Concept2 PM5 Integration

[Rosoe]

Hey all,

I know this is a cycling-focused app, and the majority of my training and racing history is as a cyclist; however, I also coach rowing. The rowing smart training space is pretty dead. There are one or two proprietary and expensive applications that connect with the ergs and help athletes run workouts, but even those are quite limited in what they can do. There is also the Concept2 ErgData app, which is annoying, difficult to visualise your training, and just not set up to support athletes in 2025 - at least not how I've come to expect it in cycling.

With that in mind... Is there any shot we could have Auuki be compatible with the PM5 series of Concept2 machines? Rowing is in desperate need of this sort of tech, and I'm yet to find any sensible way to get this done. 🙇‍♂️

[dvmarinoff]

Hi and welcome!

I am open to adding support for Erg Rowers. But the main obstacle might be that since I don't have any xp with Erg rowers I don't understand the space. Will need to rely on someone to provide some guidance on that.

My initial research shows that the PM5 module has support for Bluetooth and there is at least one accessible specification document.
Could easily add support for connecting a PM5 device and reading some data.

BTW which metrics are broadcasted by the device and which ones are the most important to display in the app, which ones have to be recorded?

[Rosoe]

Thank you for the welcome!

So I do not know all of what is broadcast by the PM5; this is what is recorded in the files that get exported from the Concept2 logbook to integrations like intervals.icu. A user must connect a HRM to the PM5 to get HR data. It also looks like the frequency of the data points is 4s (!!). I actually think a lot more than this is broadcasted, or at least logged, directly on the Concept2 apps but I'm too ignorant on that matter. 😅

In terms of metrics useful for rowers they need displayed:

Watts or Pace/500m (calculated from watts), depending on their preference.
Heart Rate
Stroke Rate (essentially cadence)

Typical training aids like interval time, heart rate zones, etc... that are likely to be the same as cycling.

Distance is situationally useful for training, especially since rowing has specific lengths over which it is competed on, and some users will want to set up workouts using distance rather than time. Culturally it's quite important to the sport and I think many will expect to see it somewhere (although it will be displayed on the PM5 head unit as well...)

Some rowers might be interested in having weight adjusted pacing as the sport contains lightweight and heavyweight categories and comparing indoor times between rowers is not particularly natural. Perhaps there could be an option to normalise times to a specific weight. w/kg isn't so useful here because the relationship between weight and rowing performance is not as intuitive to understand as it might be in cycling.