Help and site information
Everything about how this site works: who writes it, how gear is researched, how it earns, what it collects, and the safety limitations that apply to every calculator and every page.
- About ScubaSetupWho writes this site, how gear is researched, and what we will not claim. Open →
- ContactCorrections, questions and brand enquiries. Corrections get read first. Open →
- Safety disclaimerThe full statement on dive planning math, training, and what this site is not. Open →
- Affiliate disclosureHow the site earns, what that does and does not change about the picks. Open →
- Privacy policyWhat is collected, by whom, and how to opt out of it. Open →
- Terms of serviceThe terms on which this site is provided, including the safety limitations. Open →
The short version
ScubaSetup.com publishes researched scuba gear guidance and dive planning education. We compare published manufacturer specifications, published training agency standards and verified owner reviews. We do not test gear in person and we never claim to.
Nothing here is dive instruction. The calculators are teaching tools, no output from any of them is a dive plan, and none of it substitutes for certified training, published dive tables or the computer on your wrist. Where a topic cannot be covered responsibly for a general audience, we explain what it is and point at a course rather than publishing procedures.
The site earns through affiliate links, principally the Amazon Associates programme. That costs you nothing and it does not decide the picks. The full statement is on the affiliate disclosure page.
Found an error in the dive math? That is the most useful message you can send us, and it goes to the front of the queue. Use the contact form.
Which page answers which question?
| If you want to know | Read |
|---|---|
| Who writes this and how gear is researched | About |
| Whether a calculator output can be used as a dive plan | Safety disclaimer |
| Why some products link to a search instead of a listing | Affiliate disclosure |
| Whether affiliate commission changes the picks | Affiliate disclosure |
| What is collected about you and how to stop it | Privacy policy |
| Whether you can reuse a chart on your own site | Terms of service |
| How to report an error in a formula or a figure | Contact |
| Why technical diving procedures are not published here | Technical diving explained |
The editorial rules this site holds itself to
These are not aspirations. They are the constraints the pages are written under, and they are the reason several pages here are less commercially convenient than they could be.
- Never claim testing we did not do. No page here says "we tested" or "hands-on". Every specification is the manufacturer's published figure, and where a figure could not be confirmed against the maker's own documentation, the row is omitted rather than guessed at.
- Never invent a product listing. A great deal of serious dive gear is dealer-only by design, so that the buyer gets a fit check and a service relationship. Those entries carry a scoped search link rather than a fabricated product page, even though that earns less.
- Never present a calculator output as a dive plan. Every tool prints its formula and its assumptions, and every one carries the safety disclaimer in full and visibly rather than collapsed behind a toggle.
- Never imply gear substitutes for training. Where an item assumes a skill, the page names the course that teaches it.
- Always say who should not buy something. Every roundup names who the expert tier is wrong for, and the most expensive page on the site opens by telling most readers not to buy it.
- Stop where responsible coverage stops. Decompression diving, technical diving, cave and wreck penetration and solo diving are explained and then left to formal training. No procedures are published.
How to get the most out of the site
If you are new, read scuba diving for beginners, then the gear buying order, then pick a build from the setups hub. If you already dive regularly, the two pages that change the most dives are the SAC rate calculator, because your own consumption figure makes every gas plan real, and the buoyancy and weighting guide, because most divers are carrying lead they do not need and paying for it in gas, trim and ascent control.
If you came here for one specific number, the charts section is built for exactly that: nitrox maximum operating depths, no-decompression limits with the warning they require, cylinder specifications, weighting starting points, air consumption by depth and oxygen partial pressures, each written out in full rather than summarised.
Questions we are asked often
Do you test the gear? No, and every page says so. We compare published manufacturer specifications, published training agency standards and verified owner reviews across retailers. A site claiming hands-on testing of forty dive computers is telling you a story, and in a niche where a wrong depth rating is a safety matter rather than a shopping inconvenience, we would rather be honest about the source than impressive about the process.
Why do some products link to an Amazon search? Because a great deal of serious dive gear is dealer-only by design, so that the buyer gets a fit check and an annual service relationship. Several of the best regulators, BCDs and technical computers in the niche are not sold on a marketplace at all. Rather than fabricate a listing or recommend a worse product because it happens to be easier to link, those entries carry a scoped search.
Can I plan a dive with your calculators? No. You can learn with them and sanity check with them. A dive plan is made by a trained diver for a specific dive with a specific buddy in specific conditions, verified against their own computer. Every tool here prints its formula and its assumptions precisely so that a trained diver can check our arithmetic rather than trust it.
Why do your no-decompression limits differ from my computer? Because published limits vary between training agencies and between decompression algorithms, sometimes by tens of minutes on the same profile. The figures we publish are labelled with their source. Your computer models your actual multi level profile continuously rather than pricing the whole dive at maximum depth, and it supersedes any table including ours.
Will you cover technical diving? We describe what it is and why it needs formal training, and we stop there deliberately. Reading confers no competence, and a procedure written for a general audience will be read by someone who has not been taught the failures it assumes they can handle. That is a permanent editorial limit rather than a gap we intend to fill.