When Plongez!, one of France's most widely read scuba diving magazines, takes the time to publish an early hands-on preview of a new piece of dive tech, the European diving community pays attention. On November 7, 2025, the magazine's Matériel de plongée desk ran a feature on SeaLink, our underwater wireless data transmitter for smartphones — framing it as a genuine first in the category.
We wanted to share that coverage with our English-speaking community, both because it is a meaningful milestone for SeaLink in the European market, and because Plongez!'s technical summary captures the product's intent cleanly. What follows is a compiled read of their preview, with added context from our team on the engineering choices behind the specs they highlighted.
As seen in Plongez! magazine
Source: Plongez! magazine, 7 November 2025 — "En avant-première : SeaLink de Divevolk, transmetteur de données sous-marin pour smartphone." Photography credits in the original article: Hervé Colombini and Yann Valton.
How Plongez! describes SeaLink
The magazine opens by framing SeaLink as "une solution innovante qui utilise un processeur flottant pour transmettre un signal jusqu'à un smartphone placé dans un boîtier étanche à une profondeur inférieure à 30 mètres" — an innovative solution that uses a floating surface processor to transmit signal to a smartphone housed inside a waterproof case, down to 30 meters of depth. From there, divers can run video calls, live streams, and any regular smartphone app while submerged.
Their technical summary, reproduced here with attribution, reads:
- Wireless band: 2.4 GHz WiFi (2412–2484 MHz)
- Tether: 30-meter cable with 5 kg tensile strength
- Runtime: up to 60 hours
- Operating range: –10 °C to 50 °C
- Total weight: 9.5 kg
- Buoyancy in saltwater: +3,750 g at the surface unit, –360 g at the underwater terminal
- Regional versions: Asia, Japan, Europe-Australia, and Americas
Plongez! groups the anticipated use cases into four buckets: underwater exploration, live broadcast and event coverage, scientific research and species tracking, and technical intervention and rescue. They also call out a set of design details — single-hand operation, high-visibility safety markings, an expandable accessory interface, a Smart-Lock retractable cable system that deploys without a separate reel, and a foldable buoy.
Why those specs are the specs
Every number in the Plongez! summary corresponds to a decision our engineering team made early in SeaLink's development. It is worth unpacking a few of them.
The 30-meter tether is not a physical depth limit of the signal itself — it reflects the reality that the vast majority of recreational and working dives happen within that range. Wreck divers on a 24-meter profile, conservation surveyors over shallow reefs, and training dives all sit inside the envelope. Pulling tether length down from something excessive keeps the rig lightweight and manageable for a single diver, which is why the full system comes in at 9.5 kg.
The 60-hour runtime is engineered for expedition-scale use, not single dives. A research team running week-long transects, a dive operation live-streaming an event across multiple sessions, or a camera operator on a documentary shoot should not need to think about charging the SeaLink unit once the day starts.
The buoyancy figures — +3,750 g at the surface, –360 g at the underwater terminal — are tuned so the floating processor stays reliably above water without constant minding, while the submerged end sits slightly negative and tracks naturally with the diver. No one should be wrestling with a surface unit that wants to sink, or a terminal that fights against every kick.
The Smart-Lock retractable cable is the piece we are proudest of and the one Plongez! picked out correctly. Deploying and stowing 30 meters of tether used to mean hand-coiling in the water or lugging a reel. Smart-Lock lets divers extend, lock at any length, and retract cleanly with one hand — which matters when the other hand is holding a camera rig.
The four use cases, in the field
Plongez!'s four-category framing maps directly to what we have already seen SeaLink do in the water.
Live broadcast. Earlier this year SeaLink powered what we believe was the first live underwater television broadcast with a smartphone, with a diver taking real-time questions from a studio presenter. The full walkthrough, including how the kit was assembled, is in our SeaLink live broadcast case study.
Scientific research and education. Marine biology faculty have used the real-time uplink to narrate a dive to students on the surface, pointing at species and answering questions as they swim. For NGOs documenting reef health, the ability to stream observations back to a land-based team removes the delay between fieldwork and analysis.
Exploration and storytelling. Wreck divers, cave-mouth explorers, and travel creators use the live link to narrate dives for audiences who cannot be in the water themselves — a format that is only now becoming practical at consumer price points.
Technical intervention and rescue. This is the use case Plongez! calls out and the one we take most carefully. For search teams, hull inspectors, and public-safety divers, having a live video feed and voice back to a supervisor changes how decisions get made on a complex task. SeaLink is a tool inside an operational protocol; it does not replace training, buddy procedure, or the judgment of the dive supervisor.
Pairing with a SeaTouch housing
SeaLink is designed to work alongside a smartphone inside one of our underwater phone housings. Most streaming and video-call workloads run best on the latest generation — the SeaTouch 4 Max Platinum — because its full-touchscreen interface means divers can drive app controls, answer calls, and switch cameras underwater without surfacing. The SeaTouch handles the phone; SeaLink handles the signal.
Why a French magazine's preview matters
European diving has a dense, well-read specialist press, and Plongez! is one of its most respected voices. For a French title to single out SeaLink en avant-première — as an early preview — signals that the category is legitimately new, not a repackaged variant of existing dive communicators. We are grateful to the Plongez! editorial team for taking the time to examine the product on its own terms, and to photographers Hervé Colombini and Yann Valton for the imagery in the original article.
SeaLink is available now in four regional versions, including a dedicated Europe–Australia SKU. If you are a dive operator, researcher, or media team considering SeaLink for a specific deployment, our support team can help you work out the right configuration. For a deeper look at how SeaLink performs in the water, our DRT Show Shanghai 2026 recap covers three days of hands-on demos with divers trying the system for the first time.
Read the original Plongez! preview here: En avant-première : SeaLink de Divevolk, transmetteur de données sous-marin pour smartphone.
