WATCH: Hydrodynamic ROV Is Basically an Underwater Drone

Get a closer look at this this upcoming (and downgoing) robotic oceanic explorer.

Scott Tharler

Sep 17, 2015

Ever since you watched Jacques Cousteau on TV possibly caught Bill Murray in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, you’ve dreamt what it would be like to explore and film the briny deep yourself. Well now you can—without setting a single flipper in the water. Trident is a sleek underwater exploration robot you remotely pilot through the sea via a 25-meter neutral buoyancy tether and Wi-Fi device.

In the video below, you can take a deeper dive into what Trident can really do.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1783580181001?bckey=AQ~~,AAABnwxt8sE~,TdyFq09iMr7kioKT_wX2C8w8xLyk5_f2&bctid=4596835048001

Underwater ROVs have been around for years, but this is a more travel-friendly and significantly more affordable version. Plus it’s open source, so it’ll already do nifty 3-D imaging, seafloor mapping and more, as developers take it and run (swim?) with it. Although the cheapest two crowdfunding levels are gone, you can still get in for $949. (It’ll retail for $1,199.) But you may wind up giving back that savings, since the optional travel/shipment case ($100) and extended 100-meter tether ($250) are fairly necessary luxuries.

Now the bad news: even though it’s almost 8X funded and has been in development for several years, it won’t actually ship until November 2016. What will you do until then to get your undersea fix? Maybe sit back and watch an immersive oceanic animation experience on your favorite VR goggles.

Or, you know, just watch Life Aquatic again.

Photos by OpenROV