Offline use

Built to work offline

Dive Kit runs on your phone, not on a server. You do not create an account, and the app does not log you in. The tools and your data live on the device, so the app works the same on a boat with no signal as it does at home on Wi-Fi.

This matters because the app is meant to be used between dives, on the surface, where a connection is often missing. You can plan, calculate, and log without ever needing one.

What works offline

All of the calculators run entirely on the device. Once the app is installed, none of them touch the network:

• The Deco Planner builds full decompression schedules on the device, including the share link and QR code it generates.
• The best mix, gas blender, gas usage, SRMV (surface respiratory minute volume, also called SAC), and buoyancy calculators all compute locally.
• Gas specs, the unit converter, the cylinder database, checklists, and dive signals work offline.

Your own data is stored on the device too, so it is always available:

• Your certification cards and your gear are kept in a local database on the device.
• Your profile, settings, gas presets, checklists and their progress, and your saved deco plans are stored locally on the device too.

Because there is no account and no cloud sync, nothing leaves your phone unless you choose to share it. The flip side is that your data is not automatically backed up to a server. It lives in the app on this device.

What needs a connection

A few things genuinely require the network, because they involve another service:

• Buying, restoring, or managing a subscription. These go through the App Store and Play Store, so you need a connection at that moment. Once your subscription is unlocked, the Deco Planner itself works offline. See Subscription.
• Opening a shared plan on the web. A divekit.app/share/... link is rendered by the website, so viewing one in a browser needs a connection. Opening the same link inside Dive Kit recreates the plan on the device and works offline. Scanning a buddy’s share QR code into Dive Kit is the same: the code carries the whole plan, so it rebuilds on your device with no connection. The one exception is a link or code made by a newer version of Dive Kit than you have installed. Your app cannot rebuild that plan, so it asks you to update the app or open the link in a browser, and both of those need a connection.
• App updates. Downloading a new version or an over-the-air update from the store needs a connection, like any app.
• Automatic iCloud backup. On iPhone and iPad, Dive Kit can keep one backup file current in your own iCloud Drive. Writing that file needs a connection. A change it could not upload is remembered and written the next time you open the app, so a week on a liveaboard does not lose your edits.

A note on backups

Because your certifications, gear, and plans live on the device, treat them like anything else on your phone. If you reset or lose the device without a backup, that data goes with it.

Save Backup File works offline. It writes everything Dive Kit keeps on the device into one file and hands it to the share sheet, so on a boat with no signal you can still save a copy into Files and move it somewhere safer later. Restoring from a file is offline too. Only the automatic iCloud copy needs the network. See Backup and restore.