That $400 underwater camera I bought died on dive 3

I got a new housing for my GoPro last fall, thought it was the real deal. Paid 400 bucks for a brand called SubGear, supposed to be rated for 200 meters. On the third dive near a bridge piling in Mobile Bay, the seal let go at 40 feet. Water filled it up in about 10 seconds. Lost all the footage and the camera. Has anyone else had bad luck with those aftermarket housings?

3 comments

3 Comments

ivan_harris18d ago

Three dives hardly sounds like a proper test of anything. Maybe the seal went because of sand or grit from that bridge piling, not the housing itself. Those aftermarket cases can be finicky but usually they work fine if you oil the O-ring and check it every time. Could also be a user error on the latch or something small like that.

ray_sullivan18d ago

Three dives in some murky river water is definitely a small sample size, I feel you @ivan_harris. I've had aftermarket housings that were totally fine for years and then one random trip, a tiny grain of sand gets in the wrong spot and boom, seal's gone. The latch thing is a good point too, I've definitely forgotten to double check mine after a surface interval and gotten lucky. Sucks for the guy but it's really hard to say what happened from just one post.

josephbailey18d ago

Had a buddy lose a GoPro in a lake because a piece of dirt got under the seal, exactly like @ray_sullivan said it happens. Sometimes it's just bad luck, not the product.