PowerFlarm offers new Version, PowerFlarm Fusion Includes Many newstandard Features!

On 11/19/20 3:39 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Dan Marotta wrote on 11/19/2020 2:13 PM:
On 11/19/20 11:21 AM, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Moshe Braner wrote on 11/19/2020 9:31 AM:
On 11/19/2020 11:12 AM, Dan Marotta wrote:
On 11/18/20 4:41 PM, Richard Pfiffner wrote:
According to Flarm the New Fusion transmits and receives on both A
and B Flarm Antennas.

http://www.craggyaero.com/fusion.htm



Richard
www.craggyaero.com


That looks to me like you can buy a license to activate the "B"
antenna. Â*Â*Isn't that like buying a license to active the passenger
side seat belt in a car?Â* Or the rear brakes?


Maybe if you pay extra they'll sell you the feature where it keeps
on working after the firmware "expires"?Â* (As long as the data
packets are still compatible.)

Dan: We have no choice about seat belts and brakes, which are
mandated by law. Do you want to go there with PowerFlarm? :^(

Dan: Buying a license for an optional feature (also known as "buying
an optional feature") is like buying the "primo" optional interior
for your new car, except you can do it anytime, even years after the
purchase, unlike that fancy interior. Would you rather they included
everything that is now optional, and charged you for it, instead
letting you pay for only what you need?


Moshe: They give me the updates FREE anytime I want one. I'm not
going to whine about the 10 minutes it takes me to read the update
instructions and load it into the glider. The present system seems
like a good compromise: all units are no more than 1 year behind in
capability, at no $ cost, and very little time and effort. As pilots,
we are required to "update" our gliders every year with an
inspection, to "update" the pilot every two years with a flight
review, to keep our charts and database current yearly or less, to
"update" our parachute every 180 days - I think we should expect a
pilot to also handle updating Flarm!


Eric,

A lot is made of such features as IGC recording.Â* But, since my glider
happens to have an engine, the IGC recording is useless unless I buy a
license for it.Â* The firmware has all been written and is installed
and, with a few characters inserted during the "installation", it will
function.

Fortunately, I knew that going in and did not need an ENL license.Â* My
ClearNav and ClearNav vario each perform the engine noise recording
function and at zero extra cost.Â* Now I suppose ClearNav could disable
the function, lower their price by $50 and then charge $50 to enable
the function but I think that would just **** people off.

My guess is they chose to license it for exactly the reason you state:
most pilot will have varios, loggers, or flight computers already doing
the IGC logging. By disabling the Flarm IGC logging and charging less,
they expect to get more people to buy their unit. That seems like a good
deal - "you only pay for what you need".


That's an odd form of capitalism. Giving more than expected increases
market share historically. Oh, wait! There ain't no competition...

Frankly, I don't care about the IGC license as I have other avenues.
Audio is handled by my ClearNav, so no problem there. The second
antenna, however, is a safety item and should be included. The license
was already installed in my unit when I bought it. BTW, I would have
paid for that one, but would grumble about it.

--
Dan
5J

Dan Marotta wrote on 11/19/2020 4:59 PM:
My guess is they chose to license it for exactly the reason you state: most pilot will have
varios, loggers, or flight computers already doing the IGC logging. By disabling the Flarm
IGC logging and charging less, they expect to get more people to buy their unit. That seems
like a good deal - "you only pay for what you need".


That's an odd form of capitalism.* Giving more than expected increases market share
historically.* Oh, wait!* There ain't no competition...

It's not a unique marketing technique: LXNav also uses licenses for the AHRS function in flight
computer, Air Avionics for functions in their iGlide software, ClearNav for their vario, etc.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

On Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 22:05:04 UTC, Moshe Braner wrote:
On 11/19/2020 1:21 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Moshe Braner wrote on 11/19/2020 9:31 AM:
On 11/19/2020 11:12 AM, Dan Marotta wrote:
On 11/18/20 4:41 PM, Richard Pfiffner wrote:
According to Flarm the New Fusion transmits and receives on both A
and B Flarm Antennas.

http://www.craggyaero.com/fusion.htm



Richard
www.craggyaero.com


That looks to me like you can buy a license to activate the "B"
antenna. Isn't that like buying a license to active the passenger
side seat belt in a car? Or the rear brakes?


Maybe if you pay extra they'll sell you the feature where it keeps on
working after the firmware "expires"? (As long as the data packets
are still compatible.)

Dan: We have no choice about seat belts and brakes, which are mandated
by law. Do you want to go there with PowerFlarm? :^(

Dan: Buying a license for an optional feature (also known as "buying an
optional feature") is like buying the "primo" optional interior for your
new car, except you can do it anytime, even years after the purchase,
unlike that fancy interior. Would you rather they included everything
that is now optional, and charged you for it, instead letting you pay
for only what you need?


