We want to buy a gyroscope to experiment with and incorporate before Worlds. However, there are strong rumors that this is the year that the cortex will be replaced. My understanding is that old sensors and motors may not be compatible with the new cortex. So will I be wasting my money if I buy a gyroscope right now…?
Why would the old sensors and motors not be compatible? They use pretty standard connections, and there’d be no reason for them not to use the same connectors.
Whenever Arduino makes a better version, they don’t change how things are connected. All they do is improve RAM, storage, CPU, and other components. Why would Arduino switch ports? The port system works pretty well and isn’t like Apple, who changes their connections every 1-3 hardware updates. The main question is why would VEX switch the connectivity, even though these type of systems work very well and are compact and simple? In theory, I believe VEX will be allowing the old sensors no matter what updates they make 
Makes total sense. Thanks!
this is VEX not Apple
Many of the current VEX sensors were actually created for the PIC micro controller which the Cortex replaced.
The current connectors are not optimal and you need only look at the IQ brain to see how things might be done differently.
Having extension cables that you plug into both the sensor/motor and the cortex would be nice. No more broken sensors because of bad cables.
Wait are we considering the IQ connectors optimal? I hate those. The VEX connectors currently use the industry standard. The IQ connectors are entirely identical to the NXT connectors electronically but are not physically interchangeable because both sides wanted to make stupid proprietary cables. The only difference is the little plastic tabs location.
I want any new electronics to maintain the PWM / standard 3 wire pins. Lots of people use the VEX parts outside of using a cortex and any major modification makes that impossible. VEX motor controller 29s are actually like the best motor controllers on the market for that price. I commonly use vex motors and sensors on arduinos or plug new sensors into a cortex. Keep the standardization.
Be Android, not Apple.
If they were to have those type of connectors, then the CORTEX size must increase for every sensor port as well as motor ports… Like, that will be huge…
+1 to @tabor473
Standardization is part of what makes VEX VEX. I believe it is important to prepare participants for what they’re going to be using later in life. I’m guessing for the most part this isn’t going to be any IQ or LEGO style wiring, and is going to be PWM and similar fashions.
+1 to @tabor473 because he told me to
i would be happy if they had less digitals and analogs but more i2c
but its all up to the SoC / io controller they choose
If anything, I’d rather the pins be on the Cortex Brain, and the female connectors be on the sensors and motor. I’ve had kids break a lot of pins.
That brings up concerns with having live male connections… And I wouldn’t want something as easy to accomplish as bent pins to potentially damage something as expensive as the Cortex.
Pins in the cortex would be very difficult (or impossible depending on how they do it) to repair, while having the pins on the wires can be repaired very easily. I think the current setup is much better.
In the question/answer section of the EP Summit, they indicated that the updated system would likely have backward compatibility with the existing sensors.
Used in the real world, what’s the half life of a typical Vex sensor? Is it 3 months? Six months? A year? Does anyone ever buy a Vex sensor and expect it to last more than a year?
The same could be said for the current motors.
I know we probably get a season and a half out of our VEX motors currently.
Sensors we probably get a solid year out of.
We replace most other things yearly.
The team I coach is using sensors from when I was a student there, and I graduated in 2011. They work fine.