Thanks @jamesh
The power plant information system on the web was one of the considerations when I first purchased my P5. I found it to be very useful. Looking forward to being able to utilize those features.
I would have thought the development process would have been completed before it was “finished” enough to tout it as a feature. I’ve been disappointed in the Bridge2, and, Globalnet and Powerplay. If the timeline is anything like the bridge2 update, be prepared to wait.
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The development process was finished enough for them to advertise it as a feature. However it didn’t work properly for about the first 6 years. It was complained about time and time again in the forums here, and then one day it was fixed and it did work properly for about a year after that. Then, about a year ago the hardware at the PS end that makes it work (the GlobalNet server) went kaput, and it hasn’t worked since. PS Audio have said they are not going to maintain servers at their end to make the GlobalNet feature work as originally advertised; instead there is going to be software that you run locally (on a NAS at home?) that will capture the data and store it for about a month to do with whatever you wish. I don’t think this data is going to be sent to PS Audio.
GlobalNet has been an advertised feature for about 8 years (since the P5/10), and in that time it worked properly for about one year.
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Good post. Thank you, Hopefully the software is multi-platform and supports PC, MAC, and various NAS options.
GlobalNet has been an advertised feature for longer than 8 years, as I had it on my IPC 8000 since early 2011 (and it wasn’t a new product then). Over that time, I had an ongoing dialog with PS Audio’s former head of engineering to troubleshoot its implementation of the transition between Standard and Daylight time–it use to screw up schedules (shifting by an hour forward/back over the current time) as well as inaccurately capturing the timing of events, for the same reason.
It’s been really disappointing to lose this long-standing, and advertised, feature. And I’m really disappointed to see that even if PowerPlay does return, that it apparently will no longer have any scheduling capability.
Hmm. Your dev process reminds me of Zeno’s Paradox.
Yeah, I complained about that wrong time bug many times. Their suggestion was to adjust the UTC time zone until the time was correct. Which was a half-baked solution compared to fixing it properly so it showed the correct time with the correct time zone set. Anyway, just goes to emphasize how such a low priority this feature was for them, whilst all the time continuing to advertise it.
Any updates on the new Powerplay going live? I spend a lot of time away from home so this is a really useful feature for me. Have been getting by by remote-controlling a pc in the house and using that to access my P5 and p10, but hoping for something easier and better soon!
Bump… any new eta?
No end date has yet been set. Thanks for the bump.
OK… will continue accessing it by remote-controlling a laptop in the house for now. Thanks!
Will the new power play be able to offer additional data?
Any new information about this ?
Seems any mention of fixing this has dropped off of the cliff, so I’m assuming they’re going to just let this fade away until they get a new system up and running.
Somebody from PS Audio should reply to this now.
They should inform of their plans.
@Paul don’t you think enough time has gone by (two years) that users deserve an honest answer rather than ignoring this issue? This is very uncharacteristic of PS Audio. If you have bad news spill it. Don’t ignore us!
C’mon Paul. Do the right thing!
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I hate that this is the case, but other projects have taken priority over PowerPlay. Namely the new transport, speakers, and server. That is not to say that we are done with it. If we had money oozing out of our ears, we’d hire the dozen or so devs needed to work exclusively on it. We are a small company though and have to juggle the resources wisely. For what it’s worth, it is still an active project and I hear of positive progress in our meetings.
I struggle to give an ETA because there are simply too many unknowns. Very robust testing is needed during development and this takes a lot of time to get right because of the sheer amount of data that’s being handled. I’d be pulling the ETA out of my you know what. And when that happens, it normally doesn’t end well.
I really do ask for people’s patience here. There are a lot of various stressors on the dev team right now, but I promise they’re making progress on it.
Hi @jamesh
I think what wraps people up on this is that is the Power Play features were a promised benefit of the product line. This is a rare case of PS Audio dropping the ball when the old server crashed and not getting it replaced with at least an equivalent feature set. The fact new products are being developed doesn’t absolve PS Audio from the promised functionality of a previously released product.
Yes, we did drop the ball on this one. When the server died we were unable to simply get another - it just wasn’t that simple - and the whole program had to be rewritten from scratch. We had to prioritize what resources we had and decided that since PowerPlay’s features were all available on the front panel of every Power Plant (reading distortion, voltage, etc.) and its functionality is available through your local network, that we could make the choice to assign those resources instead towards keeping our product line up to date and moving forward. Definitely not the choice others would have made. We’re still working on it (have now the complete documentation of how it is to be written and developed) and have hired outside programmers to begin work.
I’m glad PS Audio has hired someone to work on it. It was a useful feature.
Reading the Power Plant data off of the four inch screen isn’t optimal though. I much preferred it on the ipad, and the retention of voltage delivery information (history) to the Power Plant was very useful to what voltages were being delivered to the residence.
With advances in computer server technology and storage, hopefully, the project will be easier to design and implement.