New powermeter rumours

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EvilEuro
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by EvilEuro

jackattack wrote:do we know how much one of these baby will cost?


Per the Velonews article on the Look/Polar pedal from Eurobike:

Like the Metrigear, the Polar Look Keo Power system is still far from ready for delivery. Right now, the companies don’t forecast availability until spring 2011. Testing and validation in real-world conditions is still pending. Even then, estimated price for a complete system is somewhere between 1500 and 1800 Euro — that’s about $2,000, and that doesn’t include a Polar computer head.


So Look/Polar are talking about coming in a pretty pricey price point for a product that will also require a Polar head unit. That rules out selling to the masses for the most part.

Garmin/Metrigear are talking of coming in at an "aggressive price point" that will be, if not immediately affordable to the masses, at least attractive to them and with a product using ANT+ so your present Garmin 705, 500, or other ANT+ head unit will be automatically compatible.

Looks like the two companies are aiming at completely different markets with Look/Polar trying to leverage their reputation amongst, shall we say, more discriminating cycling enthusiasts to get them to shell out $2000 USD for their unit while Garmin/Metrigear are going to try and appeal to a wider range of cyclists at a lower price point.

I know which I'm looking forward to and it's not the one that's going to cost me two grand.

by Weenie


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EvilEuro
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by EvilEuro

djconnel wrote:Very slick. Although it is telling that there wasn't even a working prototype at Eurobike. Fun to see who wins the race between Polar/Look and Garmin/Metrigear. Personally I think G/M has the edge, so to speak, being inside the spindle versus P/L being on the spindle, but perhaps the difference is small. The real advantage to G/M is not being married to a particular pedal brand.


It sure looked nice, but it was all mocked up computer animation with nothing concrete to show. Which, in effect, made it just like their Eurobike and Interbike announcements. It was a lot of hype and bluster with nothing to show that I could see other than a mock-up at the Look and Polar booths at Interbike that were just visuals. I can't recall anyone pointing to a working demo of the Look/Polar combo.

And that, along with the prospective pricing, has been what has left me scratching my head regarding the Look/Polar combo all along.

Someone at the Look booth at Interbike mentioned that they were "well ahead" of Garmin/Metrigear and that they had "secretly" been testing their power pedal in the professional peloton, etc. The first thing I thought after hearing that was that their rather large radio transmitter unit on each pedal would be pretty hard to miss in photographs and I can't recall seeing a single shot during the Giro, the Tour or any other race where their power meter was on any bike in the pro peloton.

I think you hit on something but on a different matter in regards to Garmin/Metrigear having an advantage. I think one of their bigger advantages is just being a bit more technologically savvy. I recall being shown at the Garmin booth at Interbike one of the prospective radio transmitters they are looking at using for their power pedal and it could fit easily on the tip of my index finger and might have been as thick as an American five cent piece. That's a far cry from the bulky Look/Polar radio and a lot more clean looking on the crank. Aesthetics are going to play some role in a person's purchase choice and being able to shrink down the radio transmitter to something of that size is a big plus.

Now if Garmin/Metrigear can put one of these out in a Time I-Clic pedal, I'll be thrilled because I'd like to move over to that pedal. But right now I'd be happy to see either company produce a working product, period.

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Tumppi
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by Tumppi

EvilEuro wrote:Someone at the Look booth at Interbike mentioned that they were "well ahead" of Garmin/Metrigear and that they had "secretly" been testing their power pedal in the professional peloton, etc. The first thing I thought after hearing that was that their rather large radio transmitter unit on each pedal would be pretty hard to miss in photographs and I can't recall seeing a single shot during the Giro, the Tour or any other race where their power meter was on any bike in the pro peloton.


Well you are partly right. I have some "inside" knowledge ( I'm not working on Polar or Lookcycle, but I know some who are) and Look has tested these pedals about 5 years in pro peloton, but on these models cyclingdata has transfered by wired after workout / race and this old sofware is made by Look. Now they have to make it work with Polar software using (bluetooth maybe) wireless transfer.

I will inform more when I get these pedals to test. They said maybe in mid Janyary or ..?

