The Pilot-MUX is being discontinued due to core components reaching end-of-life. As anyone who has tried to buy components or electronics over the last few years will know, manufacturing lead-times have ballooned, and some items just never resurface. There are many reasons for these supply issues, but it all comes down to the silicon fabrication houses having focused on their core components at the expense of the more niche parts that companies like yellowcog rely on.

Will there be a replacement? This is going to be customer driven. There are certainly many who use the Pilot-MUX that could now move to using the Pilot-CAN and its siblings. For anyone who may still need the MUX specific features then just get in touch and we’ll see what we can do.

The first ever version was released about a decade ago and was named as the Pilot-Cosworth. It was very much a prototype having far more on-board than was needed but still limited to only RS-232 output. It was designed for the Le Mans 24 hour and its success at the race left yellowcog with a new and interesting product that had now been tested in very demanding circumstances.

From the original prototype the first true Pilot-MUX was released in 2014. The fundamental design allowed for collecting wireless data, such as heart and breathing rates and waveforms such as ECG, and outputting these over serial or CAN bus. At the start, each device was configured in-house and then shipped with a fixed role.

It was the Pilot-MUX that drove the development of the Windows configuration software that allows a near-infinite number of ways to configure our devices. This Pilot-MUX configurability led to custom variant boards which in turn led to today’s flagship product, the Pilot-CAN.

So, what of Bluetooth classic connectivity? There are a few products we still use that are better when using Bluetooth classic, primarily the very popular Zephyr BioHarness. But they are becoming fewer and increasingly obsolete items which, if still valid in the domain, are themselves being updated to Bluetooth LE.

Published: 06 January 2023

October 2020 marks ten years of yellowcog. We have done a lot of interesting projects, designed stacks of embedded hardware, created some cool algorithms, plenty of Windows software and also the odd app. We have expanded our hardware to share data between CAN, ANT, BLE, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPRS and wired our kit to many different systems. We’ve sold to many different companies, sports and helped universities research not only physiology but wireless communications as well.

But what we’ve done so much more… We’ve worked on four world records including official Guinness World Records™ records. We’ve been invited to islands, beaches, cities, racing tracks, golf courses, crumbling warehouses, F1 teams' headquarters and the world's best universities. We’ve appeared on live TV, recorded TV, international adverts and provided live data to OB trucks and film studios. We’ve hung about in luxury trailers, on racing yachts, been filmed for hours, been in magazines, met famous people, been watched by tens-of-millions of people on the internet. Our equipment has been used in North America, South America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia (we will give a generous discount to anyone who brings us a project in Antarctica). We’ve monitored people on a range of drugs including ecstasy, amphetamines and LSD (all taken legally for science!). We’ve stood in a field throwing hardware, driven around the English countryside wearing crash helmets, made people jump up-and-down on high-speed cameras, punished past colleagues by making them run for as long as they can – just to collect data. We have employed more women than men to help us with our projects. We’ve worked with drivers from their rooky season to first wins. Conducted medical research at the local pub. We’ve been driven round race tracks by top drivers. We’ve been and exhibited at trade shows. We’ve jumped in and out of IndyCars, rally cars, track cars, Lamborghinis, Lotuses, Audis and simulators. We’ve also paid tax on all our income and not avoided any or used any “schemes” to reduce corporation tax.

Published: 01 October 2020

10^th Hole, Real Club de Golf Guadalmina, Malaga, Spain, 25/June/2019

Ok, we still don’t know the rules of the golf, but this project didn’t care much for them anyway. This was a genuine Guinness World Records™ record attempt to get the “The Fastest Hole Of Golf by An Individual” player. We provided monitoring equipment and know-how to get the best data. The rules of the attempt are strict: any number of shots can be made but the same player must make take all the shots in any one attempt. Since the current record is one minute 33 seconds and there are 500 yards to cover from tee to pin means only one thing: RUN!

First up was Guido Migliozzi. He set a great pace at the start but started to flag; his heart rate hitting 165 beats per minute (bpm) before he called off his attempt – not because he couldn’t go on but because he hooked (or possible sliced!) the ball into the rough. Giving up at 50 seconds he said “I don’t run since I was ten years old”!

Next up: Sean Crocker, a very confident start “I’m going to sprint this” and just like Guido thought the task more about the running than the golf: “I don’t think I might have run this much in forever”! After a brilliant first shot and a very fast run and a heart rate of 143 he tells us “I can’t feel my arms” which seems odd! By the end his heart rate hit 206. No record though, taking 1m 41s.

Third up: Paul Dunne. He took it very seriously and hit a perfect drive. “Run Forrest, Run [in translation]”. With a heart rate up to 181 he had the pace and holed it in 1:31. A record? No, he had fouled the ball when throwing his clubs down resulting in a disqualified attempt!

Finally: Thomas Detry. “I’m nervous… I am nervous”. With a heart rate of up to 188 he got close to the green quickly and it even looked like he had it but he just missed and needed a second final putt. He did however still do it in a mere 1m 29s and is now judged by Guinness to be “Officially Amazing”!

Published: 31 July 2019

GolfSixes, Oitavos Dunes, Cascais, Portugal, June 2019

Possibly one of our favourite trips of recent years. The location, weather and people were great. We’re the first to admit that our knowledge of golf is nil. For those like us, GolfSixes is like the usual game of golf but with a more relaxed and zippier format, a dress-down policy for the players and DJs and entertainment for the spectators. Six rounds of six-hole matches, the top two teams of each group then went onto the next day and points were awarded for wins or draws. With teams being knocked out until the finals. A more relaxed format but no less competitive as the winners get the €200,000 prize.

The project was to measure players heart rate as they teed up and display this on the TV where the presenter, Vernon Kay, could comment on it! For practical reasons we opted for wrist-worn heart rate monitors since there is a lot of twisting of the torso so wrist-worn would be the least distracting.

Since this was a one-off proof of concept, we didn’t have complete sets of duplicate kit at every hole. This meant the only way of collecting physiological data as the players moved from hole to hole was to de-rig, drive a golf buggy furiously from each tee to the next. Add in the crowds of spectators proceeding down the fairway and some deft driving was required!

Published: 10 June 2019