The biggest difference maker in a dive is often whether you’re warm or not. Water conducts heat away from your body many times faster than air, so you need some extra insulation in all but the warmest water.
Everyone is different so there really is no way to tell you how thick of a wetsuit you’ll need for a certain location. Instead we’ll just let you know about some of the most popular features.
”Semi-dry”
Water gets into all wetsuits. Semi dry wetsuits will have some amount of devices in the ankle, wrist, neck and zipper areas to reduce the amount of cold water that flushes through the suit. I generally think they’re a good thing. The warmest wetsuits rely on them to stay warm. A tight fitting new semi-dry can have close to zero flushing.
Variable Thickness
Often you’ll see wetsuits with 2-4 thicknesses listed instead of just one. This means they’re made with thinner material where you need to move your body more and thicker material where it’s needed to keep you warm, like in your core.
Zippers
Front zip wetsuits are easier to get into yourself. It can be quite difficult to zip up a back zip wetsuit especially if it’s a tight fit. Some high-end semi-dry wetsuits have a metal drysuit zipper. While effective, I have not found them to be highly durable even with their recommended care.
Farmer John
Farmer John suits have two pieces that overlap. They are more popular as freediving suits.
Open Cell Suits
Open Cell wetsuits have benefits but need to be washed down with soapy water to get into them. You rarely see scuba divers using them for this reason.
Pockets
Pockets are one of the best ways to store important gear. Some high-end wetsuits come with one or two smaller pockets, but they usually only close with Velcro that doesn’t tend to last as long as the suit.
If your wetsuit doesn’t have pockets you can buy some and glue them on or get “tech shorts”. Tech shorts are just a name for scuba diving shorts with pockets. You wear them over your wetsuit and they’re pretty convenient. They can range in price from $20 to over $200. Depending on how much you’re diving, $200 ones can be totally worth it with huge durable pockets.
Seams
Wetsuits always tend to fail at the seams. One of the big differences between wetsuits is how the seams are sealed.
Integrated Hoods
Integrated hoods are generally a very nice feature. The only downside is that you can’t just buy a new hood if it tears.
Hooded Vests
If you have a basic wetsuit, a hooded vest is one of the easiest ways to be warmer.
Waterproof Heated Vests
Waterproof heated vests have been taking off as a pretty good way to stay warm. While wetsuits will degrade in performance substantially over their lifetime before they’re completely unusable, heated vests will continue to output the roughly same amount of heat throughout. They run about $800. If you have a borderline wetsuit already, a heated vest may be a better investment.