ScubaLab: Dive Computers - Atomic Aquatics Cobalt

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Atomic Aquatics’ Cobalt uses a high contrast, full-color OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen with brightly colored digits displayed on a black background. Illumination can be adjusted from a dull glow to an intense blast of light and color on the surface and underwater. Navigating the Cobalt’s menu is simple. The four magnetic buttons direct you to the various menus for setting dive parameters and personal info that includes presets for age and workload. We’ve never used a system so straightforward and intuitive. The Cobalt’s dive screen is divided into three sections: The top contains a graphic that changes from green to yellow to orange as you enter decompression and includes no-deco and dive-time data. The middle section contains data like depth and max depth. The bottom section contains tank pressure, gas mixture, calculated gas time remaining and the current PO2. The DC is powered by a prismatic lithium-ion rechargeable battery, like those in a typical cell phone.

Bottom Line

The ultimate in cutting-edge technology, the Cobalt offers all the goodies you could possibly want in an incredibly intuitive system. The Cobalt’s RGBM algorithm offers three user levels — standard (liberal), recreational (middle-of-the-road) and conservative. It earned a Testers’ Choice for a console-style DC and is one of our two overall favorite data crunchers for 2010.