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Seems a bit pointless tbh. I wonder though, how long before someone wires up power data over ANT+ to shifting on Di2 and creates a ‘auto-box’ for bikes to keep in some ideal torque zone?
That’ll teach me to stop reading at the top when the product seems dumb! Whoops!
We’ll said!
Seems useless.
Are they really taking this to market or is it a prototype?
This units serves no purpose.
It’s already possible to deduce the current gear from standard sensors. If the cadence, speed, crank length, wheel diameter and gear tooth count are known, then the gear can be calculated. All of these things are already available to most people who have even a basic head unit. All that is needed is software, either head unit firmware or a Garmin Connect enhancement.
That’s a much better idea.
Well I’m not looking at bikes int the price range where Di2 is available but it is still interesting from a technology point of view. Indoor i’ve been using a Kettler Exercise Bike for a few years with link to kettlerworldtours.net. One with USB interface and a laptop to control it. Besides running fixed intervals like X watt for Y minutes followed by Z Watt for V minutes i also ride a few video routes and my own gps tracks. I very often choose to run in auto where i just adjust the max. load that i want and then let it change the virtual gearing accordingly. I can easily see that it would also be a nice thing in the real world if the shifting is smooth under load …
It looks like this is not compatible with a TT setup, unless the existing SM-EW90-B 5-Port Junction actually does have ANT broadcast built in already (as mentioned in old Shimano press releases.)
Can it display power meter data? Perhaps it could be useful as a secondary display when using a Garmin 910xt that is wrist-mounted and hard to read.
Id just like the buttons on my DI2 shifters to control my garmin screens so I could flick between menus whilst riding. That and the battery % would be great!
It would be really nice if they’d open up the spec so an accessory manufacturer like Wahoo could do BTLE/ANT+ read/write sensors for Di2. It would be great to have it paired with a bit of software that could do automatic shifting based on your preferred cadence and/or power!
Remember Flight Deck? Same deal: a technology that Shimano put out there but didn’t seem terribly interested in maximizing through third party support – or even really supporting by releasing any decent hardware of their own. But they shipped Flight Deck on shifters for a decade (increasing the price accordingly I’m sure), even though hardly anybody too advantage of it.
What a missed opportunity! Similar to how the Japanese consumer electronics industry got broadsided by the digital age. An almost exclusive focus on proprietary hardware, while almost completely ignoring the importance of software, compatibility, “ecosystems”, user interface, etc., etc ….
This unit looks like an updated Flight Deck, basically it does for Di2 what Flight Deck units have been doing for quite some time for mechanical systems: to tell you what gear you’re using without having to look at your back wheel. I’m not really surprised the Shimano booth guys weren’t interested, I’m not even positive that people actually buy Flight Decks.
As for after-the-fact data analysis, I think there are SportTracks plugins that figure out the gear in use from speed, cadence and drivetrain specs, although they probably don’t try to do anything interesting with that data.
Yeah, I’ve toyed around with the Sport Tracks plugins on and off for years. Ultimately though, in order to move it from a niche (a paid/free Sport Tracks plugin) to something more widespread, it’s gotta be natively offered in ANT+. That would then allow applications/sites like Strava/TrainingPeaks/Garmin Connect/etc… to see the data and perform analytics on it.
This is an interesting Di2 project
link to dailymotion.com
Hi,
They’ll have gone with ANT and their own formats because this is the simplest for them. It can take time and effort to standardise message formats. This requires co-ordinating with other companies, via a standards body, which can take time. Further, there may not be sufficient interest from others in standardising something, there may be disagreements on the details, or it may be that it is felt some kind of product deployment is required first in order to get experience and understand exactly what needs to be standardised. All of which may delay the standardisation process and mean a company has to use non-standardised messages if it wants to get a product out of the door.
Agreeing on a standard is not always trivial. It is need not even be the fault of the company releasing the product that there is no standards-based protocol for the messaging. Finally, sometimes the non-standard messages end up adopted as the standard. Even if it doesn’t happen in this case, still nothing stops Shimano releasing documentation on the messages used, so others can implement them.
Perhaps. But at the end of the day, if you release a useless product is that better than releasing a product a month or two later?
And, the already in existence ANT+ Controls device profile would have likely worked just fine here, ready to go and used by plenty of other companies.
You people really aren’t seeing the tremendous potential of this product. I have already placed a pre-order and simply can not wait for it to arrive. At least once every two or three rides, I forget what gear I am in. Currently, I have to look down at the cassette, thus risking the possibility of a neck strain. With this unit, I can just look at the display. The only reason I’d cancel my pre-order is to await version 2.0, which will have voice prompts: “You are in the big chainring.” Awesome!
Hi Rainmaker,
Sadly, the ANT+ device profile documentation seems to be restricted access (yuk). However, the 3rd hand information I can find on the controls profile suggests it’s aimed at “control of phone call ID, texts, emails, music, etc.” (see link to prweb.com). That sounds like there’s plenty of scope for it not to be suited to gear changing & reporting, or, even if it is suited, that it might be so general-purpose as to make it over-wrought for gear-changing.
