Post by goldensandslash on Dec 12, 2023 19:04:22 GMT
So... back in July 2021, they came out with the new-at-the-time StackMat G5 timer.
If you don't know, the StackMat timer is used for exactly two competitive tasks (I hesitate to call them "sports"): cup-stacking, and speed-cubing. The G5 version replaced the old G4 version, which had been in use for many years prior.
At the time, I hated the G5 timer, but I figured I'd give it a couple years to prove its worth...
...and it hasn't.
So I'm gonna go on a rant about this. Because... oh my god, this is a downgrade over the G4 timer in nearly every way.
For context, this is an image of the G4 timer, above. What makes it unique compared to a stopwatch is that you need to use BOTH of your hands to start or stop the timer. Which makes sense for competitions like cup-stacking and speedcubing. As you may have gathered from the name "StackMat timer", it was actually invented for cup-stacking first, and then speedcubing took it to use for their competitions as well. But now let's look at the G5 timer. It looks like this:
Okay, so... let's go over what's changed. First up, let me talk about the one good thing in this new timer: the power button and reset button. On the G4 timer, you'd just need to press the buttons to trigger them. But now, you have to press and hold it for a bit, meaning it's impossible to trigger it by accident. It didn't happen often, but always sucked when it did. On the G4 timer, if you stopped the timer (by putting your hands on the hand sensors), but a stray finger accidentally hit the reset button... it would erase your time, which in an official competition, would disqualify your attempt.
With the G5 timer, this can never occur. And that's good. Well, that's it for positives. Let's go over all the negatives now.
So, you may have noticed that the G4 timer has two additional buttons on it. These buttons could be used to save your best times to one of three "slots", so that you could see what you've done well. It was a minor feature, and very few people used it, but it wasn't really getting in the way, so it doesn't make sense to remove it, yet they did. G5 timers lack this feature.
Okay, now let's move on to the next obvious visual difference: the thumb sensors.
So... you're probably thinking that the best way to start the timer, if you were to compete in one of these competitions, is to have your hands in a "karate chop" position. That way, you could have your hands all ready to go to reach for your cups or your cube.
And... you'd be right. In professional cup-stacking... that is indeed the best thing to do. With cubing... this would in theory be the best thing to do, but... official cubing competitions have regulations against this. You are required, in cubing, to start with your fingertips on the hand sensors, and with your palms facing down. The penalty for not doing this is a +2 second add-on to your solve.
But cup-stackers did use the karate-chop option... until now. Because on the G5 timer, you need to have both your hands on the hand sensors, and your thumbs on the thumb sensors, in order to both start and stop the timer. It feels very dumb that they're picky about how you STOP the timer, but whatever. More importantly, this changed the way that cup-stackers had been doing it for years... which... doesn't really feel fair.
Now... one thing that you can do is hold down the reset button for 5 seconds. If you do this, then it switches from 4-pad mode, to 2-pad mode. In 2-pad mode, the thumb sensors are not used, and it works the same as the old G4 timer, with only the hand sensors. And guess what? In cubing competitions, they use 2-pad mode... so... why even bother getting a new timer!?
Now let's flip these timers upside-down and look at the bottom.
So... these timers are meant to be attached to mats. The attachment mechanism has changed. On the G4 timers, you would need to slide it onto the mat, which was fine. It worked. On the G5 timers, you need to clip it into place. So... pros: this makes it harder to remove the timer from the mat. It won't go sliding off. Cons: It makes it harder to remove the timer from the mat. Yeah... whenever you actually WANT to remove the timer, it is a lot more difficult, for no reason. I greatly prefer the G4 timer.
Oh, and... for the record, the G5 timer is completely INCOMPATIBLE with the old G4 mats, because the attachment pegs are in slightly different locations, meaning that you need to buy a whole new mat as well as the timer, which is a blatant money-grab for no other gain. It's especially noteworthy because the G4 timer actually IS compatible with the G3 mats, so this is the first time incompatibility has been introduced.
The next thing you'll see on the underside is the attachment mechanism to plug it into a tournament display at a competition. And... I will admit... this is one area where the G5 timer succeeds better than the G4 timer. The plug-in is considerably more complicated on the G5 timer, which prevents it from accidentally getting unplugged. Which is good! But... I don't think it's that big of a deal. Even if it did get unplugged and your time wasn't displayed on the big tournament display... it'd still display on the timer just fine, so judges and competitors could just read it off of that. This was not really needed.
You know what is needed? Another digit. Yeah, so... the G4 timer has a major problem in that... it is useless after ten minutes. The highest number it can display is 9:59.999. In cup-stacking, this is sufficient. But in cubing? Well, it can vary. Yeah, for the standard 3x3x3 cube, even a beginner will only take about two minutes. But when you get to bigger cubes and more advanced puzzles, some of them will take more than ten minutes for some people. Adding another digit would be SO helpful... and I would have totally forgiven everything that the G5 timer did, if it had just added another digit.
But it didn't. The G5 timer ALSO stops after ten minutes. Which is a damn shame. It means that there's no reason for cubers to bother getting the new timer if they already have a G4 timer that works just as well. And as for cup-stackers, it feels like they are being FORCED to buy the new timer, especially with the rules changes with regards to "karate chop" starting, and with the incompatibility with the old mats.
