PM5 is here ...

[jackarabit]

Will the PM5 be available a la carte as a replacement for a 3 or 4 on a D or E? Soon as in 29 Oct.? When production of new monitor exceeds demand for new rowers? Jack

[Tallahassee]

Ordered my PM5 last week (to replace my vintage 1996- not even a PM2+) on my Model C. The folks at Concept 2 told me they probably won't be shipping the retrofits until at least October, and maybe mid-to-late October at that, but I wanted to stake out my place in line early. I also gather there may be a new mount for phones etc to go with the new PM5; I guess with Bluetooth, the cable included with the current one won't be needed.
Can. Not. Wait.

[jackarabit]

Thanks Tallahassee. Any hints on a la carte price on the 5?

[Tallahassee]

$180, I was told.
Unless you want fries and a drink with it. Then it's more.

[jackarabit]

An improvement on $280 or 235 w/ trade in on the PM4.

[dsissitka]

The PM4 without the retrofit kit is $190 so I'm guessing that's the price of the PM5 without the retrofit kit. Model D/PM3 owners don't necessarily need the retrofit kit:

You could get by with a PM5 spare part, however the wire is on the opposite side, so I think our kit comes with a hole in the monitor arm to thread the cable through from side to side. You can drill this yourself.

[Bob S.]

In retrospect, the promise that the PM4 had the capability of updates was more or less a scam. It is now superseded by the PM5 and it seems unlikely that there will ever be any significant PM4 updates.

Bob S.

[Hollywood_Kuma]

I think the problem with the PM3 is that the board has insufficient memory to allow for any further meaningful firmware development. The PM4 board has more memory, so there at least exists the potential to develop it further. I myself have a PM4 on my home machine, so I am also keen to know about this.

While the PM5 is running off different firmware to the PM4, it does look to be 90%+ common. So, I think when the firmware is updated for the PM5 to enable new functionality, it's likely that new PM4 firmware will be released also. That's just my speculation - I certainly don't have any inside knowledge.

On the other hand, C2 may decide that the PM4 is "perfect enough" - it's been out for many years now - and cease development for that model also (along with the legacy PM3). But I think that is unlikely, given that the firm still supports the Model A erg that dates back to the 1981. That they still support a machine from that long ago suggests C2 won't just just drop PM4 development. To put into perspective how long we have had C2 ergs, I see that 1981 was a better year for rowing than for music - rather appropriately Olivia Newton John's "Physical" was number one. Music fared better in the UK with Soft Cell's Tainted Love and The Specials' Ghost Town.

$180 for the PM5 doesn't feel too painful, as I've always wanted a back-light, I'm tempted to proceed when the retrofit kits become available.

[Citroen]

That happened with the PM4 & PM3A both got the undefined rest for interval workouts. (@Bob they did add some new function to the PM4 after release, and the new PM4A with the new processor.)

[Carl Watts]

Really the PM3 and PM4 are now simply outdated, its not an internal memory issue, the LogCard limits it.

The whole PM monitor is now already outdated, the way forward would have been a "Smart Tach" option that is built into where the existing tach sensor is now but with Bluetooth in it allowing the user to opt for a standard PM5 or the likes of a Chromebook with a custom monitor arm to hold it. The sensor could have had both a backup primary Lithium/Alkaline AA battery and a built in rechargeable battery that was recharged while rowing, a blue led for connectivity status and a power button to bring it out of deep sleep if the rechargable was flat .

A Chromebook over here is cheaper than a PM4 monitor and leaves it for dead. Being a totally Wi-Fi based setup you run an App connected to the Concept 2 server and everything is done for you automatically like your logBook and all your rows are automatically verified.......Woo Hoo !!

There really is no one over here now that doesn't already own a smartphone and or an i-PAD or tablet and going forward the future is in this type of device that everyone carries with them.

[jackarabit]

Being an old stick in the mud, I can understand why C2 has stayed with a stand alone product with occasional excursions in handshaking with puters for data storage, data transmission to the logbook (exceptionally clever and intelligent symbiotic boost to their international rep there once you step out from under the shadow of the Ivy), and a bit of app development to exploit other people's big bad TVs and monitors in compensation for their essentially conservative business model. It may be that Silicon Hong Kong could eat their lunch today. Maybe C2 is simply trying to slow that inevitable conclusion by not getting too cozy with the church of what's happening now.

I can also understand Carl's view of the desirability of rowing on the river of aether with others of like mind. The rest of the mods that we want (backliting, inclusion of an additional recorded metric) are minor by comparison. Jack

[Carl Watts]

I'm not dissapointed with the PM5, part of the problem would be that Concept 2 would have to part with what is essentially the firmware IP inside the monitor to third parties to develop a virtual monitor accross several platforms and OS or else employ a huge number of software people to take it to the next level. Their basis for not wanting to do that is understandable and if you look at the uptake of RowPro, it has not been as sensational as I would have expected and that comes down to a number of reasons both in the cost of additional hardware, people are not that tech savvy, especially older people and also that too many people see RowPro as "Online Racing" all the time and its just peoples compeditive nature these days that no one wants to come last. The advent of Bluetooth in the monitor now however opens up all sorts of possibilities. Many of the hurdles are going to get lower over the next few years and I really look forward to the day you can just jump online at any time of the day or night to rows that have all 16 lanes full on a 60 inch LCD on the wall. I don't see the PM5 going another 10 years however, the technology available right now has already surpassed it. Had it been me I would have just developed the PM4 a little more for the "PM5 market" and taken a Steve Jobs approach and made a revolutionary 10 year jump as a second option for people. Of course I could be speaking a little too early as I have yet to see what the new PM5 can do.

