Of course I just bought a power meter from them. Haha.

You and me both. Picked up a type S less than a month ago and have yet to even mount it.

Minor consolation is the price -- these look to be mad pricey. But of course, now that they are out they'll probably put the type S on clearance. Cannot win with technology these days.

Interesting how similar it is to the new Quarq. Both are coming out at almost the same time.

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Can't wait to see Dcrainmaker's review/comparison. I love my P2max and it looks like they've only made it better.

I eagerly await the type s clearance sales.

Very eagerly.

And the classifieds for used quarqs. Ive already noticed a drop in the ebay prices. Need another pm for my road bike

Looks good, but doesn't seem to be anything really ground-breaking.

I wonder how they calculate left-right balance, torque and pedal smoothnes. The first one must still be pseudo-balance and the latter two combined torque and pedal smoothness.

Still no possibility to calibrate it youself it seems, so in that particular way it's not making much inroads into SRM and Quarq's market for power users (no pun intended!).

The torque and smoothness is interesting but I still haven't seen anyone very useful using the Garmin or pioneer measurements so at this point it's more of a novelty.

The Bluetooth is nice for future proofing but ant+ still seems more stable at this point. The only worthwhile improvement will be if the temperature compensation is a big step up. I haven't seen any issues with the type s though so I'm not sure how much it can improve.

I'm also not a fan of the built in battery. Yes it probably reduces weight slightly and eliminates the very infrequent battery changes, but it also puts an expiration date on the meter unless it is replaceable.

Lots of minor "improvements" - I guess if you are new to PM market you might consider this over the old version "just because", but if you already own a PM there is really no reason to change. IMHO.

Agreed.

My two P2Ms are rolling up on a year of service on their current coin batteries. I can access my battery with the crank on the bike, but even if I couldn't, I'd be OK with removing my cranks once a year to change the battery.

The power meter market should be quite interesting this fall, I'm hoping the prices take a hammering with all the competition that's around these days. I'd be surprised if we see anything new from Cycleops given all of their releases last year, but some Vector 3s without those stupid pods, perhaps?

Edited to add: seemingly the Vector 2 was only released 18 months ago (April 2015) so perhaps not.

If it only has strain gages in the spider, then these are just pseudo-values.

EDIT: I see that MTM beat me to it. :)

Andy, can't you do a bit of lobbying to get some of the 'real important' stuff incorporated as standard in more units:

- Ability to check calibration with reasonable precision
- Ability to calibrate the slope
- Ability to see current zero offset
- Tracking of changes in zero offset during use

I know at least the last one requires some cooporation between powermeter manufacturers and head unit manufacturers (and ANT+/Bluetooth standardisation), but somebody has to get the ball rolling.

Me either. I dont want to have to do something weird to charge the unit. Also rechargable batteries loose capacity over time. A fresh coin battery is as good as new.

Just curious, why calibrating a PM yourself is beneficial? You're not the first one to say this so I'm curious to know.

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My personal view;
- bluetooth - only advantage I can see is that the user can easily apply firmware updates, ant works more consistently to broadcast in my experiment.
- rechargeable battery - love this, my bike travels and I have to drop the crank to change batteries. Being able to easily recharge without tools would be great. Given how frequently you would need to charge the thing I'm not worried about battery shelf life, my iPhone gets charged twice a day and seem to cope...
- accuracy improvements - always nice

Because calibration values drift over time -- you should check your units using a high quality, known mass every 6-12 months. Even though you can check the calibration factor using a static torque test for a p2m unit, you have to send it back when/if it deviates from the factory value. So you're without your unit for however long that takes, plus many vendors charge a fee (SRM and Quarq do, not sure about p2m)

They also added a way to turn off the powermeter by inserting a micro USB into the unit. You can turn it back on by reinserting it. Kind of useful if you are travelling to extend battery life.

and a huge oh s#it when you're in the transition area and just remember you haven't turned the unit on and there's no mini USB in sight;) I haven't noticed a large decrease in battery life due to traveling and just imagine the on off switch as one more thing to fail at just the wrong time. More is not always better.

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Well, as someone who learned the hard way to make sure you have a spare CR2032 on raceday, I think finding someone with a mini USB would have been easier!

Yeah, either situation would really put a crimp in your day. After running coin celled power meters for several years I've never had one fail. Changing them out on a 6 month plan seems to be very effective and cheap insurance against such an incident.

YMMV,

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

always have an extra battery in your T Bag. I never had one fail after traveling. Pretty new battery, 2 plane transfers and all the jostling must have kept the pm 'up' and drained the battery.

Ah yes, the new problem created when power meter companies moved to the use of accelerometers instead of magnets to turn them on and measure cadence. This then created the quick battery rundown when you travel phenomenon which never happened with the old magnetic technology. I really don't miss the hassle of magnet mounting...falling off..... but sometimes it feels like two steps forward and one step back.

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Shipping is expensive for me (I live in South Africa), so being able to calibrate myself is a big plus. (Shipping is so bad, it cost more to ship than any savings I would have had last year swapping my Cinqo for a newer model.)

Calibration (at least checking) after a major bike service, or swapping the crank, is a plus.

Calibration after swapping crank arms or chain rings, or any other big change.

Verifying over-training or some other anomaly where you feel you can't hold the wattage you should be holding. Admittedly, I've never actually done this :)

It gives me some confidence in the product. When I can verify calibration it's a big confidence boost in the product. This might not have any "real" value, but it does count.