Moshe: They give me the updates FREE anytime I want one. I'm not going
to whine about the 10 minutes it takes me to read the update
instructions and load it into the glider. The present system seems like
a good compromise: all units are no more than 1 year behind in
capability, at no $ cost, and very little time and effort. As pilots, we
are required to "update" our gliders every year with an inspection, to
"update" the pilot every two years with a flight review, to keep our
charts and database current yearly or less, to "update" our parachute
every 180 days - I think we should expect a pilot to also handle
updating Flarm!

I have no problem with the updates, I do them, and certainly recommend
everybody do them. My problem is with it stopping to operate if for
whatever reason somebody didn't do the update yet, even if in fact the
data exchanged still allows interoperability. That is an unnecessary
hit to safety, for everybody around. And it may have contributed to the
recent collision we were discussing. There are better ways to nudge
people to update the firmware.

What makes you think that it does stop operating if somebody did not do the update? I have never seen that said. What I have seen said is that if everybody updates they guarantee there will be full compatibility - quite different.

On 11/20/2020 9:37 AM, waremark wrote:
On Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 22:05:04 UTC, Moshe Braner wrote:
On 11/19/2020 1:21 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Moshe Braner wrote on 11/19/2020 9:31 AM:
On 11/19/2020 11:12 AM, Dan Marotta wrote:
On 11/18/20 4:41 PM, Richard Pfiffner wrote:
According to Flarm the New Fusion transmits and receives on both A
and B Flarm Antennas.

http://www.craggyaero.com/fusion.htm



Richard
www.craggyaero.com


That looks to me like you can buy a license to activate the "B"
antenna. Isn't that like buying a license to active the passenger
side seat belt in a car? Or the rear brakes?


Maybe if you pay extra they'll sell you the feature where it keeps on
working after the firmware "expires"? (As long as the data packets
are still compatible.)

Dan: We have no choice about seat belts and brakes, which are mandated
by law. Do you want to go there with PowerFlarm? :^(

Dan: Buying a license for an optional feature (also known as "buying an
optional feature") is like buying the "primo" optional interior for your
new car, except you can do it anytime, even years after the purchase,
unlike that fancy interior. Would you rather they included everything
that is now optional, and charged you for it, instead letting you pay
for only what you need?


Moshe: They give me the updates FREE anytime I want one. I'm not going
to whine about the 10 minutes it takes me to read the update
instructions and load it into the glider. The present system seems like
a good compromise: all units are no more than 1 year behind in
capability, at no $ cost, and very little time and effort. As pilots, we
are required to "update" our gliders every year with an inspection, to
"update" the pilot every two years with a flight review, to keep our
charts and database current yearly or less, to "update" our parachute
every 180 days - I think we should expect a pilot to also handle
updating Flarm!

I have no problem with the updates, I do them, and certainly recommend
everybody do them. My problem is with it stopping to operate if for
whatever reason somebody didn't do the update yet, even if in fact the
data exchanged still allows interoperability. That is an unnecessary
hit to safety, for everybody around. And it may have contributed to the
recent collision we were discussing. There are better ways to nudge
people to update the firmware.

What makes you think that it does stop operating if somebody did not do the update? I have never seen that said. What I have seen said is that if everybody updates they guarantee there will be full compatibility - quite different.


"The firmware expiration date is not related to the aircraft specific
update cycle/date. The firmware will not expire as long as the firmware
is kept up-to-date according to the AMP. The expiry is always at least
12 months plus a few months of margin in the future when downloaded from
flarm.com."

"If the annual update cycle has expired but the firmware has not yet
expired, the device will in most cases continue to work until firmware
expiry."

"After the expiration date, the system will issue a continuous hard
warning and will not operate."

which seems to be contradicted by:

"If the annual firmware update is not applied, the device may no longer
be interoperable with other FLARM devices without any notification or
warning."

- all quotes from:
https://support.flarm.com/hc/en-us/a...piration-date-

IMO, they can (and probably do) include a software version number in the
data packets, and data packets received that are therefore known to be
in an old and unusable format can be ignored. Since versions overlap in
time, I would guess that data packet format changes that make old
formats unusable rarely happen. If the version of a received packet is
not too old to be used, it should be used, for safety's sake. And
transmission should never be turned off by the software just because it
senses that it's "expired", since it does not know whether future
versions can or cannot use the data it is sending.

Moshe Braner wrote on 11/19/2020 2:12 PM:
On 11/19/2020 1:21 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:


That looks to me like you can buy a license to activate the "B" antenna. **Isn't that like
buying a license to active the passenger side seat belt in a car?* Or the rear brakes?


Maybe if you pay extra they'll sell you the feature where it keeps on working after the
firmware "expires"?* (As long as the data packets are still compatible.)