[raotor]

I'm not dissapointed with the PM5, part of the problem would be that Concept 2 would have to part with what is essentially the firmware IP inside the monitor to third parties to develop a virtual monitor accross several platforms and OS or else employ a huge number of software people to take it to the next level. Their basis for not wanting to do that is understandable and if you look at the uptake of RowPro, it has not been as sensational as I would have expected and that comes down to a number of reasons both in the cost of additional hardware, people are not that tech savvy, especially older people and also that too many people see RowPro as "Online Racing" all the time and its just peoples compeditive nature these days that no one wants to come last. The advent of Bluetooth in the monitor now however opens up all sorts of possibilities. Many of the hurdles are going to get lower over the next few years and I really look forward to the day you can just jump online at any time of the day or night to rows that have all 16 lanes full on a 60 inch LCD on the wall. I don't see the PM5 going another 10 years however, the technology available right now has already surpassed it. Had it been me I would have just developed the PM4 a little more for the "PM5 market" and taken a Steve Jobs approach and made a revolutionary 10 year jump as a second option for people. Of course I could be speaking a little too early as I have yet to see what the new PM5 can do.

Alas I suspect that apart from the obvious additions to the PM5 that there is nothing different in respect to the firmware functionality. What I mean is that the correct calculation of average stroke rate for example will not have changed. This single issue alone has never been fixed in the existing lifetime of the firmware releases for the PM3 and PM4 and so I'm not convinced this will change. C2's evident lack of interest in changing what should be something simple in the firmware to correctly calculate avg SPM is telling. It should not take the release of a brand new PM in order to address such a simple issue.

I think that they'll effectively clone the firmware for the PM5 from the earlier monitors for economic reasons. That's not to say that further down the line new features wont be added.

Also, I really hope that C2 have not tied so much functionality to hardware as they apparently did with the older PM's. I recently had an issue I was discussing with a C2 engineer and although he agreed with my suggestion for a user selectable parameter added to firmware to offer flexibility in dealing with the issue he also stated that this was unlikely to ever be addressed as it would require updating the hardware. As much as possible should be controlled by firmware on the PM5 if they want to maximise future flexibility and so I hope C2 have thought this out carefully.

One other minor concern I have is with the standardization of using a memory card to store workouts rather than the non-standard log card. The one key advantage I saw with the log card was the fact it was not a standard memory card that one could readily access via a PC. This meant that it was more tamper resistant in terms of faking data. The new system utilizes a standard FAT/FAT32 file system which means the contents of the card are more readily accessible. I hope C2 have come up with some method of storing the "log card" data within a standard FAT/FAT32 file that is somehow encrypted or otherwise a binary data set that makes it more difficult for the casual hacker to try and improve his last 2K time and have it show as verified by virtue of the source.

I saw one photo of the memory card and it looked like a compact flash card to me but perhaps someone might be able to verify exactly what type of memory card/thumb drive it is and whether it has a dedicated slot or port or uses the existing USB port.

[Citroen]

The method used to transport data from the monitor to the laptop is ALL that has changed. The format of the data remains a Concept2 proprietary secret (I've decoded the packed date/time format so I can edit workouts when the monitor has the wrong date set). If you read the data directly from the monitor nothing changes.

The reason for dropping the LogCard is simple economics, they were still using technology from 2003. The World has moved on, compare the five quid price of a 32K (yes a whole 32,768 bytes of data) C2 I²C LogCard with a 8GB SDCard or 8GB USB stick and you'll see why the PM5 uses a USB stick (when I get a chance I'm going to test a PM5 with a single partition FAT formatted SDCard and a USB SDCard reader). One small, five quid, 8GB USB stick has 262,000 times the capacity of a LogCard for exactly the same price.

The maths used by PM3/PM4/PM5 won't change unless Concept2 know that you'd like it changed. Send an email to rowing@concept2.com with your issue and your requirements. The simple averages have been in the firmware since 2003 (because the PM3 was designed to give the same results as a PM2/PM2+) and aren't a problem for most folks.

You can always use the splits data to better averages and can set-up ANY simple row with up to 30 splits. The granularity of splits may be the thing that can change in the PM5 because we've got more space for recording workouts in PM5 memory (approx 1000 workouts) and 262,000 times more space on an 8GB USB stick.

RowPro can gather the data for each stroke so could calculate a stroke by stroke average. With more memory to play in, maybe the PM5 could do something similar.

[Carl Watts]

I would hate to get my hands on a PM5 and still see the fundamental flaws in it that I pointed out to Concept 2 YEARS ago.

How hard is it to set-up a register as a "stroke counter" and then work out a really accurate average SPM at the end of the row and stick it in the top row of the results where the horribly rounded result is currently ? you can have it down to 1/100ths of an SPM easy but rounded to 1/10ths is more than sufficient. You cannot average all the splits, it doesn't work as well.

If your already running RowPro then I don't see any advantages in running a PM5 at all then, Bluetooth to the PC really isn't an advantage overall, the USB cable powers the monitor and Bluetooth just compromises my internet reliability with a second wireless link (already have a Wireless G Wi-Fi connection). Getting a stable connection to a server in the USA is hard enough for most people, even in a second world country like New Zealand.