Super_fast
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by Super_fast

You don't transfer data with such a low data rate with bluetooth, it would be a waiste of energy. Bluetooth isn't a (ultra) low power protocol.

AC0
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by AC0

Super_fast wrote:You don't transfer data with such a low data rate with bluetooth, it would be a waiste of energy. Bluetooth isn't a (ultra) low power protocol.

http://www.bluetooth.com/English/Produc ... nergy.aspx

AC

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euan
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by euan

And didn't Look/Polar say they are using Bluetooth because thats where they believe that is the direction wireless comms will go instead of ANT+

EvilEuro
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by EvilEuro

A friend of mine pointed me to DC Rainmaker's blog and this interesting little tidbit thrown in during Garmin's Quarter 3 earning's call earlier this month:

Of course – as I noted, there are a few more little bits of information in here I thought were interesting:

Garmin Vector (Metrigear Power Meter) Release Date Announced:

During the call they let the little nugget slip that they intend that the Metrigear Power Meter pedals will make it to market late next year:

"New products from this acquisition are expected to be introduced in the back half of 2011"

As you may remember from my interview with Garmin and Metrigear back at Interbike, they hadn’t committed to a timetable yet (nor a price). I had speculated at that time (and again during my Interbike Fantasy Timeline Post) that I would expect to see them target Eurobike/Interbike 2011 as their release timeframe – and that appears to be the case.

Given these new dates, I’d expect Garmin will largely follow their normal historical release cycle for cycling products. That involves announcement of product details the week prior to Eurobike, which then seaways into Interbike shortly thereafter. We then typically see the retail channel filled in the November/December timeframe.

In short, you won’t see them in your hot little hands until the Holiday season 2011.

I also noticed the wording above in the quote of ‘new products’ versus ‘new product’, unsure if the ‘s’ at the end was intended or not. If so, it might hint at different price levels of pedal based power meters.

However, one item that Garmin is unaccustomed to countering in the cycling arena is competitive products of similar nature being announced on similar timelines. Specifically – the Polar/Look pedals. Because Polar announced that they were targeting Spring 2011, this means that Garmin will have to be more open with product development and state going into next year. The reason being that without ‘proof’ that Garmin is maintaining trajectory for a Fall 2011 release, they run the risk that folks will look at the Polar product instead given the earlier timelines. Of course, Polar will be held to the same bar as well. I would expect Garmin to utilize their existing social media venues (Garmin Blog) to provide that information.

Now of course, there’s a separate argument around whether or not Polar will hit their announced timelines (I think unlikely), or whether or not they’ve arrived on the scene with a product without an audience (due to the $2,300 price tag and lack of diversity in head units)…but that’s all fun for a separate post.


So it looks like the Vector has finally been given a tentative release timeframe and it'll be similar to the 800 in terms of being a holiday release item. Finally something to look forward to with regards to this product.

tranzformer
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by tranzformer

Thanks for sharing that. That is very encouraging.

dual
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by dual

Well, i remember the Metrigear system was once announced for Q1 2010 or so. We'll see if they make it this time...

shampoo
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by shampoo

AC0 wrote:
Super_fast wrote:You don't transfer data with such a low data rate with bluetooth, it would be a waiste of energy. Bluetooth isn't a (ultra) low power protocol.

http://www.bluetooth.com/English/Produc ... nergy.aspx

AC


I'm not entire sure how that addresses anything. Where are the tests for power consumption ? That's just a webpage with marketing hype.

shampoo
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by shampoo

tranzformer wrote:Thanks for sharing that. That is very encouraging.


That's pretty far away ! That's over a year away. Metrigear were promising a pedal every quarter for the past year and now they are promising one 4 quarters from now ?

Not sure how that's encouraging. But I guess it all depends on how you look at it.

