Is it your friend trying to develop one, or are you the one looking to develop one? The bolded sections are conflicting.

As for the actual product, develop it for the hell of it. sure, go ahead

develop it hoping to make the next power meters that promises reliability at a lowered cost? i'll bet dollars to donuts that it won't happen.

Quarq hoped to do it under $1,000. The final product started at $2k and had many issues that took years to sort out.

Vector hoped to do it for less than $800 and was stuck in development hell for 4+ years, with final price over $1,500. Their own sponsored team stopped using them mid season in 2014.

I won't bore you with the initial problems that Stages or Power2Max faced.

When this thing finally hits the market, how much do you think existing units (which have gone through numerous redesigns) would retail? Can you beat that price? Why should anyone pick it over something more established?

reliable data, even under extremely fast changing weather conditions
reliable and long lasting, even under abuse and rain and mud
long battery life, maybe rechargable
low maintenance
user programmable slope
cheaper than SRM

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
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Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Tell your friend that the evidence is clear: triathletes will buy almost any crazy assed object if they think it will make them faster.

The primary designer behind the 4iiii power meter previously did some work on an "open-source" / DIY power meter. I would tell your friend to take a close look at his work to gauge the level of effort involved in creating your own power meter.

If your buddy has some really disruptive technology or is just enjoys messing with this kind of stuff, I'd say go for. Otherwise, I'd say it's a pretty unattractive market if the goal is making $.

The technology is there today to make power meters at a fraction of the current cost, but the scale isn't there. I don't have any data to back it up, but I'd bet there are less than 100k power meters sold every year. If you could manufacture a high quality PM that retailed for $250, the market would grow, but do you really think you'd be selling them in huge numbers? I doubt it.

Thanks for the comments everyone! I've forward them all to him.

Building on what bluto said:
-In a small market like triathlon, it's easy (ish) to develop some technology that will beat existing concepts on price, reliability, accuracy, etc. You say: "Hey, I can run this server or build this powermeter or make a computer-controlled trainer for a cost of $200, and sell it for $250, thus undercutting all existing competitors!"
-The hard part comes when you add in the rest of the business, especially salaries and marketing: booths at trade shows cost a lot, prototypes cost a lot, ads on cycling/triathlon websites cost a lot (without which you won't be seeing any reviews or even mentions) and your time presumably costs a lot. So that $50 of gross profit per item needs to be from a whole lot of sales, or you need to increase your MSRP. Once you figure out how much you need to recover on top of your parts and manufacturing costs in order to pay for salaries, administration, and marketing, you'll quickly figure out why everything else seems so expensive.

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STAC Zero Trainer - Zero noise, zero tire contact, zero moving parts. Suffer in Silence starting fall 2016

I think a few people have actually put up online free schematics to make a power meter before. I don't think it is the difficulty of the initial development but the initial teething issues that snare up companies. Getting a 95% accurate powermeter isn't anywhere near as difficult to get that last 5%. But personally I would love to see some more budget options but unless he can develop quickly or has something truly special I think the window of opportunity has closed.

The price of powermeters has significantly decreased in the last 18 months and will most likely continue to do so for the next couple of years. It could be really hard to enter as a new company with shrinking margins that benefit larger companies with tighter controls on manufacturing and cost. Just my 2 cents!

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editor at http://swimtorun.com

Hi Everyone,

So after reading this I gave the power meter thing a shot.

Jackmott I think you bring up great requirements/suggestions and kept it in mind when I made the first proto. I was able to accommodate all except for user programmable slope. I haven't found a way to do that. (at least a reasonable way) . I read this awhile back and have actually made a pretty decent working prototype that may be worth pursuing further. Great battery life , easy calibration, rechargeable, cheaper than SRM (lol) , and trying to make it robust enough to it can take a beating and be fully submerged without damage.

My ultimate goal is to make it affordable and durable. I'm just being careful (and clever) on how much I spend on it before seeking funding. It can get expensive quickly!

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Tempo - World's Most Affordable and Accurate Power meter!
http://www.tempopowermeters.com
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Now is not a good time to be entering the power meter market. It was a good idea back in 2006 or maybe even anytime before 2011 or 2012, but not now. There are already a lot of players for the size of the market out there. If you haven't read through the "New powermeter rumours" thread on the Weight Weenies forum, I recommend doing so before going any further with your product. It will give you a small glimpse of the power meter market and perception throughout the past 6 years. That thread was started in early 2009 and has 139 "pages".

Even if you decide to enter an already crowded market, keep in mind that making a few working prototypes is easy. Making thousands of durable, repeatable and affordable units in a timely manner is the key to success. Designing the actual product is only half of the challenge. The other half, or maybe more than half, of the challenge is the business side - customer service, supply chain, cash flow management, sales, marketing, distribution, employees, etc.

