Garmin Vector delayed again
 

Perhaps it's time to start a pool on when this product will ever ship...

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2012/02/g...yed-until.html

Apologies if this has already been posted.

Vaporware.

Wow, sure didn't see that coming.

"They noted that the product is not just being designed just for their cycling team, and that end-consumers are just as important, if not more important."

:lol: I would hope so. If you can't make a product that consumers want, there's no point ever even bothering with the pro team.

Aren't we all pros though!?

Disappointing to say the least.

Vapor is invisible.

You not so much.

Bummer, but not so much a surprise.

I guess I'll keep hoping it comes out sometime this year.

And once it's released, you'll have for the second (or third) version to have all the bugs fixed.

I usually wait until the first round of bugs are worked out, but I may just jump in head first on this one, once it is released.

Yeah, it'll probably ship later this year, and it'll take a few firmware versions to really work well.

I don't see any particular reason to wait for a new product though. If you need a power meter this season, stick with something that's shipping.

This is Garmin. You're being way too optimistic about bug fixes judging by their track record with their 500, 705 and 800.

Yup, more delays. Probably buggy. Thought about getting the Vector a while ago but considering something proven like Quarq.

The only reason I will wait is I want something I can switch from bike to bike easily

brim brothers is taking preorders for their cleat based system, supposedly shipping later this year

As Gomer Pyle would say: surprise, surprise, surprise.

I heard that the tapered spindle in the Exustar would be difficult to work with, giving as much as 15% variance in power readings. Since Garmin is sourcing the pedal from a third party vendor, unless they bought the company or they spec'ed a full new design the pedal will retain that weak link. The only programmatic solution would be to work out some algorithm that would predict the variance and calculate it out.

Look's power pedal has a much beefier spindle at the end, made specially for the power pedals. Therefore their power pedal is a bit clunkier than their normal one. This reduces power variance to 2% or so (less maybe), which is about what people expect.

If only Look would get with the new century and ditch WIND in exchange for ANT+...

Missed a call from Olathe, KS yesterday....guessing it was about this. Not surprised. Hopefully they re-price it as well.

The Garmin Vector is the Contador verdict of power meters.

My guess is for the 4th Interbike in a row it will have a release date of "Q1 next year"

I got in that discussion too. The low power Bluetooth seems promising but right now... It's really only sensible if they transition to it now and release (good) apps for iPhone/Android (like basically a full fledged WKO kind of thing). I forget the details on the Bluetooth advantages so I can't speak on them. I think it has to do with data transmission rates, i.e. Ant+ struggles with 16 readings per revolution (broadcast/receive 16 stress readings in 0.67 seconds if you're doing 90 rpm with 8 stress gauges per pedal). I'm not sure though.

ditto

The other option would be to go with multiple hub based powermeters. The cost is probably a wash for 2-3 hubs and you get the advantages of proven reliability and backup meters.

I don't think it's a great idea for someone to make the Vector their first powermeter. It's quite clear that making a reliable pedal based meter is difficult and their is a strong possibility that when and if Garmin finally releases the Vector it will have 'teething' problems that will take a year or so to sort out.

They aren't going to sort it out in a lab, it needs extensive testing in the field under a wide variety of conditions and installations. That the pro team is not able/willing to use it yet speaks volumes about the state of their development. For anyone familiar with software development, I think they're just about at the box that says "and then a miracle happens".

+1

At least they had demo units last Interbike. I told them they totally missed on the price. They looked shocked/surprised. I told them they could have owned the power market if they had been under $1k. I still believe that.


It takes a lot of work to develop a reliable power meter. I wish I could count the number of times I have seen someone start a company with the whole - "It's easy....it's just a few strain gauges...the parts are cheap...." thinking only to never materialize. Quarq has an immense amount of respect from me with regards to their development. They executed it beautifully. I am a little sad for me that it is now part of the SRAM kingdom as it makes my "dealer" status less of a thing, but hey...congrats to Mieke and Jim and their family at Quarq. One of the few success stories.

FWIW - there are a lot of power options either coming out or already out. Great departures from companies like Saris, as well as new innovations from Brim Brothers, and that company in Europe...power to max or some such. Power will only get better and easier to own. Maybe not both at the same time though.

There's a concept in business and art called good enough. In both you eventually have to say, it's good enough to please some people and get it out. When vaporware never materializes I usually credit engineering with never being satisfied and pulling the trigger and getting it out.

We all know there's going to be a V2 so get V1 out there, figure out the problems, budget some retrofits and move onto V2. A marketer once told me, it's better to have something and ship it than to be perfect and never ship anything. It's a great way to go broke. Just a thought.

A similar situation happened with a PS3 game called Gran Turismo 5. It was something like 2.5 years late and was the sole reason I bought the PS3. I'll never buy an expensive game from Sony ever again. That and they leaked my personal info to the Internet and I had to put a lock on my credit reports. Thanks Sony. No I didn't mean that.

I like the Contador/Interbike reference. Cheers.

I have a feeling that if the product was almost complete they'd ship it. But if it really has wide variances in power readings they can't ship it. The first thing someone is going to do is to put the pedals on an SRM crank and compare power outputs. If it's off by more than 5% then the sales of the pedals will drop through the floor.

I agree that a $999 price tag would allow them to dominate the market. If you subtract the price of the pedals - about $200 say - it leaves $800 for the powermeter part of it.

If they could get a power meter down to the $500-750 range it'd be a game closer. Garmin is selling computer heads that cost that much - to get a power meter for the price of a well used now-obsolete wired SRM... that would be spectacular.

I suspect the pro team did this and told them to come back when it's closer.

I was planning to hold out for the garmin, but now I'm thinking I may as well not...

mostly because:
1) It's release date is now (much more?) quite nebulous
2) I can get two powertaps for the same price (which is all I would really need)
3) With powertaps, I don't have to switch stuff from bike to bike

You would think that they would at least outfit the Pro team, if nothing else for training and testing.