Two divers are bringing battery-powered undergarments to Tasmania to change the world of diving.

The new technology enables divers to spend longer periods of time underwater to gain new information about marine life.

Diving professional Faith Ortins and Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) site diving officer Vallorie Hodges said they were tired of diving in the cold but found no manufacturers made dry suits for women.

The pair said they have convinced a company to create the dry suits for women in an attempt to encourage more women to start diving.

"It doesn't really matter where you are, you just have to be warm," Ms Ortins told Ryk Goddard on 936 ABC Hobart.

"Depending on what the water temperature is you change what you wear underneath it, but I almost always wear what is called a dry suit.

"I stay dry. I don't let my body get wet to begin with and then I change what I wear underneath the dry suit depending on the water temperature."

Ms Ortins said various reasons such as patterns held manufacturers back from creating cold water diving gear.

"There's a lot of differences and we can't just start with a men's pattern and scale it down and make it pink which is what pretty much what everyone was doing," Ms Ortins said.

"We have hips and smaller shoulders, smaller arms and obviously a different ratio in height and weight."

Dry suits heat up in colder climates

Dry suits are not enough to stay warm while diving in colder climates so Ms Hodges came up with battery-powered undergarment technology to heat up bodies while underwater.

"Just in the past few years our company has developed a product that will actively warm you and not just keep you from getting colder as fast, but actually warm you and prevent any cold from happening to you at all, so it's pretty exciting," Ms Ortins said.

Ms Hodges said the thermal technology placed underneath dry suits had led to longer diving spells and enabling researchers more time to find information in the ocean.

Vallorie Hodges and Faith Ortins dive with battery-powered thermal underwear to keep warm. ( 936 ABC Hobart: Jo Spargo )

"A great deal depends on the temperature in the water," Ms Hodges said.

"In Alaska, we were getting 20-minute dives and then we rapidly realised that we needed to go to not only just a dry suit, but dry hood, dry gloves ... that sort of thing.

"We doubled our dive time. We went from 20-minute dives to 40-minute dives wearing a dry suit. With the heated undergarments, you can double that again pretty easily," Ms Hodges said.

Both divers are in the Women Divers Hall of Fame.

They have used the technology to dive in remote areas such as Antarctica, Iceland, Alaska, British Columbia, California Channel Islands, Scotland's Scapa Flow, Galapagos Islands, South Africa, and now Tasmania.

"I've been here a year [in Hobart], and I've seen so many of these wonderful dedicated scientists crawling out of the water blue in the lips, shaking uncontrollably talking about the next dive they're going to do because they need their data," Ms Hodges said.

"It's amazing to me that they're not already in dry suits."

Ms Ortins has already dived areas of southern Tasmania while on her trip including Eaglehawk Neck with weedy sea dragons, shipwrecks, open water pinnacles, vertical drop offs, and caves.

"[Tasmanian waters are] as good as anything I've seen. We'll definitely be back and hopefully bring some friends with us from the US as well to show them how beautiful this stuff is," Ms Ortins said.

"Anybody that can dive can learn to dive in a dry suit, it's not that complicated at all."

Faith Ortins uses the thermal technologies underneath a dry suit while diving. ( Supplied: Jeff Hannigan )

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