I recently got one of these to have a play with on my E8000 bike and see what it does - recording my findings so far in case they are useful.
First off you can't have the EW-EN100 connected at the same time as a display - it is one or the other. So the EW-EN100 is basically the option to use if you don't want a display on the handlebars and you want a more discrete appearance.
It has one button on it, one (or two?) LED, and 2 inputs for connectors.
Tapping the button cycles through the power assist modes (off -> eco -> trail -> boost -> off). The LED changes colour to match the assist mode you are in, just like the colours on the normal E8000 display (off=off, blue=eco, green=trail, yellow=boost). This works whether you change assist mode by tapping the button on the EW-EN100 or use the normal mode shifters on your handlebars.
Holding the button with a long press & release made the LED flash green a few times - this may have been some display of battery charge. I've since found some Shimano documents which might explain this, and also how to perform Di2 RD protection reset / adjustment (but I haven't connected & tested it again):
Because the EW-EN100 only has 2 input connections it is slightly more limited than the standard E8000 display (which has 4 inputs), e.g. in the case where you use a Di2 rear derailleur. You need 1 connector to go to the battery and drive unit. Then the 2nd connector can either be used for an assist mode shifter or for a Di2 rear derailleur shifter. It may be possible to connect both assist mode & Di2 shifters using a B Junction unit normally used on road bikes: SM-JC41 Internal Junction or SM-JC40 External Junction - but I don't know enough about how all the connectors work. I might give this a go sometime …
One reason for trying the EW-EN100 was that it can supposedly connect wirelessly to external devices, like the Garmin Edge series, to display extra information. Recent update notes for the Edge 1030 note that they added support for Shimano STEPS sensors. But I tried connecting the EW-EN100 to my older model Edge 1000 and unfortunately could not find any way to connect them. It's possible Garmin are not supporting this for older displays or maybe it will be supported in a future update, who knows. But for now I still don't know what information the EW-EN100 can actually send to be displayed on remote devices.
It's also possible in the future that Shimano might update the firmware for the E8000 display so that it too can wirelessly send the same info as the EW-EN100 (and E7000 display) currently send. Maybe just wishful thinking
First off you can't have the EW-EN100 connected at the same time as a display - it is one or the other. So the EW-EN100 is basically the option to use if you don't want a display on the handlebars and you want a more discrete appearance.
It has one button on it, one (or two?) LED, and 2 inputs for connectors.
Tapping the button cycles through the power assist modes (off -> eco -> trail -> boost -> off). The LED changes colour to match the assist mode you are in, just like the colours on the normal E8000 display (off=off, blue=eco, green=trail, yellow=boost). This works whether you change assist mode by tapping the button on the EW-EN100 or use the normal mode shifters on your handlebars.
Holding the button with a long press & release made the LED flash green a few times - this may have been some display of battery charge. I've since found some Shimano documents which might explain this, and also how to perform Di2 RD protection reset / adjustment (but I haven't connected & tested it again):
- http://si.shimano.com/pdfs/um/UM-7F00A-002-00-ENG.pdf
- http://si.shimano.com/pdfs/dm/DM-E7000-00-ENG.pdf
Because the EW-EN100 only has 2 input connections it is slightly more limited than the standard E8000 display (which has 4 inputs), e.g. in the case where you use a Di2 rear derailleur. You need 1 connector to go to the battery and drive unit. Then the 2nd connector can either be used for an assist mode shifter or for a Di2 rear derailleur shifter. It may be possible to connect both assist mode & Di2 shifters using a B Junction unit normally used on road bikes: SM-JC41 Internal Junction or SM-JC40 External Junction - but I don't know enough about how all the connectors work. I might give this a go sometime …
One reason for trying the EW-EN100 was that it can supposedly connect wirelessly to external devices, like the Garmin Edge series, to display extra information. Recent update notes for the Edge 1030 note that they added support for Shimano STEPS sensors. But I tried connecting the EW-EN100 to my older model Edge 1000 and unfortunately could not find any way to connect them. It's possible Garmin are not supporting this for older displays or maybe it will be supported in a future update, who knows. But for now I still don't know what information the EW-EN100 can actually send to be displayed on remote devices.
It's also possible in the future that Shimano might update the firmware for the E8000 display so that it too can wirelessly send the same info as the EW-EN100 (and E7000 display) currently send. Maybe just wishful thinking