Over the past decades, divers and the sport of diving have changed dramatically. Advancements in equipment and education have opened up the sport of recreational diving to a greater section of the population and also made it easier and safer. And these advancements, coupled with a desire to quench our curiosity about what lies beyond the accepted limits of recreational diving are allowing properly trained and equipped divers to reach beyond those limits in relative safety.

One particular piece of equipment that has helped to lead the way is the dive computer which allows us to take full advantage of our bottom time while monitoring all pertinent dive status information at a single glance and still retaining an ample margin of safety. Another more recent innovation is the introduction of enriched air nitrox (EANX) into the realm of sport diving. Oxygen enriched air is becoming more and more popular due to it's benefits, which include extended no decompression limits above those offered by normal air, reduced residual nitrogen times and nitrogen narcosis as well as shortened necessary surface intervals. And, if used with an air computer, it greatly increases the safety margin of any dive.

But divers are now customizing nitrox mixtures to a particular dive profile and need the use of nitrox compatible dive computers to monitor the effects of a particular blend. Computers designed for use with enriched air nitrox mixtures have become as sophisticated and reliable as their air-sniffing cousins. And, with user-adjustable alarm settings and conservation factors for various parameters such as depth limit, minimum tank pressure and adjustable PO 2, they can be customized to an individual's diving style. Most can be programmed for use with one gas mixture from 21% to 50% and some manufacturers, such as Zeagle, Cochran and Oceanic have more than one model to choose from. Technical divers may use air, various blends of nitrox and trimix at various stages of a single dive and need to be able to monitor their effects and so the Cochran Commander Nitrox and the Zeagle Status II can be programmed for use with two different gases on a single dive, and the Cochran Nemesis IIa Nitrox can support three gas mixes.

Nitrox computers come in a variety of configurations such as non gas integrated, gas integrated and hoseless gas integrated and can be wrist mounted, hose mounted or clipped to a BC. Some can be programmed to read in either imperial or metric and a few, such as the Oceanic Datatrans Plus, can also be programmed to display words in one of five different languages. Some are down-loadable to a PC and most have user-replaceable batteries.

There are some instances where dive equipment, manufactured by one company, is marketed under license by a variety of companies and under their own name. This is quite common in the dive industry. For example, the Suunto Solution Nitrox computer, manufactured by Suunto, is identical to both the Aqualung Nova EAN and the Seaquest Suunto Solution Nitrox.