Let's quickly add wireless connectivity to your PM3 so you can row on your phone or Apple TV with your favourite app. This assumes your device is already built and has firmware on it. Starting from a bare ESP32-S3 board instead? Work through the full setup guide first.
Power on the right, the PM3 on the left. Both of the PM3's ports are underneath the monitor.
Plug a USB power supply into the port on the right-hand side of the PM Connector. Any phone charger will do.
The LED starts flashing blue the moment power arrives, so from here on it tells you where you are.
Run a USB cable from the port on the left-hand side of the PM Connector to the USB port underneath the PM3.
This is the cable everything runs on. All of your rowing data comes through it.
The PM3 has a 3.5 mm jack on its underside, just to the left of the USB port. It is recessed and easy to miss.
This cable sends heart rate data to the PM3, so a paired strap shows on the monitor's own screen (step 8), and it detects when the PM3 wakes up or goes to sleep. If your device came without a 3.5 mm cable, skip this step. Wiring guide.
The LED should be blinking blue slowly. That means it has not been set up yet.
On your phone, join the WiFi network called PM Connector 5000 Setup. A page opens by itself. Pick your own network from the list and enter its password.
Bluetooth works with no WiFi at all, so you can pair an app and row without ever doing this. But the web interface needs WiFi, and steps 5, 8 and 9 all happen in the web interface. Skip it and you keep the rowing and lose the dashboard, heart rate pairing, Strava and automatic updates.
Why WiFi comes before the green LED. While the device is waiting to be set up, blue outranks every other colour. If you skip step 4 the LED stays blue even once the PM3 is connected and working. That is not a fault, and it is why the green in step 6 comes after this step rather than straight after the cable.
Once it has joined your network, open http://pm-connector.local in a browser on the same network.
That is the dashboard: live numbers while you row, your workout history and every setting.
Not every network resolves .local names, so this address
does not work everywhere. The
find your device tool asks the
device for its address over Bluetooth and hands you a link, which is the
easy way round it.
Failing that, your router's admin page lists the devices on your
network and their addresses. Look for pm-connector and browse
to the address next to it. It works, but it is more digging than most
people will want to do.
With WiFi out of the way, the LED reports the PM3:
What the LED means has the full list, with swatches that blink at the real speeds so you can hold the page next to the device.
Pair from ErgData, EXR, MyWhoosh, Kinomap or the Concept2 Logbook app exactly as you would with a PM5. It appears as PM5 followed by your rower's serial number.
Once the app connects, the LED alternates cyan and green, a second of each. Both links are up. Pull the handle and it turns solid green for the whole piece.
In the web interface, open the Connections tab and pair your Bluetooth strap. Your heart rate then goes out to your apps along with everything else, and onto the PM3's own screen if you plugged in the 3.5 mm cable in step 3.
In the web interface, open the Settings tab and connect Strava. Every workout then uploads on its own the moment you finish, with no phone involved.
It goes to sleep. After a few minutes with nobody rowing it sleeps to save the PM3's batteries, shown as a dim blue that slowly fades in and out. Touch the PM3 or connect an app and it wakes straight back up.
It updates itself. Once it is on WiFi it checks for new firmware on its own and offers it, with the release notes, before installing anything.
ANT+ for a watch. Plug a spare ANT+ USB stick into a USB hub sitting between the PM Connector and the PM3, and a watch or bike computer can pick the rower up over ANT+ instead of Bluetooth. The same stick can receive an ANT+ heart rate strap. You need a free ANT+ network key first: ANT+ guide.
When something is wrong, read the LED first. It says which link is missing, which is faster than unplugging cables to find out.