As most of you will agree, we did pretty well with version 1! I'm not one for leaving well enough alone
What started with a customer suggestion that we add some sort of pedal mapping feature (the competition misleadingly markets it as a "sprint booster") eventually turned into a complete rewrite of the code which has recently been finished along with preliminary testing. It is now ready for field beta testing.
For those not familiar, I'm going to clear up some terms:
"firmware". This is the software that is embedded inside the cruise control that makes it do what it does. This is all that has changed for 2.0... there were no physical changes at all. All existing Area 451 Cruise controls can be upgraded to have the new firmware.
"beta testing". The firmware is finished, but that doesn't mean it is 100% field tested. There could be bugs in the code that may need to be worked out. A few of the brave among you will sign up for testing before an official release. These people are therefore "beta testers".
What does this mean for you? That depends on you. If you are perfectly content with your cruise control the way it is then there is no need to update. Read through the changes and new features and decide if they are things you want, then read through the update procedure and decide if it is worth the effort and cost to do it. I want to be clear that there is no reason you
must get the update. This is
not a recall and participation in the update is completely voluntary.
At some point, to be determined, there will be a 2.X official release. All units
shipped before that future date will have the current 1.10 firmware and all units
shipped on or after that date will have the new firmware. I stress "shipped" rather than "sold" because any given reseller may continue to have stock with 1.10 firmware installed even after the official 2.X release.
This announcement is in a read-only section so I have made some other posts that you may want to read and where you can discuss and ask questions:
2.00 Firmware Beta Testing2.00 Firmware - New Features and Changes2.00 Firmware - Proposed Update Procedures and Associated Costs Thank you.
Art.
