Chris@Polar wrote:
On the power side: We've found that some of the existing BT Smart power meters are not on spec with the Bluetooth Smart power profile. We've tested a few, & we will try to improve compatibility on our end the best we can, but also work with everyone to make sure the standardized profiles are being used entirely. Hope this makes sense!
At least that's a slightly more reasonable statement than some of Polar's past explanations.
My professional background is a telecommunications engineer with decades of experience working in standards organizations including IEEE (Ethernet), IETF (The Internet), ETSI (GSM) and ITU. I've chaired standards committees larger than BTLE. Despite what we might wish ;^), standards are developed by humans. That means there are
always different interpretations, ambiguities, and even errors. Successful standards deal with those issues when vendors get together, test interoperability, and resolve the issues (including revising the standards). When vendors point fingers and blame each other ("
We're fully standards-compliant; it's the other vendors fault that things don't work."), standard often fail. Unfortunately, I've seen way too much of the latter from Polar in the past. I hope this statement represents a change of attitude in Polar overall, not just some nice words from Chris@Polar.
In this particular case, there remains reason to be suspicious. Based on reports here, in Polar's forums, and on Ray's blog, the V800 does not (yet) work with PowerTap, Wahoo, Stages, and others. That's pretty much every BT power meter available. It's a little hard to believe that Polar is the
only vendor that correctly interprets the standard and that everyone else is wrong. To that general assessment I can add my own personal experience. I've beta tested two different iOS apps for cycling that claimed support for BT power meters. In each case I found an interoperability problem (Viiiva/Quarq for one app and PowerCal for the other). In both cases, the developer (and it was one person in each case) was able to identify the problem and release an update in
one day. I suspect that iOS development is much easier than embedded firmware for the V800, but it nonetheless indicates that interoperating with these devices is not that difficult. (In fact, one of the developer didn't have access to the hardware at all; he simply guessed the right way to support the device. Sure enough, it worked the very first time.) If Polar subsequently comes out with a statement along the lines of "We can't interoperate with vendor X because they're not standards-compliant," I'm going to call BS.
As I've said before, I think it's entirely appropriate (even expected) that Polar prioritize support for its own hardware (Keo/Look) above that of other vendors. The problem in this case is that Polar relied pretty much entirely on Ray to communicate their plans, and Ray's posts (intentionally or not) very much gave the impression that the 1.1 firmware would support third-party meters. This could be because Polar miscommunicated or it could be because Ray misunderstood, but even if it were the latter, Polar could certainly have corrected the misunderstanding right away. They didn't, so now Polar has a whole bunch of pissed off customers. (BTW, this is not at all a knock on Ray; as far as I'm concerned this is fully and completely Polar's problem.) Perhaps the new updates site will make things better in the future.
As a bit of a postscript, let me add that I'm actually very happy with my V800. Given my background in hardware/software development, I was fully aware when I pre-ordered in March that the promised delivery dates for future updates were pure fantasy. So I'm not disappointed with the schedule slips. I find that the hardware is of the highest quality and the user interface is pure delight. Having been a long-time Garmin user, I have no plans to go back. (And the 920XT is not at all tempting to me.) I do hope, though, that Polar makes a serious effort to truly interoperate with other vendors. I realize that there's not a lot of history there, but I also think it's the only chance Polar has to remain viable.