Mieke
(Formerly of Quarq - now working on a ranch)

The actual technical hardware involved are not very expensive. Strain rosettes are about $20 a pop, sold in boxes of 10 at the minimum. depending on which method you'd want to go with ( crank arm, spider, etc), you might need anywehre between 2-8 per power meter. The actual mounting of a rosette is not difficult, it just requires practice, precision, and patience. throw in the electronics required and it will probably be another $100-200. But you willl need someone who is at least decent at writing code and algorithms. that, in my opinion, is where the cost of the powermeter really lies.

True.

Even my 7 year old daughter can spot triathletes at the pool now.

"They do triathlons don't they dad?"
"Yes. How did you know?"
"Look at all the stuff!".

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My Blog

This looks like an interesting development - one sided - but very affordable.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/limits-the-world-s-smartest-cycling-power-meter

Looks pretty interesting! Hopefully it will work and affordable meters will come to market

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Tempo - World's Most Affordable and Accurate Power meter!
http://www.tempopowermeters.com
https://www.facebook.com/...ter-233979693610062/
Social : @tempopowermeter

Make it fit in the bottom bracket, for aesthetic reasons!

(I have no idea if this is possible)

The MTN Qubeka team are testing BB ones at the moment. Nobody noticed - it looks very slick. My mate rides for them - if I see him on the bike I'll see how they're getting on with them.

This looks like an interesting development - one sided - but very affordable.

And increases Q factor a lot. How does that work, anyway? Is there a dummy on the other side to make them the same?

It is possible to measure left side power easily, many designs have done this, like the ergo power meter and the new rotor. It is tricky to measure all your power though, although I can think of a couple ways to do it, but they are not simple.

So after reading this I gave the power meter thing a shot.

Can you give us any hints? It would be way easier to tell if it's promising if you could.

Does it measure both legs' input, and is it subject to potentially high errors due to unusual force application? That's one thing that makes the Powertap hub a good system. The load paths are stable and predictable.

It is tricky to measure all your power though, although I can think of a couple ways to do it, but they are not simple.

Yes, I sketched out one with nested cylinders a few years back. The biggest problem with the BB is the millions of different "standards".

Developing a new power meter at this point of time is an extremely poor business decision.

Well, depending on who you are. Because I think that as these are getting cheaper, they are selling many more. As they sell more, more people see the benefits, so they sell even more. Things like best bike split are going to push even more people to powermeters.

If you are a company that can take advantage of the volume, like Shimano for example, it could make lots of sense to get into the market. If you are a small company, it may not be a good idea.

Excellent questions !

It is only one sided (sorry! I know) It was difficult to get companies to look at a small guy when working with a hub and a custom hub was big money when I researched it. They were more willing to work with me if I measured at the crank. It really doesn't matter with respect to the electronics (hub or crank) and the software changes are minimal. I just took a path that I allowed me to move forward so I continued with crank. FSA was awesome and willing to work with me. If the next proto is worthy of showing to people I'm going to reach out the Shimano and others too. If it works out, I'll make one for the hub if they do decide to work with me.

I totally agree power tap is the best way to go. Other systems that measure power applied by the rider at the cranks will measure higher. There are power losses from power transfer due to unusual forces applied by the rider (technique, etc) and loss of power due to transfer efficiency of the crank/BB, frame stiffness, etc. So say if you put in (not real numbers) 100W and 10% is lost to transfer, a measurement at the crank will be close to 100W and will be 90W at the wheel. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Measuring at the crank will tell you what your power output is, how much effort you are putting in. Measuring at the wheel tells you how much of that effort is getting to the wheel. Ideally, I'd like to see both to note my efficiency.

The other issue is that I couldn't use powertap on my disc and I ride with various wheels too so I started to tinker with other measurement points. I did find a great way to really minimize unusual force applications and I tested it by applying lateral forces and so far so good. Cadence readings are accurate when compared to my garmin speed cadence sensor. To address your question, there is some error and it cannot be 100% eliminated, but it was significantly minimized to the point where it should just be noise.

I'm really trying to get a low cost, durable, and reliable meter. As long as it is repeatable and reliable and you use it to train, (IMHO) I think I can reliably race at the power numbers I trained at...whether measured at the hub or crank.

I'm about to send out the next revision for proto that should significantly increase the battery life and is a bit more accurate , so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

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So your meter is in the crank arm or attached to it? Similar to Stages and 4iiii?

I think that will be a very competitive field, the pretty cheap and "good enough" PM for people who don't care about high precision. It might be tough to compete against the companies with a head start unless you get plenty of financial backing. And even then, you will probably need to do it better than they do.

People who don't care about field testing don't see a hub based PM as an advantage. I was thinking more about the relative ease of measuring rotational torque accurately in the hub rather than anywhere else. The big disadvantage with the PT hub is bearings that can't be easily serviced.