The number of unmanned vehicles and devices deployed underwater is increasing. New communication systems and network protocols are needed to handle this growth. Optical free space underwater communication is designed to increase underwater acoustic communication, especially for short range, mobile and multiuser environments in future underwater systems. Existing systems are usually point-to-point links with strict signaling and tracking requirements. In this work we demonstrate compact transmitters and intelligent receivers for optical communications of free space under water. The receivers have a wide segmented field of vision and are able to estimate the angle of arrival of the signals. The transmitters are highly directional with individually addressable LEDs for electronic beam switching and are capable of estimating water quality from their backscattered light collected by their co-located receiver. Together they form enabling technologies for non-traditional network schemes in swarms of unmanned underwater vehicles.