Zero Off GPS Speed Control

Anyone have some new info? A lot off discussion about it back in March. Is it a passing fad!

I just got one on my boat this week and let me say it is unreal! Here is a quick summary of my first impressions.

As far as the performance of the unit goes it is hands down better than the Perfect Pass. It settles in quicker, holds the speed better(it has a sway of .2, .3 either way, no matter how much weight is in the boat), holds the speed unbelievably well in the turns, and has a throttle override option on it which is really nice. You can do whatever you like and it will always take back over when it is supposed to. It makes it really nice for driving beginners thru the turns, or double ups. You can also adjust the speed my tenths which is kinda cool.

The only negatives of the system are the incredibly loud beep it made while engaging or scrolling thru the menu. It was ear piercing, but after pulling it the soft beep inside the unit is fine. And, the buttons and screen are a little confusing, especially for the average user. I think it would be fine for the waterski crowd since they are use to doing more with their PP to get them dialed in, but for a wakeboard version it needs to be simplified a little bit. By the end of the week I am use to it, but still occasionally find myself unsure of what button to press.

The best thing about it, is there is no setup. No nn, kdw, cs, etc. to figure out. You get in the boat and it works. Also, the fact that if every boat had one you would always know exactly what speed you go.

I'm sold 100%

I would say that is a solid review. Thanks Travis.

Was it ever confirmed that the gps would not perform correctly in rivers?

Any pictures of the display?

http://www.zerogps.com/

In the instruction manual that they have online, it says the following:

"As long as the GPS antenna can see the sky, the ZeroOff is good to go with speeds controlled to within 0.1mph at all times, no calibration or setup procedures required.......No more entering skier and crew weights, or adjusting for head/tail winds or currents!!"

I know that there was a big debate here about currents, and I'm not sure if anyone ever got a solid response from Zero Off?

sorry but unless this thing tracks runoff, tides, climate etc it cannot work with current. GPS works on physical locations not location relative to a waters surface. I think it is an awesome unit and it would be great for lakes. but i just don't see how it could work for moving boddies of water. Now there's nothing keeping the driver from adjusting the speed depending on whether your going with or against the current, that may be a livable solution for most people. But why would you want to have to mess with that when perfect pass and other units will do it automatically.

The good part is that it looks like Zero Off has a cruise model that works off a paddle wheel. This unit seems like it would be comprable to PP and it costs 3-5 hundred less than PP.

wonder if you could integrate the gps with a paddle wheel to give you the best of both worlds?

Travis I think I remember that Zero Off only will work on fly by wire throttle systems. Do you know if that is still true?

I spent a couple of hours with the engineer on the river and current situation - relative motion. They understand the concept and it can be programmed into the unit easily. They originally did not think of the wakeboard market, but after our discussion, they will accomodate our use with some simple programming changes. All units can be updated.

The wire systems are the only ones supported, right now. That will likely change.

PP is feverishly working on a GPS unit.

My next boat will be ZO.

Okay, for the record, if Mr. Moye, the man who pulls contests with no speed control, gives the Zero Off a thumbs up review, I'm sold 100% too. I would consider this discussion over, my .02

So if you are on the river and want to program it in, how do you know how fast the current is running? Maybe a dumb question but I have never ran on a river.

It's kind of a long story but I've had problems from the get go with my PP in speed mode. RPM mode works ok when not using a lot of ballast provided the winds are light. I'd definitely be interested in a GPS system that can work on a older throttle system.

shouldn't there be a way to implement a paddle wheel with the gps? Or is that a million dollar idea i shoulda kept to myself?

Sorry guys, I don't know any of the answers to your questions, but it sounds like Karl has the inside. What I do know, is the unit works great.

The display looks pretty much like the PP. It fits in the same spot. I just replaced the PP with it. I will take some pics tomorrow though.

How much do it cost and were can you buy it.

never mind I didn't read

Regarding current - the way has not been settled out yet. It is still in the investigation stages. I know of two ways and I am sure there are more. Mine are pretty simple, though.

Please post pics

Why not just have the unit take a reference point of the current; turn the boat on hit a button on the unit, it takes an initial position measurement, drift with the current for say 10 seconds, it takes a second measurement and records the direction and speed of the current and adjusts accordingly, then have it do the same check every time the boat is at an idle or when you push the button. What's the big deal, I can do that in about 100 characters of code, in pretty much any language... Perfect Pass is far from perfect.

Bocephus,

You could do that manually by just turning it on and seeing what the speed of the current is while drifting, and then subtracting that out when you set the speed. You wouldn't need an extra step on the unit to do that.

My bigger concern would then be that some areas of the river are bound to be going faster than others and you will get an irregular pull.

