Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Updates on Garmin Vector and new Garmin GPS watch
Early yesterday morning I had the chance to catch-up on a conference call with the folks from Garmin. The goal of the call was to get answers on a potpourri of different topics that you have asked questions on (or just areas that I was curious about). The call centered around four major areas (listed below), plus a fifth topic area I’ll discuss later in the week.
So let’s get into it!
Garmin Vector Pedal Based Power Meter (formerly Metrigear)
Last summer/fall (September 2010) just prior to Interbike Garmin announced the acquisition of Metrigear, which was working on a pedal based power meter. This new power meter would be easily swappable between bikes, while also giving left/right power data. At the time of the acquisition announcement no specific timeline was given (in fact, they went out of their way to say nothing was decided). You may remember my detailed discussion with the founder of Metrigear Clark Foy about the shift to Garmin. About two months later during their earnings call they announced they were targeting “H2 CY2011” for availability. Since then in each successive earnings call the statement has remained the same.
When asked yesterday morning they noted that they are still on track for H2 CY2011. Garmin’s Justin McCarthy noted that the Vector team has “met all internal dates specified with flying colors”.
I asked whether or not Team Garmin-Cervelo was using Vector now, or had recently. He said that “We had the team early on do some testing for us”, however that as they’ve neared closer to release they “pulled back and kept it under wraps to avoid major leaks and having competitors grab data” on the units.
One might think this would be silly, but the competitive landscape for pedal based power meters is incredibly fierce. While four companies have publicly announced plans (Garmin, Polar, O-Synce, and Brim Brothers – though Brim brothers is technically a cleat based power meter), there are others who have not yet announced plans. There’s little doubt within power meter manufacture circles that pedal based power meters will be a significant market driver a few years from now – and all of these companies (includes ones I’ve talked with that haven’t publicly announced plans) are very protective of any information leaking out ahead of time.
I then moved onto whether or not the pedal type has been determined. I was told that while a pedal type has been selected for “the initial release”, it remains to be publicly announced.
Speaking of pedals, I asked whether or not the team was still planning on committing to update older Garmin units via firmware to support Vector when it releases. Justin noted that "we haven't come up with a finalized list as far as which devices we’ll go forward with (for Left/Right power support)”. However he did continue to confirm that all devices that support ANT+ power meters today will still be able to read consolidated power information from Garmin Vector, it just wouldn’t have Left/Right pedal data broken out separately. The reason for this is that the industry wide ANT+ power meter device profile had to be updated to include the addition of left/right power, so older units wouldn’t understand that data otherwise – but again, Vector will be broadcasting the generic power output measures that any ANT+ device can understand. I would fully expect other 3rd party companies to implement support for Garmin Vector’s Left/Right data shortly after release.
Finally, last but not least I asked what we’d see at Eurobike/Interbike as far as details on Vector goes and was told that we can “expect some sort of messaging”, but exactly what will be released information-wise is still being decided.
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