, and we
had hard time in selling. Underwater is silent world; that has been the common knowledge
for divers for about half century since scuba diving was born. We analyzed it was not easy toconvince divers the value of underwater communication. The first ones who recognized its
value were rescue teams in the fire stations and police stations.

They highly evaluated “Itis cableless, switchless, small size and light weight, and not easily get damaged. No need
any additional gears to use Logosease but with just normal diving gears.”
TV stations also made good remarks. “We need to add voices in the underwater scenes inthe video, but we don’t want the talents to wear full face mask because of its high risk.” Insuch case, Logosease can record high quality voices easily with voice recording function
without risks. Logosease has been used in TV programs mainly by key stations 15 times,and it is an essential gear for underwater program.
Gradually, Logosease are getting recognized and used more to recreational divers from thesummer of 2014. More customers said in the questionnaire that it has become necessary
gear for diving with a family or couples.

Released new functions one after another
Another attractive points of Logosease is increasing functions by software upgrading; notonly improvements of weak points but also additional functions. Major ones are voicerecording in Advanced model(*2), whistle function to release emergency call in far distance,and dive computer interface function to notify divers the alarms released from divecomputers with recorded voices.
Whistle function releases “beep” repeatedly that you can hear clearly even in the fardistance.

In this way, alarm can be kept released around you without consuming air. In ourevaluation, 2 divers were located 150m away each other, and one of them released “beep”.
At every 10m checking hearing sound and direction, another diver could reach his buddy atthe end.

Only Logosease can do this because it can feel the direction of a diver whotransmits.
Dive computer(*3) interface function was released on Jan. 2015. There are several alarmsof dive computer but each alarm sound similar that can not be distinguished. Logosease
notifies with voice as “slow, slow” in the alarm of too fast ascending.
*2) Voice recorder is installed in Advanced model RG004 and Search and Rescue model RG004-SAR.
*3) Applicable dive computers are DC Solar (Tabata), Dive Demo Solis Titanium (Bism), Calm (AqualungJapan)

Underwater electronic devices in the future
Hiking and diving sound similar but they are completely different world. In hiking, of course
you can talk and many other gears are available such as smart phones, cellular phones,
digital dictionaries, music players, voice recorders, navigation systems etc. They help
having more fun or for safety. On the other hand, in diving, there are only a few items ascameras, dive computers, and lights. Yamagata Casio has realized underwater conversationand voice recorders. We will keep on providing electronic devices which bring fun and safety
to marine leisure