Open-water decision simulator · prototype

DecisionDepth

Four ways of being in open water. They look like variations of the same thing. They are not — each one spends a different currency to keep you alive, and each one fails in a different shape.

This simulates the decisions and the invisible physics: gas, nitrogen, oxygen, heat, light, current. It does not simulate your body, and it cannot certify, qualify or prepare you to enter the water.

Decision Depth is a toy with real numbers in it, not a training tool. Nothing here qualifies you to dive, freedive, snorkel or swim in open water. Scuba and freediving require in-person certification. Freediving requires a trained buddy, every single time. The emergency drills rehearse decisions, not skills — the skills they describe are physical, are taught in water by an instructor, and decay without practice. If you take one thing from this: the physics is the easy part, and it is the only part a screen can give you.

A speculative design study by Jay Perez — PereX. Independent work; not affiliated with, or endorsed by, any diving or training organization.

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Conditions on the day

Sound makes a large difference here — the regulator is the metronome of a dive.
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Instrument readout

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