Running Concept2 Utility in a VM

II recently found myself needing to transfer some old workout data from my Concept2 PM3 and its associated Logcard. However, as I didn’t have easy access to a Windows machine, and Concept2 only provides their utility software for Windows and Mac, I was compelled to run it in a Windows VM.

Upon connecting the PM3 to my computer and redirecting the USB device to the VM, I encountered an issue: the Concept2 Utility failed to recognize the connected PM3. In an attempt to resolve this, I downgraded the Concept2 Utility to an older version, 6.54. This version did recognize the PM3, but it still failed to recognize the Logcard.

The solution I found was to add the PM3 as a USB host device, rather than using USB redirection. This can be accomplished via the VM’s hardware detail page by selecting Add Hardware -> USB Host Device, or by using the following XML configuration:

<hostdev mode="subsystem" type="usb" managed="yes">
  <source>
    <vendor id="0x17a4"/>
    <product id="0x0001"/>
  </source>
  <address type="usb" bus="0" port="3"/>
</hostdev>

The Vendor ID/Product ID (VID/PID) shown above corresponds to the PM3’s VID/PID. If you’re using a different monitor, you may need to adjust these values accordingly.

For reference, here is an example of how the PM3’s VID/PID appears:

Bus 003 Device 004: ID 17a4:0001 Concept2 Performance Monitor 3

Additional details about the setup include:

  • Windows 10 VM
  • QEMU/KVM virtualization via virt-manager.
  • Concept2 Utility verison 7.14