That's what I'm seeing after going to the beta firmware as well. With old (stable) firmware average difference between my Stages and Kickr was ~30 W. With 1.3.32 the difference decreased to ~20 W. Wahoo support recommended trying the Kickr Calibration Kit, which I'm currently trying to procure. Reading your expereince I'm not sure the calibration kit will help, but I'm going to try it anyway.

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The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
http://blog.lifepattern.org/
Grand Canyon CF SLX 9.9 2013

Linked below are my charts from last night's workout.

Configuration was:

• PerfPro Studio 5.71.35, with external power meter use disabled
• KICKR firmware 1.3.32, configured to use external power meter
• Garmin Vector power meter, paired with KICKR
• Garmin EDGE 800 recording Vector output directly

The charts are showing Load (brake resistance demanded by PerfPro), Watts (as reported by KICKR), my FTP and HR. The session was a warm-up (ramping from~140W to~200W, then 3 repeats of 7.5mins at 234W with 1.5min recoveries at 183W, followed by a ramped cool down to 112W. You can see a spindown at minute 9 too, which took approximately 15 seconds and reported a temperature of 21C. I didn't note the precise numbers.


My observations:

• The braking resistance ramps linearly from one setting to another, and this is really quite slow. At the start of the session it took nearly a minute and a half to go from zero to the demanded load of ~150W, and this slow ramp was repeated at every change of demanded load - this is clearly visible in the charts.
• Once at target, the actual resistance tracked the demanded resistance very accurately. Eyeballing the numbers reported by PerfPro and on my EDGE800, they appeared to align very well too.
• The resistance ramp is way too slow; it can easily become a significant proportion of the interval/recovery time and would be a real frustration if the training objective was to work on explosive power increases and shorter intervals. In this workout, it was irritating because the ramp was so slow that I didn't even notice the start of each interval which meant I missed my target cadence changes.
• With this setup, and PerfPro ignoring the direct feed from the Vectors, it also ignored cadence, so I had to rely on the cadence as reported on my EDGE800. That was also irritating.
• PerfPro's control algorithm appears still to be substantially better than the KICKR beta firmware. It also tracks the demanded load well, and responds much fast to demand changes.

I haven't been able to try an open-loop comparison with my Vectors yet. I'm in the middle of a training block, so I'm not willing to take the risk that I undercook a workout. I'll be going back to using PerfPro to control, monitor and record the workout until I see the ramp issue is addressed.

Hope that's helpful.

Not really sure, can you email our support and ask for Murray, I will grab the ticket and loop a few more people in. It could be something with compatibility with he Power2Max, I've had issues in our app with the power meter before.

I should have mentioned in my post that I have the Calibration Kit, but I have not used it yet with the new firmware. I got the kit a few months ago, and my tests from then did not show any improvement after calibration. I asked earlier in this thread if Wahoo still recommends using the kit with the new firmware, but did not get a response. For my next workout, I will do the same setting as my Ride B (new firmware, no external control), but use the calibration kit first. I'll let you know the results.

I’ve tried the new .32 firmware with generally good results:

KIckr controlling itself, no external control from my SRM. The Kickr seems to run about 20 watts above the SRM with firmware .32. With previous firmware versions, the Kickr and SRM were very close.

SRM control of Kickr in firmware. There seems to be very good correspondence between the Kickr and SRM, especially if I keep cadence very constant. There have been cases where they seem to “un-sync” and the Kickr load goes up by tens to hundreds of watts as reported by the SRM. Doing a spin down seems to reset everything correctly. The ramp into hard intervals seems good.

SRM control of Kickr in Trainer Road. This seems good, too, with the note that SRM reported power is consistently about 4 watts over Kickr reported power. This could be drive train loss, I’m not sure I can say for sure.

I applied the beta FW to my Kickr last night and despite being a bit leg tired from a hard run earlier in the day, I did a short 30 min ride that is comprised of:

4 min @ 120
6 min @ 140
4 min @ 160
1 min @ 140
4 min @ 180
1 min @ 140
4 min @ 200
6 min @ 140

I used a 920 to record the Kickr and a 510 to record a Vector S PM. I've only had the Vector S for about a week (have had the Vector about a year now on my other bike), but the Vector S seems to match my Vector when on the Kickr with about 5 to 10 watts lower than the Kickr with the usual drift down over 20 minutes no matter what watts I'm pushing at the time. So in the past, if I'm riding at 200 watts, my Vector would record maybe 195 and drift down to as little as 190 watts.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/742117967 (Kickr)
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/742118585 (Vector)

For the first time ever (I've had the Kickr for over a year), the Vector power was very close to the Kickr (151 watts vs 153). However, once the watts got a little higher at 180 watts, some strange things were going on. First of all, the power was varying quite a bit. I had 10 second averaging on my 510 and I would see the watts drop to around 170 and then slowly upto 190, then back down again. This appeared periodic and almost every minute it would cycle again. The 180 watts on the Kickr showed 182 watts on the Vector and the 200 watts on the Kickr showed up as 204 watts on the Vector. It was as if the higher the wattage, the higher the Vector would show. The periodic variation was not easy on me too since my FTP is 220 and I was already leg tired so I could really feel the higher wattage. I'm sure if I were doing the 2x20 min workout, this variation would really get to me.

