Serial communication still provide an easy and robust way of interconnecting equipment. Using the binary configuration option in Embedded Setup you can output in a variety of formats that PC's or embedded systems can easily parse.
For example, you may have a very simple system connected (such as a GPRS data up-link) that you cannot configure to "understand" the data being given to it by the Pilot. It is therefore easier to simplify the Pilot device output, using the binary config item, to output data for heart rate as a single byte number. For example, each byte could be the heart rate (or wheel speed etc) as received. Any decoding equipment would then be able to display the latest byte. More advanced configs can pad messages with STX and ETX bytes and insert data type IDs as well as outputting data in single or multiple bytes. The options are endless.
We are happy to discuss your project and have a good library of software to get the data where you want it. You need a custom version of the Pilot-CAN which can be produced to suit at no extra cost.