Mares Nemo vs. Suunto Mosquito

[TheDude]

I just bought the Nemo last week and wanted to share my impressions with you. When deciding which computer to buy, I had troubles finding information, so maybe this will help someone in the future. We did a freediving session with a friend who has a Suunto Mosquito so I can compare these two a little bit. After Mares dropped their prices, the price tag is almost the same on these two.

The main difference we noticed was that the Nemo is much faster than the Mosquito. The Mosquito seem to lag behind by around 1s, giving max depth readouts around 0,5 m less than the Nemo. We did try this while having both computers on the same hand next to each other.

The display of the Nemo is slightly bigger, with bigger numbers. To me it also seemed to be more logical in some situations. For example during surface interval the Nemo displays the max depth and surf. time in big numbers, dive time in and dive nr. in small ones. The Mosquito displays the ACTUAL depth (surprise surprise... its 0.0m :head) and the surf. time in big numbers, max depth and dive time in small ones.

When it comes to the profile of your freedives, here the Nemo has weaknesses compared to the Mosquito. It only records profiles for the last session. Whenever you change alarm settings, a new session is started and previous profiles are lost. And you can only view freedive profiles by downloading data to the PC. But it displays and stores basic data (max depth, dive time, surf. time, temp.) for all the dives in all sessions.

Summary:
Pros of the Nemo compared to the Mosquito:
Faster refresh rate
Bigger and more readable display
Titanium/SS case with saphire coated mineral glass vs. plastic

Cons
Freedive profiles - only stores last sessions profiles, accessible through PC download only, 4s sampling rate

So if you want to thoroughly analyze your freedive profiles then go for the Mosquito, otherwise the Nemo is a better choice. I did not cover any of the scuba functions as here theses two are basicly the same. For me I found the perfect computer (don't really care about freedive profiles), and would definitely buy Nemo again.

 

[jome]

If I remember correctly, the Mosquito has a sample rate of 2 sec in freedive mode, but the D3 has 1s...Can anyone confirm this?

So a comparison between d3 and nemo would even the gap a bit...

 

[TheDude]

Well, here is the big confusion in terms again. The SAMPLING rate and REFRESH rate are completely different. The sampling rate means at which intervals the data is stored in profiles in the memory. It's 2s in case of Mosquito, 1s for D3 and 4s for Nemo. Here the Nemo is the worst.

But the refresh rate is more important in my opinion. It's how fast the depth readings are updated. And this means also how long you need to stay at a given depth to record it as your max. Unfortunately the manufacturers do not state this in their specifications. But from our comparison the Nemo was faster here.

So if the D3 has the same electronics and sensor, even if it has the 1s sampling rate, it will not affect the refresh rate.

But the best would be if someone could post their experiences in comparing these computers.

 

[octopus]

If I remember correctly, the Mosquito has a sample rate of 2 sec in freedive mode, but the D3 has 1s...Can anyone confirm this?

Yes.
......

 

[SanderP]

Just ordered a D3, it was the cheapest solution as I'm only freediving (for now, at least). But as I've heard the Mosquito and D3 are almost the same, just a little bit different software, as the Mosquito is also usable for scuba and has a longer sampling rate.

I really like the design of the Mares Nemo though. I would wear it even as a regular watch... wouldn't do so for the D3 I think. I haven't seen the D3 with my own eyes yet, but it looks rather big and the colors are toy-ish.

 

[eckaflx]

I own a mosquito and really like it. Its compact size means its never been off my wrist since I bought it!
I made the computer interface for mine for about £3!

 

[TheDude]

After having the Nemo for a couple of months now, I just want to add my experiences with it to the report.

I spend wonderfull two weeks in Dahab doing my freedive course and just diving the rest of the time. Here a few points I found out diving with the nemo.

The interval depth alarm is a lovely feature. It let you know exactly where you are all the time without looking at the watch. Most of us can of course pretty well estimate the depth based on equalization, pressure etc.. But its still good to have it confirmed with a beep. I am just a beginner, so I dived to max depths around 30m. I had the alarm set to each 5m (a lot of beeping indeed :t). I found it especially usefull on the way up drilling the dive routine - 10m beep -> reminder to put my hands down, short after 5m beep -> exhale.

The poorer profile features for freedive made me a bit jealous on a friend of my with the mosquito a few times. But after looking at the odd graphs with a plain V shape I did not really missed it much. On the Nemo you can only look at the profile of freedives when you download it to the PC. And it only stores the last session.

There is one think that made me sad though - its that nemo does not switch away from freedive mode when you forget to switch it before a scuba dive. So now I have in my logbook on the computer as longest dive time in freedive something around 43 minutes... Will be hard to beat I guess :t And from what I understood in the manuals to the interface, you cannot alter it from the PC, or delete the dive or something. I know that the mosquito will switch to gauge mode after some 5 minutes or so. Did not really think this might be usefull before...

The not really important, but nice features are that it has a dual time, which you can switch. Just turn it on and the second time becomes the main one. Really nice to have in a holiday. The other feature, but only important to those who do also scuba. It calculates also the real desaturation time. So after an easy scuba dive, you will know when you can do some freediving.

