E-learning
All of it, on your phone, with no signal.
Everything my students need to know before the water — written to be read on a phone in the gaps of a working week, and downloaded so it still works on a boat two hours from anywhere.
There is a browser version too, and the same account opens both. Where you stopped reading is where you start again.
On the App Store and Google Play, free.
- Courses
- 3
- Chapters
- 54
- Reading
- ~8 h
- Signal needed
- None
Written for someone who last studied fifteen years ago.
Most dive theory is a textbook chapter poured into a web page. This is not that. Every section is about a minute long, and the ones that matter open with a question rather than a paragraph.
Questions that explain themselves
Every wrong answer tells you why it is wrong. The distractors are the things students actually say — "it's only for a couple of minutes" is in there, because that is the sentence that gets people hurt.
Diagrams you can move
Drag the depth and bottom time and watch the decompression schedule rebuild itself. The numbers come out of a real planner, not out of a table someone typed once.
No score, no streak
Nothing here is an exam. The moment a quiz feels like assessment a nervous learner starts avoiding it, and avoidance costs far more than a wrong answer ever did.
Three courses.
Technical Diving Fundamentals
Decompression theory, gas planning, oxygen exposure, narcosis and gas density, equipment configuration and the procedures that hold a technical dive together.
23 chapters · about 4.5 hours
KISS Sidewinder MOD 1
The whole unit and the three emergencies that matter on it — hypoxia, hypercapnia, hyperoxia — plus scrubber discipline, cell health and bailout planning.
23 chapters · about 2.9 hours
Dive Computers & Decompression Management
Gradient factors, what your computer is actually modelling, and how to read a ceiling rather than obey it. Short, and the one most divers have never been taught.
8 chapters · about 0.7 hours
Theory is one half of a course. The diving is booked here.
The app
A boat is the worst place on earth to need a web page.
Which is exactly where you want to check a gas switch, or read what hypercapnia feels like, or find the number for the nearest chamber.
So the app holds all of it on the phone. Not cached, not "works offline mostly" — downloaded, on your device, and no different at forty metres of nothing than it is on wifi.
See what is in Deco Room-
Every chapter, downloaded
All 54 of them, diagrams and questions included, on the phone from the first launch.
-
The calculators
Gas blending, maximum operating depth, rock bottom, oxygen exposure. The same maths as the ones on this site.
-
An emergency field guide
Seven protocols, cited to Divers Alert Network and published guidance, that open with no account and no signal — one long press on the app icon.
-
A searchable reference library
Ask it a question and it searches the diving and hyperbaric literature on the device itself. Nothing leaves the phone.
What you get before you pay anything.
Signing up is free and open to anyone. Half of the app is useful the moment you do, and I would rather say which half here than make you find out by registering.
| Feature | Free account | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Course catalogue | Yes | Browse everything on offer |
| Dive planning calculators | Yes | Gas, depth limits, rock bottom |
| Emergency field guide | Yes | Opens with no account and no signal |
| Emergency contact card | Yes | Your details, ready offline |
| Course chapters & quizzes | With enrolment | Comes with your enrolment |
| Reference library | With enrolment | Comes with your enrolment |
Course content waits for an enrolment because these are paid courses and I approve each student by hand. The reference library waits because most of it is other people's copyright and I am only licensed to lend it to my own students.
Common questions
- Is there a dive theory app that works with no signal?
- Yes. Deco Room downloads all 54 chapters, the dive planning calculators and the emergency field guide to your phone, so the whole thing opens on a boat with no reception. It is free on the App Store and Google Play.
- What can I use without paying anything?
- A free account opens the course catalogue, the dive planning calculators, the emergency field guide and your emergency contact card. Course chapters, quizzes and the reference library come with an enrolment on a course.
- How long does the dive theory take to work through?
- About 8 hours of reading across 54 chapters in three courses: Technical Diving Fundamentals, KISS Sidewinder MOD 1, and Dive Computers & Decompression Management.
- Do I need the app, or can I study in a browser?
- Either. The same account opens learn.donarundas.com in a browser and the Deco Room app on your phone, and your place in a chapter carries between them. The app is the one that works offline.
Start with the theory. It is the half that keeps you alive.
The app is on the App Store and Google Play. Or make a free account on the web and have a look around first.