I’m logged in to the PADI app. The details are correct; email login is correct. My eCards are not there, and my logged dives are not there. When I look for the eCards, I get “Oops! Something went wrong…” This happened in the last version and still, after the current update. When I use the app menu to check, I have to log in again, through a web type of portal, and my cards are all there. When I click “done” and return to the app, they are all missing again, although I appear to be logged in still - my email login is still listed. Completely useless, really, as a place to store downloaded eCards to use offline when remote. What’s the point of using this or paying for eCards when it either does not work at all, or the interface is bad enough that an intelligent person can’t use it?

I was easily able to log my dives using the app during my trip last year. When I went to look at my dives in the app this year it was empty. When I login to the PADI website the dives show up (but are missing information about depth, bottom time, equipment, basically everything except the date and location). I like the idea of a digital log book so I can always log/look up dives without having to remember a physical book, but if the app isn’t reliable a physical book is better. The eCard feature in the app is frustrating. There isn’t an option to have my eCard loaded to my phone’s wallet. When I showed my eCard to the dive shop we realized it doesn’t actually have my name on it and it didn’t have my picture. I had to login to the PADI website to pull up my eCard which had my name and picture. The whole point of downloading an eCard on my phone is so that I can pull it up at the dive shop without using data (especially if I’m in a foreign country and don’t have signal or WiFi at the dive shop). If the eCard is my phone’s wallet and has all the correct information and picture on it, I can pull it up at the dive shop.

I am both a PADI and SSI certified diver and use both apps depending on how I an diving with. I like both apps and both are user friendly. I would say SSI’s app is a little better mostly because it allows you to easily save dive buddies info so you can reconnect for future dives. Also, SSI dive site locator is much better. However, PADI allows you to save logged recreational dives with out verification which I like because I often don’t dive with a SCUBA instructor that can verify the dive. Before I became a PADI certified diver I would just log my dives on the SSI app as unverified if there wasn’t a SSI diver master to verify the dive. Both apps are good but I would say I now log my dives on the PADI app and only use the SSI app for the dive site locator and to add dive buddies if they are SSI certified divers.

There are significant differences between SSI and PADI. I have done both, and found SSI to be overly concerned with theory and classroom, while PADI is more pragmatic and boils down all the science into simple principles and guidance about how to use technology, and what it means to your safety…. I’m not sure I need to know my lungs would have a 2x expansion on ascent from 30 ft if i held my breath… just let me know it could kill me, and give me instructions about what to do, and how to first avoid emergencies (manage air), then second how to live through them (out of air).I also don’t need to know how to manually manage dive tables, but rather how to use a dive computer and gages. Don’t teach me to design a Swiss watch, when i ask for the current time.