Meet the submarine SMS device

It all began a decade ago, when a scuba diving trip nearly ended in disaster. Yuval Malka and Shai Sonnenschein went diving together, and in a single moment, everything went wrong. Shai Sonnenschein vomited into his diving mask and signaled Malka for help. But they had become separated, and only found each other again after they surfaced.

The accident inspired Shai's brother, Dr. Elazar Sonnenschein, to seek a different way to communicate under water than the hand signals usually used by divers. But underwater communication is no simple matter, since water is nearly impenetrable to radio waves, and obstructions like underwater rocks further hinder transmission. Thus using radio waves requires a powerful transmitter.

So Dr. Sonnenschein, CEO of the Israeli startup Medigus, turned to technology based on ultrasonic sound waves. Finding keyboards impractical for underwater use, and since time limits are such a crucial factor in diving, the company developed a multiple-purpose instrument - a diving calculator, digital compass, navigation system and transmission unit for pre-designed SMS messages.

After thousands of test dives, development was completed a few months ago. The U.S. Navy has expressed enthusiasm over the system, and a first shipment has already been delivered for use by its special forces units. The UTC system is aimed at the civilian market as well, and is sold in Israel through Sepa for NIS 4,000.

	The underwater SMS device. (UTC)