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Best Underwater Scooter Reviews
If you love to snorkel and dive for exercise, recreation, or as part of your professional career, jumping in the water with the best underwater scooter can bring a whole new level of excitement and enjoyment to your undersea adventures.
Underwater scooters pull you through the water so you conserve energy and have more stamina for exploring and diving.
You don’t need to be a Navy SEAL to enjoy the benefits of a quality underwater scooter. You might be surprised that today’s top underwater sea scooters are quite affordable, while still offering great performance.
Stowing a sea scooter on board your boat when you are setting off for a dive or a leisurely snorkeling session is a really fun addition to a day on and in the water.
Underwater scooters are also called diver propulsion vehicles, or DPV’s for short. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and some are meant for serious diving, while others are more recreational and safe for kids to play with.
Using a DPV for diving has long been a practice of both amateur and professional divers. Over the years they have become more and more affordable, while also incorporating features like integrated cameras and camera mounts that make documenting your adventures a snap.
Check out this reef dive with our favorite underwater scooter:
When it comes to recreation on and in the water, making an informed decision is important for enjoyment as well as safety. In the end, finding the best DPV is going to depend on how you intend to use it. We love a day of snorkeling and SCUBA diving as much as anyone, and choosing a DPV that you will enjoy is important to us. We walk you though all the features to look for and show you today’s best models.
Top Underwater Scooters Comparison Chart
Best Underwater Scooters
1. YAMAHA 220Li Seascooter
YAMAHA 220Li Seascooter
The YAMAHA 220Li sea scooter is a surprisingly sturdy piece of gear that is built perfectly for underwater exploration. It’s light in weight, can run for around an hour and even boasts speeds of up to 3.1 miles per hour. Frankly, it’s an incredible piece of equipment that makes exploring waters so much faster and more enjoyable. Its speed makes it fun and fast to get to your dive area, allowing you to spend a lot more time in the water exploring than traditional diving methods or snorkeling with fins alone.
For content creators or curious filmmakers, there’s even a built-in camera assembly that gives you the opportunity to add on a mountable camera. This is a great way to get beautiful shots of the water and record videos of your dives. The charging rate is also very good, giving you up to an hour of use with just five hours of charging. This doesn’t sound a lot, but given how much power the sea scooter has, this is perfectly acceptable.
Overall, we’re happy to recommend this Yamaha sea scooter as a go-to choice for anyone that’s looking to dive deeper or even just get started with underwater diving and snorkeling. Just make sure you get some practice in shallower waters before diving deeper, and ensure that you have all the right diving equipment for your own safety!
2. Sublue WhiteShark Mix Underwater Scooter
Sublue WhiteShark Mix Underwater Scooter
The battery lasts for around 30 minutes under normal use. This is rather short compared to the other choices on this list, but it’s still plenty of time in the water. This makes it a great choice for people that are just getting started with diving and would like something affordable and flexible to use. Another good advantage of the Sublue is that it’s allowed on planes thanks to the battery capacity being low enough that it’s allowed to be included in most carry-on luggage. This means you can take it with you on holiday and use it wherever you go. This is a great way to motivate yourself to dive more often.
So to conclude, the Sublue WhiteShark Mix Underwater Scooter is a fantastic underwater scooter for most typical uses. If you’re looking to get more out of your vacations then it’s hard not to recommend Sublue thanks to its lightweight build, ability to be packed with your luggage and fairly respectable speed and depth. It’s a sturdy device that isn’t going to crumble anytime soon and to top it all off, Sublue is known for having excellent customer service. There’s really nothing we can complain about and we would happily recommend it as a fun and effective way to learn more about diving or snorkeling.
3. YAMAHA Seal Underwater Scooter
YAMAHA Seal Underwater Scooter
You’re only going to reach depths of around 15 ft with this, but that’s perfectly fine given the target market. Surprisingly, it can run for well over an hour. This kind of run time isn’t available even in more expensive underwater scooters targeted for adult use, so it’s definitely something that will give the kids or new divers a lot of fun before it runs out of juice. We do have to mention that although this is targeted towards a younger audience, you do need to supervise your children when they use it. The last thing you want is for your child’s long hair to get stuck in the motor or for the device to get damaged due to its fairly flimsy construction.
