Advice on radios and strobes?

Mobile Pools offshore (OBS and Amphibians)
1

Hello,

We have been having some problems with the latest Novatech radios and strobes (for example. https://metocean.com/products/st-400a/), and in addition their prices have gone through the roof! We are considering trying the equivalent equipment from Xeos (for example, https://xeostech.com/xmfmini), which costs about half as much.

Does anyone have any experience with the Xeos strobes and radios (or, for that matter, any other manufacturers?). If so, could you comment on their reliability?

Regards
Wayne

2

Hi Wayne,

Until now, all the Novatech radios and strobes I have worked fine, never failed. The price for a new one is a problem, but everything for OBSs is prohibitively priced nowadays.
However, the prices for XEOS are lower. From XEOS, I have the Apollo X, and it works ok. Has a flash and GPS. No radio.
The https://xeostech.com/xmfmini, as you mentioned previously, is rated for 1000 meters.

Regards,
Carlos

3

I got three other responses about the Xeos and Novatech radios and strobes. The authors agreed to let me share their comments, on condition of anonymity, here they are:

Responder A:

We performed a test with a mixture of beacons, with most OBSs getting 4 becomes (radio and strobe Novatech plus radio and strobe Xeos). Some of the instruments have been in the water for 1 year and some for 2 months.

Novatec “old” style: 14/14 radios and 13/14 strobes worked

Xeos: 0/2 radios and 0/2 strobes worked for 1 year deployments. Both had motion detection included, which failed.

Novatec “new” style: 0/2 radios and 1/2 strobes worked for 1 year deployments, 8/8 radios and 8/8 strobes worked for 2 month deployments

(2 of the new Novatec beacons were equipped with the "pressure switch adapter from Novatec. These switches are internally quite different from the older versions. Both of these switches failed as well. They do not even work properly anymore in the lab.

So, that wasn’t very successful for Xeos. We have reported that to Xeos. They suspect that the series we received got electronic boards with malfunctions, but we have not received confirmation.

Responder B:

we use the XEOS and are very satisfied. Especially the switch-on/off by tilt is good. And we do not need lithium batteries any longer to run the radio beacons and flashers.

Responder C:

The reliability is – from my point of view – as good as the Novatech items. The handling is a little bit more complicated (e.g., you have several dip switches for salt water, tilt etc, see https://xeostech.com/system/files/2025-02/XMB_User_Manual.pdf ). Turn-off / turn-on is done with a “hidden” magnetic sensor. There are also different models using AA-batteries or CR-123 (which may cause problems due to the lithium content).

At the end, our XEOS flashes and radios are doing a good jo b.

So it seems like a mixed bag. Two of the responders were very satisfied, whereas the third had a very unsuccessful test. This could be because of a bad production run, but the sample size is too small to tell.