So...aside from the price, this is different from an iBike how (and it's finicky operation/performance)??

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Looks like the same technology, but designed to work with Garmin and other headunits, instead of their proprietary one. I wouldn't mind having a wind gauge or alternate display of implied power (vs. actual) if it was somewhat accurate.

Supposedly it has an "auto calibration" feature that takes 5 minutes and doesn't require any special riding conditions.

"power meter"

power estimator
power approximator

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A false humanity is used to impose its opposite, by people whose cruelty is equalled only by their arrogance

While I agree that given the dodgy history of the iBike power accuracy/precision, we should be pretty skeptical of this hardware, but hey, if it actually, really works, I'll be the first to root for them and to get one.

They've got some promising charts A/B'd against an SRM, but I want to see a lot more of those charts done by actual customers or 3rd party testers before I believe it.

Would be a total game-changer if it was legit though.

Those charts aren't terribly promising; all of them are long duration rides and measuring difference of the average for the ENTIRE RIDE. IIRC, PowerCal was also somewhat accurate over the long-run.

Would really prefer they provide something that other PMs can't, like wind speed or Crr, given other inputs.

The main issue with the way this backs into the power calc is that there is no way to account for rider position. Drag in the aero bars is very different than out of the saddle. The accuracy isn't too bad if you're in the position you set it up for (typically hoods for road).

Given where PMs are going, I'd bet there are some $300 crank or ring based PMs in a couple of years. The strain gauges and transmitters in something like Stages just don't cost all that much.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Exactly. Sit up on a climb, and you throw the ibike off. Put your windjacket off (or take it off) and and you throw the ibike off. Get low on the drops into a headwind, and you throw the ibike off. Get out of the saddle, and you throw the ibike off. Go around a corner (changing the effective wind direction), and you throw the ibike off.

And so on.

The ibike (I've got one that's rarely used these days) had a lot of promise as a wind and acceleration measurement device. It would've been great for aero testing in conjunction with a real powermeter if ibike had developed the wind measurement capability. Instead, after nearly ten years, they still haven't provided any information about yaw response, and they haven't provided the ability to download raw sensor data.

It's sad to see this device that had so much promise reduced to a silly Kickstarter campaign. Seems like the last, feeble gasp.

DCR has some interesting comparisons of his own with 30 second smoothing. It seemed to perform surprisingly well. That said, I don't see myself ever leaving a strain-gauge based power meter. I'm more excited about the prospect of the new iBike for aero testing purposes.

Sure - but the traditional strain gauge based meters at least are measuring something that can directly be tied to a power output (ie torque). The iBike is measuring a whole bunch of different things unrelated to power and coming up with a guess based on some equations they came up with.

FIFY

No, the problem is the iBike is not measuring at all some of the variables that they need to estimate power (mostly CdA).

Faith-based power measuring.

I dunno. People seem to be buying up stages left and right (well...maybe not right) and claim to love them despite their shortfalls. IOW, you don't need to produce an accurate power meter in order to have good sales. You just need to convince enough people that your power meter is good enough for them. And given today's market of power meter potential buyers...the masses don't really seem to care too much about accuracy and precision standards nor use their power meters nearly to their potential.

I'm more excited about the prospect of the new iBike for aero testing purposes.

Forget it. Not accurate enough. You are better off with a good PM and one of the other protocols.

I had a the iBike #2 and #3 variants over a few years. I only used it for road riding, but even then there were too many places where it would fall down. It couldn't handle rough roads like chipseal. It would eventually get the average power in the ballpark, but it would fluctuate all over. The worst IMO was that the grade measurement error was +-3% on long climbs, seemingly due to the failure of the barometric sensor to accurately measure elevation. GPS capability would have been necessary to fix that.

Aw man, I was hoping for a couple extra data points to get more accurate measurements (kind of along the lines of a turnkey version of what SkippyKitten is working on). Did you ever try pairing it with a strain-gauge based power meter? I tried it with my powertap. Sorta got it to work one time (I think v3) but I couldn't get repeatable data, setup was a pain, and the UI sucked so I gave up pretty quickly.

Guess I'll just stick with VE?

I've been playing with VE with the addition of wind. I currently guess a wind speed and direction and tweak that so the elevations match reality. I have to use a constant wind for the whole run though, which isn't ideal.

I suppose you could use the iBike airspeed for that and see how it works out. You'll need to tweak it so that the distance averaged wind cancels out, but it should more accurately account for fluctuations.

I used my iBike with Powertap for VE back around 2007-2008. The problem is that the iBike data is so coarse that it really doesn't get you very much. It didn't really help me narrow down CdA/Crr pairs; about all it helped for was clearly indicating when a run should be thrown out due to wind.

If iBike had provided the abilty to download raw data for post-processing, some of these difficulties could have been avoided. I asked them about that, and their response was ridiculous; along the lines of "if we allow that people will figure out what our proprietary algorithms are". Yeah, those algorithms which everyone who's had Physics 101 already knows.

One of their other big failings was that they never provided any information on the yaw response of the iBike. I had a rough idea, just from turning the mount on the bars, but a controlled test should've been done by iBike. This was another issue that I asked them about with no substantive response.

And of course they should've added another DP sensor to provide 2-axis wind data. It would've been so easy for them to do it, and that would've been hugely helpful for VE work. And yeah, this was suggested to them and never got traction.

They seem to be more interested in marketing hype than real performance, and this final campaign is the evidence of that. It's sad to see all that potential wasted.

No use as of today.

Until airspeed is an Ant+ or BLE device profile, you won't be getting the data needed to complement a real PM for aero testing.

Also this thing needs to be out front ideally to reduce the effects of bike and rider on measured airspeed.

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Developing aero, fit and other fun stuff at Red is Faster

i can understand the skepticism on this thread. However for £300 and already owning 4 power meters I will be happy to invest and compare it against me exiting meters to form my own opinion. What is the worst that can happen?? If its even close to being accurate it will be good enough to get decent TSS for rides where I am using a bike without a regular power meter on there. Think of it as a second power meter when your best one is being calibrated / unavailable.

Current status: Awaiting DC Rainmaker review before assimilating further skepticism on this thread.

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He who understands the WHY, will understand the HOW.

Agree with the "power estimator" comments. But having said that, I think that it has a place in the market for certain types of rider.

Case in point - My girlfriend.
She's a regular rider and enjoys it, but isn't financially invested in the sport - I have to persuade her to buy basically anything to do with cycling, even relatively basic things like a new chain or cassette when hers are clearly worn out.

The biggest thing that holds her back, performance wise, is that she's really bad at pacing herself so never really performs relative to her fitness. I've often said that I'm going to put my PM on her bike for a few rides to show her just how much she goes out too hard.
Basically, if this could put her within 5-10% then it would do the job for her needs.