This YAMAHA recreational series underwater scooter is brilliant for what it is; a beginner item that is designed for use in pools during training sessions. If you plan to take this out to actual deep waters for diving purposes, then prepare to be disappointed. Otherwise, it’s a perfectly acceptable product that serves its purpose well and shouldn’t be compared to the other “serious” underwater scooters on this list!
4. JASSCOL Underwater Seascooter
JASSCOL Underwater Seascooter
Firstly, the JASSCOL underwater scooter can reach depths around 50m. This is considerably deep and makes it fantastic for serious underwater diving. It also has around 45 minutes of run time and even a child safety lock should you be using it around children. Where the JASSCOL underwater scooter really shines is in the way it handles in the water. The two-handed design is comfortable to use and you’ll be surprisingly nimble in the water when using it. It has a design that is convenient to carry anywhere and offers zero buoyancy, meaning it won’t sink.
Overall, we find that the JASSCOL is an interesting addition to the choice of sea scooters available on the market. It’s a lightweight underwater scooter that is also surprisingly small, but packs a real punch in the thrust department and can take you down to depths of around 50m. While the run time is a little lower than some of the higher-end models, it’s still certainly respectable and shouldn’t be too much of a limitation even if you’re a serious diver. Of course, if you just can’t stand the look and design of the JASSCOL, then you may want to consider something else!
5. AQUA Robotman MagicJet Seascooter
AQUA Robotman MagicJet Seascooter
It runs for approximately 100 minutes and the battery can be swapped underwater. Considering it can be operated with a single hand and is rated to go all the way down to 150 ft depths, it’s remarkably powerful and flexible for being so small.
It’s also a great option for people learning to dive for the first time because it’s lightweight and simple to operate. You don’t need to have any training to use this AQUA Robotman underwater scooter, and having the other hand free can be quite liberating.
However, it’s not the fastest underwater scooter but we hardly consider this a fair comparison to other underwater scooters given its size. It’s a fraction of the size of larger underwater scooters and we really can’t fault it for its slightly below-average top speed, which is really offset by extended battery life.
So if you’re looking for a convenient underwater scooter that can be operated with a single hand, we find it hard to recommend anything else. The Aquarobotman underwater scooter is a fantastic addition to any recreational diver’s kit, it’s a fantastic tool to give to new or younger divers, it allows for convenient one-handed diving and it can run for a decent amount of time in the water. We really can’t fault it and wholly recommend it!
Top Underwater Scooter Features To Consider
- Run Time – DPVs run on battery power. Similar to any battery powered tool, to maximize run time your underwater scooter needs to be charged up prior to any extended use. Manufacturers list their run time at maximum thrust, but it can be extended significantly with more conservative use. Additional batteries are also a smart investment so one can be charging while the other is in use.
- Speed – Two or three miles per hour might not sound all that quick, but if you’ve used an underwater scooter in the past then you know the difference. That speed is right around the same pace as world champion swimmers, so 3-4 mph is a good cruising speed. For leisure recreational use you’ll likely use lower speed settings, and you’ll also have longer run times as a result.
- Depth Rating – Manufacturers seem to agree that 100 ft is adequate for most common diving expeditions, though there are models designed for deeper dives. DPV diving is more often utilized between 10-50 foot depths, so it would be very rare that the 100 ft limitation would be a hindrance for anyone but professional divers.
- Weight – More features will make for a heavier DPV scooter, but also for a more capable DPV. Along with carrying all you diving gear, adding a heavy underwater scooter to the mix might be more than you bargained for. At worst, it might just mean another trip to you vehicle.
- Buoyancy Control – More capable DPV models offer buoyancy control, which becomes very important for SCUBA diving. When diving, the ideal scenario is usually a neutral buoyancy so you don’t have to work to stay at a particular depth. Investing in a diving scooter with buoyancy control will make diving easier while also getting the most out of your battery.