Cheap underwater depth and temperature sensor

Hello,

Do you know if one can buy cheap underwater depth and temperature sensor that can store the maximum depth and minimum temperature data?

It will be good to attach such device to my underwater Gopro tripod that I place on the bottom of the rivers via rope while taking videos of fishes.

I also have Olympus TG6 that have the depth and temperature sensor in it. This sensor transmits depth and temperature data directly to photos. It will be cool to have such device for Gopro videos also.

Thank you for the idea!

Thank you for the idea! Will try to check old dive computers.

andrewins wrote:

Hello,

Do you know if one can buy cheap underwater depth and temperature sensor that can store the maximum depth and minimum temperature data?

It will be good to attach such device to my underwater Gopro tripod that I place on the bottom of the rivers via rope while taking videos of fishes.

How deep are you lowering this to, and how long are you running it for? The dive computers could suffice until you exceed the deco limit for the depth. So if you dropped it past 100, that becomes a problem. Some have gauge mode which just reports time and depth, and maybe temp.

The cheap and dirty answer is you find a computer that stores temp at bottom as part of its dive log. Attach it to your rig and when you pull it up, run the gopro a few more seconds as you open the log data. This would presume that the coldest temp matches the deepest depth, which is usually, but not always true.

More convoluted is to mount it on the edge of the gopros view so you could see the figures live. It would cost you some of your display, and could get bumped out of the way, in which case you fall back to approach one. Finding a computer with bigger digits would be key....and you might have trouble with the gopro's min focus distance.

Now if you're willing to spend, the Paralenz dive oriented video cam will superimpose the depth and temp on the recording.

https://www.paralenz.com/vaquita

Your dive, your overlay

Add a little extra to your recordings with up to two custom, real-time Dive Overlays: depth, temperature, dive time, ascent/descent rates, and date.

This model uses the depth sensor to do color correction.

The gotcha - this sells for $799.   And it's cylindrical shape is not nearly so easy to bolt onto other objects.  GoPro put a lot of effort into this area to make it approachable for all of the Red Bull types.

https://www.getolympus.com/us/en/tg-tracker.html

Olympus sold this for a while, maybe non US markets only?    Backscatter lists it at 200 but discontinued, while Blue Water has it as prerelease, which feels like an error.   Some inventory on ebay.

Only 100' max depth, and 30 fps at 4k, so not exactly current standards, but for the right price, maybe it fits your need?

Thank you very much for so much info! I’ve found few used dive computers with around 100$ price in the web. I hope one of them will suit my needs. It is just one of my hobbies so I don’t want to spend much money on it… at least at this moment))

Wow, nice device from Olympus, but I already have gopro camera that I use both as an action camera on my bicycle and as an underwater camera. What is more I often try to take video of fishes in lakes and rivers while bikepacking. I attach gopro to chest mount while on bike and when I reach some river or lake I unplug gopro from the chest mount and attach it to self made underwater tripod, tie it to the rope, add some fish food and place this construction on the river or lake bottom. I wait for half an hour, take camera off the water, attach it back to chest mount and ride to another place where I can put the camera in the water. I also have tent, mattress, sleeping bag, some clothes and other staff with myself on such trips, so two cameras each with a big set of batteries will be too much for me. I think the good decision for me will be buying old cheap used dive computer.

I've seen such videos where they drop bait to attract crabs.

Do you record constantly?   Gopros have the shoot every x seconds mode-  I suspect that would extend your battery life and still capture the fish.

Since you're unlikely to have serious depths, then there's not much concern about the computer hitting the decompression limit.   At 30' and shallower, you can stay infinitely.

The Suunto dive computers will give you temp at bottom depth.   And because they've had some quality issues in the 2010s as they changed owners and cut some corners, their rep is down (also notoriously conservative with deco limits), so you can probably get a good price.   Look at the Zoops perhaps.  Display size is huge if you want to capture it live.

Thank you for the advices! I record constantly. Here is one of the videos taken with this setup - https://youtu.be/EIni1SLdlQM

And apparently Paralenz declared bankruptcy last week, so take that off the table unless you're willing to gamble on a fire sale.