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mythical
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by mythical

It's been quiet for a while but here's a fresh Brim Brothers blog update: http://www.brimbrothers.com/2011/02/blowing-our-own-trumpet/
“I always find it amazing that a material can actually sell a product when it’s really the engineering that creates and dictates how well that material will behave or perform.” — Chuck Teixeira

2 wheels
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by 2 wheels

http://www.brimbrothers.com/2011/02/blowing-our-own-trumpet
A post from the Brim Blog

News: Blowing our own trumpet

Thursday, February 10th, 2011, by Barry

We’ve decided that it’s time to correct our “publicity deficit” by spending some time explaining what we’re doing, and more importantly, what you will be able to do with our power meter. Most of you have heard the fanfare of various new announcements and promises for new power meters over the past 6 months. Some of them have involved very big names, have got lots of publicity, and have generated high expectations. Meanwhile we’ve been in our test labs and at our desks working hard on the technical and commercial development of our cleat-based power meter, and as we read all the claims for what other products will do we thought “ours does that – and more”. So it’s time we made some noise.

The Brim Brothers power meter measures not just power, but also cadence and a big chunk of other details about what’s going on with your feet and your pedals. It measures forces, pedal angles, crank angles and speed of rotation 100 times per second and uses this to calculate torque, power and cadence. The pods on the left and right shoes make these measurements and calculations independently and then communicate directly with each other over the ANT wireless system. One of the pods acts as the master by combining the values and transmitting them to an ANT+ compatible display. It’s all just plug-and-play, with nothing to be configured. The pods automatically decide which of them is the master, so there’s nothing to be configured for that.

If there’s only one pod then it will automatically double its own power measurement (as an estimate of the power on the other pedal) and send that to the ANT+ display. That means that if you use just one pod instead of a pair you will still have a usable power meter. By the way, the pods on each side are identical so it makes no difference which way round you use them. Each pod automatically works out whether it’s on the left or the right shoe. A major design goal in developing the power meter was that it should be easy to own and use, with absolute minimum configuration and calibration (and I’ll talk about calibration in another post soon) so we’ve come up with clever ways for the pods to work out things for themselves.

While the main purpose of the power meter is to send torque, power and cadence data to an ANT+ display, the detailed data stream is extremely interesting to look at. This gives us extra ways to see what’s going on as you pedal. The simplest is to look at how you apply force as the cranks rotate. Theoretically a rider should apply the maximum push-down force as the crank is half way through the down stroke, but we could see in our realtime graphs that our test rider was applying force very late and then continuing in an attempt to stretch the cranks at the bottom. Seems like he might benefit from adjusting his pedaling style a little, particularly by moving the application of force to slightly earlier in the pedal stroke.

Watching these graphs in realtime while cycling on an indoor trainer is quite intriguing. You can see immediately the effect of trying to, for example, apply force earlier in the down stroke. During these tests we had a discussion about the mental drivers and triggers that set the way you apply pedal force, and we went on to discuss how a rider uses the beat of music when training indoors and whether this could be used to improve pedaling efficiency. From observation it was apparent that our test rider pedals such that the music beat occurs just after the crank passes the horizontal position, so we did a short unscientific experiment where he consciously changed so that the beat occurred just before the crank passed the horizontal position. The effect was immediately obvious on the realtime graphs – the point of maximum force moved back in the crank rotation. We didn’t do any experiments to see if this resulted in any measurable improvement in efficiency (how would we quantify that anyway?) but I’m sure there are lots of knowledgeable people out there who will do these experiments as soon as we deliver the technology to them.

There is lots more stuff I want to share with you, but I’ll leave that for another day (hopefully within a week or two). Two things to finish off today. First, we have a 45 second video introducing ourselves. It’s kind of a bland corporate thing so probably only of interest to you if you’ve only just found us (and I swear that’s the last time anyone will get me in front of a video camera). Second, you may notice a blog post here called “The problem with the Kionix KXSD9” that’s password protected. The article is a very technical explanation of a serious problem we had with a component, and is not open for public reading at the moment. If you have a particular interest in the KXSD9 contact me.



Image
If we don’t blow our own trumpet then it ain’t gonna get blown!

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The pod on one shoe combines the values and sends them to the display.

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Part of our realtime data display system.

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A sample of what the raw data from our motion sensors looks like.

cmh
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by cmh

Someone needs to release something here soon dammit.

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STARNUT
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by STARNUT

good luck on that..... The Brim Brothers blog shows their first entry as 2008.... and still no product


Starnut
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by Weenie


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