The same would occur with PP though until it either catches up or slows down. Why do it manually if the unit will do it itself? It sounds to me like you are looking for something perfect in all water conditions which is impossible, use PP or ZO for what it was intended to do, help give a consistent pull, not drive the boat for you.

Why couldn't you implement a paddle wheel into zero off for current?

I think they can/do, but I know that if I didn't have to drill a hole in the bottom of my boat I wouldn't.

good point!

Bocephus I thought of that same fix, however most rivers don't move in a straight line, they have bends and change direction. So unless you drifted the entire area that you are planning to board this would not work.

In that case PP wouldn't even work correctly.

Lots of people finding negative issues with the ZO system, but all seem to be with crazy hypothetical issues where I personally wouldn't be wakeboarding anyway. I can't ever remember a time when I wanted to wakeboard in an area where the current was changing speeds. Chances are that if the current is changing speeds all the time that there is an area that is stagnant and perfect for wakeboarding. Heck, I can't even remember a time where I wanted to even swim in river where the currents are strong enough to effect the speed of a boat and I grew up on the Mississippi River, we just went to the backwaters and had butter for days...you did have to watch out for stuff in the water though..

Mr. Moye,
See you in AZ on the 19-20th!

Ryan

current changes all the time at my house.

Bocephus,

I don't know what your smoking but perfect pass works perfectly in my above stated scenario. I'm not trying to pick this thing apart. I'm just trying to explain why your scenario or fix wouldn't work.

Again i'm not even talking about changes in currents based on width depth of the river. Which by the way perfect pass does adjust for by constantly calibrating itself to the surface speed of the river via paddlewheel.

I'm saying that rivers are very rarely straight, they bend they make 90 and 180 degree turns. So assuming that rivers generally aren't straight, If someone were to use your method, they would need to drift the entire area that they plan to wakeboard to get readings on current for the system to properly clibrate itself.

It sounds like where you ride this wouldn't be an issue. That's great for you. If i only rode on lakes this system would be a no brainer, but i don't. Therefore i think the system needs some tweaks before you can use the GPS version and have it perform better than perfect pass.

I may be stupid, but here is my take on the situation...

Everyone who has tried the Zero Off has stated that it is extremely efficient at holding your chosen speed to within .1-.2 mph, and from what I understand that seems to be a bit better than what Perfect Pass can hold. So, on a lake, the consensus is that it's a superior unit.

If you're on a river & riding with a current, can't you just adjust it on the fly if you seem to be riding too fast, or too slow? That seems like an incredibly easy fix to me, you know, push a button until the wake cleans up...

Myself, I don't use speed control, and when I adjust the throttle because I'm pulling too fast or too slow, it's amazing how fast the wake cleans up, and my rider starts to smile...

This all just seems like a whole lot of debate for nothing. My .02, take it for what you will...

I don't have either PP or ZO. Correct me if I'm wrong but this is my thinking:

Wouldn't the GPS be better at adjusting to currents? The GPS is tracking your speed relative to a stationary point (the satellite in geosynchronous orbit--not moving relative to earth's surface). Therefore the boat speed it is reading is the speed of the boat PLUS the speed of the water/current. So if the current speed increases, so would your total boat speed and the unit would adjust to it.

For Perfect Pass it reads the speed of the water relative to the boat. If you are sitting in a river with the boat off, but the PP reading speed, it would read 0 even though the current is moving you at whatever speed its at because you are floating with the water flow. The boat and water are moving at the same speeds so wouldn't PP read a speed of 0?

If you were in an ocean and the current was not parallel (head or tail current) pushing you sideways then the unit would respond differently, but I don't feel like thinking about that now.

I don't have experience with either unit--just basing this thinking off assumptions basically. Did that make sense to anyone?

It's the speed relative to the water that is important. If you could find a river flowing at 23 mph, you could wakeboard from a rope tied to a tree limb hanging over the water. Your speed on a GPS would be Zero.

As far as Zero Off is concerned, it's probably not the best for river current situations. However, a large part of the market never rides in a current.

Sorry James, I understand what you are saying, but it is incorrect, what rich said is right. You want your boat speed to be X-mph relative to the surface of the water. In Richs above situation of a 23 mph river, if you were to ride down river, and wanted a riding speed of 23 mph, you would set your PP to 23, and your GPS speedo would be reading 46 mph. so a GPS cruise control would not work in this case, unless you set it at 0 mph when riding down river.

I like the idea of the GPS system, no more extra holes in our boats... just seems some "minor details" were missed.

true story.

Ah, yes. I see what you are saying. It is the speed relative to the water that matters--not your actual boat speed. I had it switched around. Makes sense, and I can see why the ZO setup would be a problem someplace with strong currents.