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Pioneer giving away free cycling computer with their power meter cranks

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After a recent price drop, Pioneer’s making it even harder to say no by sending along their CA-500 GPS cycling computer for free when you purchase a dual leg crank arm power meter system before June 13, 2016.

The offer’s good on any of the crank arms, which includes sending in your own (SGY-PM9100C) or getting a complete new Shimano Dura-Ace (SGY-PM90) or Ultegra (SGY-PM68) crankset. The units must be purchased from an authorized Pioneer Cycle Sports dealer between April 9 and June 13, 2016. The cycling computer talks to their power meter parts using full-spectrum ANT (not ANT+), providing a finer grain of detail on your pedaling stroke. It normally retails for $300. Full promotion details here.

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John
John
7 years ago

Good thing, too, because that’s literally the only way to update the firmware.

When will Pioneer (and Quarq) get around to dual ANT+/Bluetooth support for their power meters?

myke2241
myke2241
7 years ago
Reply to  John

Why do you want BT? BT is pretty much garbage!

John
John
7 years ago
Reply to  myke2241

Because Bluetooth works with smartphones. Not just for logging (which some people prefer) but also maintenance including, as I pointed out, firmware updates.

Eric Hansen
Eric Hansen
7 years ago
Reply to  myke2241

Because people don’t know BT is garbage. They only know their phone’s got BT, and it hasn’t got ANT+.

Marin
Marin
7 years ago
Reply to  Eric Hansen

A lot of phones have ANT+ like Galaxy S and Note series and I’m pretty sure others do.
Maybe not iphone, but iphone is overpriced garbage anyway.

jlg
jlg
7 years ago
Reply to  Eric Hansen

myke2241 and Eric Hansen, can you explain why Bluetooth is “garbage” ?

Eric Hansen
Eric Hansen
7 years ago
Reply to  jlg

There’s a great breakdown of features on the ANT wiki page between four competing wireless communications standards. BT wins out for data transfer rate, but that is not an issue with any bike application. ANT wins on possible network topologies, potential number of connected components, and in a related and more important area; dealing with interference. BT simply would not function in conditions as dense as the pro peloton, nor in local criteriums. BT’s higher throughput demands larger bandwidths and less channels. It’s shorter range means more channels are ‘unused’ over a wider area. ANT is simply the right tool for the job, developed by a company specifically for that job. The BT consortium has tried to graft multiple modes onto BT to get it into more devices and get more licensing fees, despite it being a swiss army knife of a communications standard.

jlg
jlg
7 years ago
Reply to  jlg

Thank you for your answer.
It seems that each technology have pros and cons.
John was talking about dual ANT+/Bluetooth, it is reassuring to choose what you prefer.

Alvis
Alvis
7 years ago
Reply to  myke2241

and still nobody talks about accuracy which is pretty well crap in all available power meters, or more rightly and at best; power estimators. The industry just settles on some fluffy 2% to mask their inadequacies and encourages the race to the bottom on price with performance largely ignored because they are all rubbish measuring devices. Get some feedback from some real sports scientists who need to measure power on what they are offered. Grrrr rant.

Robin
Robin
7 years ago
Reply to  Alvis

The needs in the lab are different than those on the road. Likewise, I’m willing to bet the variance in a rider’s power output (while trying to maintain constant) could very add enough uncertainty to the data that it might drown out any gains in accuracy or precision that you want.

John
John
7 years ago

So much fail in the comments here…

You all knew that ANT+ on your phone won’t let you update the Pioneer power meter firmware? That it can only be updated with their add-on bike computer? Oh, you didn’t? No, of course you didn’t…

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