Evolution 2000 Discontinued

I bought the Evil-ution 2000 a couple months after they became available in the US. After a year of use, it started going off at wrong altitudes then making random noises. I had already replaced the battery, but I replaced it again anyway. That didn't fix it. So I opened it up and found a component, which I suspect is the pressure sensor, was loose (the solder had broken). I tried contacting Cool&Groovy via email and their web site (which no longer has anything on it), but no luck. I registered on-line twice. Emailed (got a useless reply once).

Here are my thoughts on this P.O.S. before it broke:

Setting the beeps is pretty easy. Three beeps for breakoff, dump and flatline. Cool. Except that it routinely flatlined as much as 5 seconds after I had a fully inflated canopy.

You can't set the time or the timezone - it's permanently set to GMT. They say you can adjust for this in software when you upload the data, but that doesn't work either. So for people jumping on the West Coast of the US, that means your jumps all appear to have happened 8 hours after they really did. Any jump made after ~4PM logs as happening the next day! I didn't care about the time so much, but at least get the DATE right!

The graphs are a cool concept, but they don't work either. The fall rate graph was all spiky with speeds that varied from 600 (mph or fps - can't remember which) to -200! Wow! I was falling UP!

The Evolog has some neat features, but is very awkward to use. Some of the features you need are buried deep in the menus. It uploaded some jumps two or three times. You have to use the software, however, to get at the data because there is no on-unit display.

The batteries don't last nearly as long as advertised. C&G says they last 2 years - I got less than 1 year out of them.

Scoring:
Features: 3 of 5
Usability: 3 of 5
Reliability: 1 of 5
Service and Support: -2000 of 5

Overall: 0 of 5.

If anybody sees George Pilkington, he owes me $280 - or a ProTrack.

I tried to go to the Cool & Groovey website, only to find that the name has aparently been sold to a general e-commerce merchandiser.

I purchased a Cool & Groovy Evolution 2000 & interface in January 1999 and was expecting a great product after the success of the original Time-out.

Sadly this was not the case. When I received delivery I couldn't get the interface to function. This was replaced and everything seemed to be working. However,upon closer inspection, there was a time and date conflict with the unit. There was no way to adjust the time or date, also the graphs and figures produced in the Cool & Groovy logbook were unrealistic. In September of 1999 Cool & Groovy released a CD with software to make the unit more accurate and placed some software on their web site that when downloaded was supposed to cure the time and date conflict. This only worked until the end of British summer time and the clocks changed. The graphical information in the logbook was still not particularly realistic. In October 1999 the Evolution 2000 malfunctioned and was sent back to Cool & Groovy. It was returned after being repaired. It was the end of the season and the unit was put away safely until the next season.

The next season started March 2000. I didn’t jump a great deal during the season and in August 2000 I had used the unit only 28 times when it malfunctioned again. This time I don’t really know how to describe Cool & Groovy's customer care. After repeated e-mails, phone calls and recorded delivery letters returned unopened. I gave up trying. Luckily, on my part, I had purchased the unit with my Visa card and being a reputable company they refunded me the cost of the Evolution and interface. I haven't heard anything from Cool & Groovy or their sales director Mr. George Pilkington since I returned the Evolution unit. I leave you to draw your own conclusions regarding this sorry story.