There's virtually nothing redeemable about the G5 timer. I greatly prefer the G4 version.
If you don't know, the StackMat timer is used for exactly two competitive tasks (I hesitate to call them "sports"): cup-stacking, and speed-cubing. The G5 version replaced the old G4 version, which had been in use for many years prior.
At the time, I hated the G5 timer, but I figured I'd give it a couple years to prove its worth...
...and it hasn't.
So I'm gonna go on a rant about this. Because... oh my god, this is a downgrade over the G4 timer in nearly every way.
For context, this is an image of the G4 timer, above. What makes it unique compared to a stopwatch is that you need to use BOTH of your hands to start or stop the timer. Which makes sense for competitions like cup-stacking and speedcubing. As you may have gathered from the name "StackMat timer", it was actually invented for cup-stacking first, and then speedcubing took it to use for their competitions as well. But now let's look at the G5 timer. It looks like this:
Okay, so... let's go over what's changed. First up, let me talk about the one good thing in this new timer: the power button and reset button. On the G4 timer, you'd just need to press the buttons to trigger them. But now, you have to press and hold it for a bit, meaning it's impossible to trigger it by accident. It didn't happen often, but always sucked when it did. On the G4 timer, if you stopped the timer (by putting your hands on the hand sensors), but a stray finger accidentally hit the reset button... it would erase your time, which in an official competition, would disqualify your attempt.
With the G5 timer, this can never occur. And that's good. Well, that's it for positives. Let's go over all the negatives now.
So, you may have noticed that the G4 timer has two additional buttons on it. These buttons could be used to save your best times to one of three "slots", so that you could see what you've done well. It was a minor feature, and very few people used it, but it wasn't really getting in the way, so it doesn't make sense to remove it, yet they did. G5 timers lack this feature.
Okay, now let's move on to the next obvious visual difference: the thumb sensors.
So... you're probably thinking that the best way to start the timer, if you were to compete in one of these competitions, is to have your hands in a "karate chop" position. That way, you could have your hands all ready to go to reach for your cups or your cube.
And... you'd be right. In professional cup-stacking... that is indeed the best thing to do. With cubing... this would in theory be the best thing to do, but... official cubing competitions have regulations against this. You are required, in cubing, to start with your fingertips on the hand sensors, and with your palms facing down. The penalty for not doing this is a +2 second add-on to your solve.
But cup-stackers did use the karate-chop option... until now. Because on the G5 timer, you need to have both your hands on the hand sensors, and your thumbs on the thumb sensors, in order to both start and stop the timer. It feels very dumb that they're picky about how you STOP the timer, but whatever. More importantly, this changed the way that cup-stackers had been doing it for years... which... doesn't really feel fair.
Now... one thing that you can do is hold down the reset button for 5 seconds. If you do this, then it switches from 4-pad mode, to 2-pad mode. In 2-pad mode, the thumb sensors are not used, and it works the same as the old G4 timer, with only the hand sensors. And guess what? In cubing competitions, they use 2-pad mode... so... why even bother getting a new timer!?
Now let's flip these timers upside-down and look at the bottom.
So... these timers are meant to be attached to mats. The attachment mechanism has changed. On the G4 timers, you would need to slide it onto the mat, which was fine. It worked. On the G5 timers, you need to clip it into place. So... pros: this makes it harder to remove the timer from the mat. It won't go sliding off. Cons: It makes it harder to remove the timer from the mat. Yeah... whenever you actually WANT to remove the timer, it is a lot more difficult, for no reason. I greatly prefer the G4 timer.
Oh, and... for the record, the G5 timer is completely INCOMPATIBLE with the old G4 mats, because the attachment pegs are in slightly different locations, meaning that you need to buy a whole new mat as well as the timer, which is a blatant money-grab for no other gain. It's especially noteworthy because the G4 timer actually IS compatible with the G3 mats, so this is the first time incompatibility has been introduced.
The next thing you'll see on the underside is the attachment mechanism to plug it into a tournament display at a competition. And... I will admit... this is one area where the G5 timer succeeds better than the G4 timer. The plug-in is considerably more complicated on the G5 timer, which prevents it from accidentally getting unplugged. Which is good! But... I don't think it's that big of a deal. Even if it did get unplugged and your time wasn't displayed on the big tournament display... it'd still display on the timer just fine, so judges and competitors could just read it off of that. This was not really needed.
You know what is needed? Another digit. Yeah, so... the G4 timer has a major problem in that... it is useless after ten minutes. The highest number it can display is 9:59.999. In cup-stacking, this is sufficient. But in cubing? Well, it can vary. Yeah, for the standard 3x3x3 cube, even a beginner will only take about two minutes. But when you get to bigger cubes and more advanced puzzles, some of them will take more than ten minutes for some people. Adding another digit would be SO helpful... and I would have totally forgiven everything that the G5 timer did, if it had just added another digit.
But it didn't. The G5 timer ALSO stops after ten minutes. Which is a damn shame. It means that there's no reason for cubers to bother getting the new timer if they already have a G4 timer that works just as well. And as for cup-stackers, it feels like they are being FORCED to buy the new timer, especially with the rules changes with regards to "karate chop" starting, and with the incompatibility with the old mats.
There's virtually nothing redeemable about the G5 timer. I greatly prefer the G4 version.