Dan: We have no choice about seat belts and brakes, which are mandated by law. Do you want to
go there with PowerFlarm? :^(

Dan: Buying a license for an optional feature (also known as "buying an optional feature") is
like buying the "primo" optional interior for your new car, except you can do it anytime,
even years after the purchase, unlike that fancy interior. Would you rather they included
everything that is now optional, and charged you for it, instead letting you pay for only
what you need?


I also agree with Dan that having to buy a license to activate the "B" antenna is ridiculous.
Yes it's an optional feature, but it shouldn't be.* They've already developed this feature and
it's built into the device.* And it is important for the safety benefit.* That's different from
some of the other optional features like IGC-certified logging, which are separate from the
collision avoidance purpose, and they can make those who want that feature pay extra while
keeping the price lower (?) for the rest.

The B antenna is not required for safety in my glider. My ASH26E has two antennas in the nose
(Flarm and ADSB), producing excellent range in most directions, and sufficient range to the
rear for collision avoidance. I tried a B antenna on the belly, and it did improve the range at
which I could detect other Flarm units, especially below. Since the unit already had sufficient
range in all directions, the B antenna did not improve it's collision avoidance ability, and I
removed it after 10 or so flights.

I think my experience would apply to almost any Schleicher glider - they all use essentially
the same fuselage, starting with the ASW24, which do not have carbon in the nose. That's a lot
of gliders.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

On Friday, 20 November 2020 at 16:10:40 UTC, Moshe Braner wrote:

"The firmware expiration date is not related to the aircraft specific
update cycle/date. The firmware will not expire as long as the firmware
is kept up-to-date according to the AMP. The expiry is always at least
12 months plus a few months of margin in the future when downloaded from
flarm.com."

"If the annual update cycle has expired but the firmware has not yet
expired, the device will in most cases continue to work until firmware
expiry."

"After the expiration date, the system will issue a continuous hard
warning and will not operate."

What is meant by firmware expiry date, since this is different from annual update expiry date?

Personally I don't intend to explore how my device behaves when not updated - I have it updated annually during the ARC process, although I did not know it was a requirement until I read that above from Martin Gregorie. I don't normally use the igc files from my device (igc files are uploaded by wifi from my LX9000 to SeeYou Cloud before I get out of the glider, so much more convenient), but I do extract and look at one at the start of the year to check that it is now using the latest firmware.

Incidentally, I did pay for the 2nd aerial option, and having a European device it should transmit as well as receive. I flew with that setup for two seasons before discovering that the 2nd aerial option was not active and the blade aerial on the bottom of the glider was not doing anything. The unit had been provided incorrect and was then sorted out by the UK supplier Navboys. To the best of my knowledge it now works - but I don't actually know whether it does.

To the best of my knowledge it now works - but I don't actually know whether it does.


Take a recent Flarm flight log and upload it to the Flarm analyzer. It will show you the results for the A and the B antenna...



http://flarm.com/support/tools-softw...ange-analyzer/

On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 11:44:25 -0800, waremark wrote:

Personally I don't intend to explore how my device behaves when not
updated - I have it updated annually during the ARC process, although I
did not know it was a requirement until I read that above from Martin
Gregorie.

Mark, for at least the last 2-3 years my club's inspectors have verbally
checked when I'd last updated the FLARM firmware, but at my glider's most
recent annual (March 2020) I noticed it is now on the checklist.



--
--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

"I think my experience would apply to almost any Schleicher glider - they all use essentially
the same fuselage, starting with the ASW24, which do not have carbon in the nose."

The fuselage mold may be the same, but the layup in newer gliders is carbon fiber.

I found a major improvement in range when I moved from a single antenna over the glareshield to dual antennas on the canopy sides of my ASW-27.

I did Range Analysis on six installations and documented the results in the 2019 Free Flight. Look for Antenna Placement:

http://sac.ca/index.php/en/free-flig...ight-vol-libre

George Haeh wrote on 11/20/2020 1:42 PM:
"I think my experience would apply to almost any Schleicher glider - they all use essentially
the same fuselage, starting with the ASW24, which do not have carbon in the nose."

The fuselage mold may be the same, but the layup in newer gliders is carbon fiber.

I found a major improvement in range when I moved from a single antenna over the glareshield to dual antennas on the canopy sides of my ASW-27.

I did Range Analysis on six installations and documented the results in the 2019 Free Flight. Look for Antenna Placement:

http://sac.ca/index.php/en/free-flig...ight-vol-libre

Are you certain the ASW27 has carbon fiber in the nose (the area besides the pilot's feet)? It
was designed at the same time as the ASH26E, which doesn't have any carbon in that area. Same
question for the ASW28, ASG29, etc - I'm wondering when/if the addition of carbon in the nose
began.


--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1