We asked an expert diver to put the Apple Watch Ultra’s Oceanic+ dive computer app through its paces.
The Apple Watch Ultra is billed as a watch that can support you throughout your adventuring highs and lows – sometimes literally. Designed to withstand temperatures from -4F / -20C to 130F / 55C, and with a built-in altimeter and compass, and water-resistance to 50 meters, this is wearable that promises to be an essential companion whether you’re up a mountain or beneath the waves.
We weren’t able to test the watch to such extremes in our initial Apple Watch Ultra review, but even so, Apple’s top-of-the-line Watch has already earned its place on our list of the best Apple Watches. We have a sneaking suspicion that most Ultra buyers won’t be taking full advantage of the watch’s abilities either: it’ll mostly be on the wrists of weekend warriors who might jump at the chance to do a 10K trail run, or surf in the winter (like me), but aren’t planning on going on a multi-day hike in the Andes (unlike TechRadar’s own Michelle Rae Uy).
However, Apple has taken the next steps to make the Ultra a true adventurer’s partner. In collaboration with Huish Outdoors, it’s released the Oceanic+ app for the Apple Watch Ultra, which effectively turns the Ultra into a dive computer. The app’s free plan allows scuba divers to calculate their position with undersea GPS tracking, and features a diver’s logbook, depth gauges, picture sharing, and alerts if you reach your maximum depth.
The paid subscription plan adds more sophisticated diving tools, such as the ability to calculate your no-decompression limit – that is, the time a diver will be able to spend at a given depth without the risk of suffering decompression sickness, aka the bends, were they to return directly to the surface without performing decompression stops.
Tide predictions, a UV index, and weather forecasts are also included in the paid plan, which costs $79.
