Apple Watch Ultra was announced in September as Apple’s newest addition to the Watch lineup. While the Ultra comes with the usual Apple Watch functions and features, it’s been designed for use in more rugged environments, and it comes with a large titanium case, and an additional ‘Action button’ as well. While the Watch Ultra has been on sale in India since launch, one of the highlight features was its ability to work as a dive computer for deep sea diving. As promised, the Oceanic+ app which enables this function has finally arrived on the App Store.
The tech giant teamed up with Oceanic, a company that specialises in making diving equipment, to come up with the Oceanic+ app. It is available in the App Store and once installed on the iPhone, shows up on the Apple Watch as well. The app, along with specialised hardware present in the Apple Watch Ultra, turns the smartwatch into a dive computer, and is able to relay all the necessary data to the diver during a deep-sea dive.
Oceanic+ app offers an advanced set of features like an inbuilt variometer, decompression data and even a GPS-enhanced post-dive log book among others. It is also able to monitor current depth, the remaining dive time, and ascent rates. Data captured during the dive is automatically synced up with the iPhone app when nearby.
The app is free of cost, but advanced features can be purchased at Rs. 899 for a month, Rs. 7,500 for a year or even at Rs. 89 per day. Another detail that users need to keep in mind is that it only works with the latest Apple Watch Ultra as it is the only model in Apple’s smartwatch lineup with the necessary submersion hardware to deliver the dive data. Apple claims that the app is not just for serious deep sea divers, but can also be used while snorkelling or surface swimming.
To recall, the highlight feature of the Apple Watch Ultra was its higher than usual battery life that Apple claimed is good for 36 hours of use with a single charge. The Apple Watch Ultra is available for purchase in India for Rs. 89,900. It sports a large 49mm aerospace-grade titanium body and offers dual-frequency support for GPS algorithms. Its action button can be programmed to perform various functions.