Hard to say without being able to read the docs. I would, but the ANT consortium are one of those annoying “hide the specs” consortia. There’s still plenty of good reasons why it might not have been reasonable for Shimano to go with anything other than their own messages though. :)
Thanks!
Paul
I like seeing what gear I’m in from my cockpit rather than having to look back to see. When I’m riding at high effort with a group my attention isn’t typically focused on what gear I’m in, though more significant is that I have CRS syndrome. I haven’t ponied up for Di2, so I use in-line cable indicators for this info. I do have two Flight Decks I plan to eBay ($1?).
To get gear info directly with Di2 I expect some electronic interface is necessary. I’m not at all surprised that Shimano isn’t sharing their data with others so that the only solution is to use their head unit. Hopefully a third-party vender can legally tap Di2 info and provide it via an open standard sometime soon for those of us that want the info, but not the proprietary dumb box.
I can see someone reverse engineering the shifter ANT transmitter and employing ANT+ and possibly even doing the work to engineer/program an ‘autoshift’ protocol that is customizable. Even if they can’t engineer it to fit in the same space, who is preventing someone from hacking the whole thing beyond what we have already seen with the Di2 mountain bike setup!
One take on it maybe in view of the Di2 Alfine system. If the auto gear selection idea is developed, the major draw back in the normal shifting system is where the chain has to be in motion to swap gear. With the Alfine being planetary, the gear is easier to change when torque is reduced, such as that tricky hair pin bend you’ve just come out of etc.
Developing this into either the Dura Ace or Ultegra drive trains looks a bit of a dead end, but applied to either the higher end Di2 Alfine 11 groupset, or the emerging battery assist/hybrid bikes, then maybe the automatic torque matching gear system has a limited future.
I used a Flight Deck for years until my bike was stolen. When I replaced it I went big bucks and opted for Di2. I was very disappointed to learn that no Flight Deck was available for the system. So why do I venture out to say I liked it in the face of the disparaging remarks ahead of me? The Flight Deck did everything a basic bike computer does plus the most accurate cadence I have ever seen on a bike computer. The cadence was accurate and always there because it didn’t rely on a weak signal from a rear sensor that was sometimes there, sometimes not, and frequently inaccurate because of the signal instability. Instead it knew what gear you were in, what speed you were going, your wheel circumference, and calculated your cadence from that information. True, because it was a calculated cadence, it would show a cadence of 150 when you were freewheeling downhill but that was easily disregarded. I don’t use heart meters, power meters, or any of that fancy stuff. Instead I relay on speed and cadence Having an always there accurate cadence is a big deal. And I live in San Francisco, ride nothing but hills, mostly in the East Bay. Another way of gauging my fitness is to know which gear I was in when climbing those hills. The Flight Deck always displayed that. information Others may find it easy to glance at the rear cassette to determine their gearing but I have a lot of trouble doing that especially with a 10 speed cluster back there and standing up pedaling hard to get up the danged hill which is exactly when I wanted to know it the most. So, while using ANT and having cross compatibility between different units would be a great thing, I would pay Flight Deck money just to get what I used to have. As near as I can tell, this unit won’t do that. Too bad.
What baffles me is why create a proprietary wireless protocol, another device to measure and transmit the data wirelessly, and then a computer to match the (possibly-evolving) protocol to display data that’s only mildly useful? On most bike setups the computer is going to sit pretty close to the A junction, and they could readily build a computer with an E-Tube port that could plug into a spare port on the (5-port) A junction with a short wire. This could easily display anything that came down the wire – including battery strength – without the needless overhead result in faster battery drain.
Someone neglected the K.I.S.S. principle IMHO…
can’t these buttons on top /under the hoods be programmable? to shift?
Technically they could, if Shimano let them.
its interesting, since the actual button on top can be somewhat removed…and the sprint shifter modified and placed in the same location. a little dremel and rerouting of the wiring, i think you can actually make it work. thx for the quick reply.
Hi there I’ve recently bought the pro scio ant + and a shimano dfly . Unfortunately I can’t get them to pair. I havent sen this little transmitter under the right hood. Please help
Not to raise a zombie story from the dead :)
There is currently support in the Edge 1000, and beta software for the 810 (and I think the 510) to show gear and battery level of the DI2 system.
Yup, though you’ll actually need slightly different gear than this – you’ll need the SM-EWW01 pod.
Slightly off-topic…. has anyone seen a way to hack Di2’s software to allow real customizeable shifting?
Not exactly clear what type hacking you are referring to.
Like many others, I have hacked the system to add custom switches. I have waterproof circular rocker switches in the ends of me aero bar tubes so that I change gears with a tiny flick of my thumb. That was a much cooler hack before Shimano introduced its OEM aero bar shifters, but it is still much cleaner since the switches are basically invisible.
If you are referring to true sequential shifting, Fairwheel bikes has done just that, but they did not hack the canbus protocol, but rather grafted a layer of electronics on top.
I have durace Di2 (latest) with a Garmin 1000. Seat tube battery. When fully charge the Garmin only gets to 50% charged. Any ideas cause and ideas to fix ?