Than one other thing is using nemo in the pool. Here the threshold where it starts counting a dive gets important. Its 1.2 m for the nemo compared to 0.6m mosquito. Causes some troubles timing your dynamic dives, as the pool we use is cca 1.2m deep at the shallow end...

Overall, I still would buy the Nemo again (unless there would be a really huge discount on the mosquito or some similar comp :t)

 

[trux]

Thanks for the report, Dude! Do you have the wide or the standard model?

​

As for Suutno Mosquito - I am not sure what you mean by huge discount, but Mosquito is in average cheaper than Nemo. In Froogle, I see the lowest offers starting at $300 for Mosquito, while they are at $400 for Nemo. I bought my Mosquito for 350€ (in the time € and $ were still about equal)

 

[TheDude]

I have the Nemo Titanium (standard), not the wide. The wide one has no freedive mode :rcard. Got mine from Ebay (new) for 360 EUR. At that time (october last year) the mosquito retailed in shops here for around 350 EUR (and still does). Online it was still well over 300 EUR plus shipping. So I paid few EUR more than what a mosquito would cost, but you get titanium + saphire glass which is well worth it. The stainless steel model would be cheaper of course.

Now that you mentioned it trux, I checked ebay and there are few offers slightly under 300EUR, some of them with shipping already. So that would make me think again, I guess... :t

We were also diving at the Thistlegorm on one of our last dives, and while doing the safety stop on the rope, the watch got a huge hit from my buddies bottle and reg. There is a minor scratch on it, hardly can be seen, but I wonder what would such a hit do to a plastic case...

 

[serge-dagher]

i have a d3, i use for freediving only...

some comments from my experience:

like you guys said d3 starts counting dive times from 0.6 meters.
the depth meter is sort of progressive, so i guess refresh rate is around 1second and maybe less.
the alarm features are for max depth, and max time both specified by user.
you can switch on or off the freedive mode, for pool training.
d3 automatically exist every other function and goes back to time display, after a period of time, where the d3 computer detects that the function on is not in use.
d3 also has a dual time.
d3 display can be altered between viewing water temperature, and max dive, or max dive and bottom time, or temp and time of day...etc
d3 records the best performance of the day, meaning, at the end of your dive you go to memory, history and there it displays the best time under water and the max depth you reached. and after midnight the day history resets.
plus you could go to memory and view log, which keeps record of every single dive. you could also go to a sub mod in log, for each and every dive, and you could watch your dive again, as the d3 simulates it (the counter starts and the depth changes according to your dive, it records changes down to 0.2m) all this and you still haven't downloaded your stuff on a pc.
i find that great.

the size of a d3 may seem big, but compared to the mares titanium, the d3 is slightly wider on the edges, and this is due to the d3's hydrodynamic design.
the display on the d3 is so easy to read, and especially under water.

there are other functions for the gauge mode which i haven't try, for i don't scuba dive, but the manual says a lot about features you guys didn't mention in the nemo.
anyways just thought to share my experience with you.

and by the way, the toyish color thing, is made for spearo's so that the watch won't scare fishies away.

oh and did i mention that i bought it for 280$ including taxes and all.

 

[SanderP]

I have a black D3, which I had never seen before (thought only Mosquitos were black). I doubt It'll scare the fish away .

But it's a great little gadget, that's for sure.

 

[serge-dagher]

i have the blue one, with the elastomer protection, other than it being a great gadget, and that it does not scare the fishies away, it also attracts some of the chicks at office who threaten me by trying to steel it - they say it's very facionable. :s wierd girls i'd say

 

[TheDude]

So I spent some weeks in Dahab lately, so it's time for an update on my experience with my Nemo.

To say it short - Suunto is not an option anymore...

The depth interval alarm is the feature that helps me get deeper. I always know accurately my current depth during the dive (+/- few meters). The watch beeps every 10m. So first beep - relax the kick/pull, second beep - stop kicking, shortly after, or at the 3rd beep (depending on the target depth) do mouthfill, then just relax and wait for the other beeps and decide when to turn. Similar on the way up. It helps me to relax a lot to know where I am all the time.

Almost all other features on a freediving comp became irrelevant after my last trip... Yeah, it would be nice to have a ton of graphs on my PC, but they wouldn't really help me get further, just would waste more of my time in front of the PC

So my priorities now are:
- depth interval alarm (which has to be loud enough)
- surface time in minutes and seconds (with alarm, but the alarm is not really necessary)
- fast sensor (not to be confused with sampling rate), I rather have a comp with fast sensor and no dive profile, than a 1s sampling rate profile where it takes 2s to measure the depth

 

[Shark 1980]

Hello freedivers,
I have a Nemo computer. I love it, becouse it is possible to use it for freediving, but also as elegant watch in common life. Only one thing I could comment upon erros.... it has problems with sharp temperature measurement... sometimes it shows number which aren´t real. Especialy on quick dive to the depth when it doesn´t log up changed temperature quickly... but sharp temperature measurement of watter isn´t the main number for freediving and another functions are ok, so I´m satisfy with this computer...