I'll try letting the Vector control the Kickr, but that will have to wait awhile.

I installed the beta firmware this weekend and did some testing. I did not control the KICKR with my Power2Max this time because I'm hoping that I can use another bike with no PM on the KICKR and not have to worry about inaccurate numbers. I did 4 5 minute intervals set at 330W using the Wahoo Fitness app. Wattage from the P2M came in at 320, 321, 318 and 326. Then I did about a half hour set at 200W in the app and ended up with 187W.

I still want to more testing because before the update I have a strong suspicion that my KICKR not only generally read high, but also that it was inconsistent across training days. I could do the same workout twice less than a week apart and one day would be relatively easy and the other I could barely finish...with HR numbers that match the effort. But if my KICKR is consistent and within 10-15W of my P2M, then it's close enough for me not to worry about anymore. Although I would love to be able to manually set the offset so that permanently reads 10W less to keep it in line with my PM.

I tested the new beta from Wahoo tonight using Perf Pro...

I used the SRM to control the KICKR like I have been doing.

What's interesting about PP is that you can see the acutal % difference between what the KICKR is reporting and what the SRM is reporting.

Prior to the new beta... the KICKR was 6-10% higher than what my SRM said... so at 200 watts that's 12-20 watts different.

Tonight... the difference was much less... anywhere from -1% to 3% difference. A good amount of the time it +/- 1-2%. What was interesting is that it seemed to get better as the ride went on. ( I just did 1.25 hours).

So... no question... it is better than it was. I didn't do a spindown. (as I felt it was not necessary since SRM was in control)

What are you guys seeing??

Donzo - I have an SRM and have had the same experience/results. I use PerfPro also and just looking at the line graph the Kickr tracked the SRM watts very closely. Mine also gets a little better as the ride goes on and I just figured that this was still some drift in the kickr.

Did a 30 min spin tonight...

Same set up... PerfPro + SRM controlling KICKR.

First I did a 10 min warm up... like I always do.

The 30 min ride was easy... the first 15 minutes had the KICKR reading high by 6% at times...

I think Wahoo made it better... but it is clearly not fixed yet. No way I would ride trust the numbers solely from the KICKR.

On today's ride with the new firmware things looked somewhat better*. After about 10 minutes at ~115 W I tried spindown. Unfortunately, after the new firmware upgrade my spindown calibration attempts never complete anymore. I speed up to 36 km/h, then following prompt let it coast down to full stop and the Wahoo Fitness android app just stays there waiting for spindown to complete. Same with CycleOps Virtual Trainer for android. So I'm not sure whether calibration took place at all. I don't have an iOS device handy.

Anyway, initially Stages and Kickr were about 20 W apart (Stages 100 W, Kickr 120W). As ride progressed Kickr watts gradually lowered and at around 1 hour into the ride difference was only ~5 W. Ride was 12 x 30 sec 500 W intervals with 4m30s rest. 5 W difference must be excellent given they measure at different points. This is the good part.

* The not so good part is that it still started 20 W higher. One of downsides to this is, that if you're trying to take a look at your aerobic decoupling (Pw:Hr in Trainingpeaks) it'll be quite skewed. You may start your ride (after proper warm-up) at e.g. 180 Kickr Watts & 160 bpm HR. Then 45 minutes later Kickr would report 165 W, while you've really kept your wattage spot on at 180 W without significant HR drift.

I have the Stages, so this is less of problem for me personally, but still it'd be good if they can fix it. It's quite expensive gear and user's without second power meter deserve more from it.

---

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
http://blog.lifepattern.org/
Grand Canyon CF SLX 9.9 2013

Still not satisfied with the delay when using PM to control Kickr despite using firmware 32. It takes approx 12 sec to build up power from one interval to the other. Especially short < 1min Vo2max/anaerobe this is not good. As a consequence I am running PerfPro Studio (PP) with two riders set up, one as Kickr and one as PM(Stages). With this set up Kickr is far more responsive (which in a way is also logically as there is no re-adjusting by PM to Kickr and vice versa). The PM data from PP are uploaded to TrainingPeaks. Only disadvantages is no speed reading with PM.

I must say with v32 I get also better power readings between Kickr and Stages, however it remains import to do RRC and PMC. Currently differences are +/- 5 watt.

Clever! Similar to having a head unit (eg Garmin Edge) capture the PM data, but with all the on-screen and auto-upload advantages of PP.

Looks like KICKR firmware 1.3.32 has gone "public".

Using the latest Wahoo Fitness iOS app (v5.5.2) last night prompted me to update the firmware. No tapping on icon or password required.

I personally don't like 1.3.32 as I was getting some drastic variations in power when not using my PM to control the Kickr. If I am in ERG mode and set to 200 watts, the Kickr would vary +/- 15 watts whereas the older FW varied +/- 5 watts. Even the slow drift down was just up to 3 watts after 20 minutes. That I could live with, but to jump around so much was very hard on me.

I went down to an older FW since I don't care to use my PM (Vectors) to control my Kickr since I get very similar power.

Nate,

couple things, I fired up TR this morning, is asked if I wanted to update to the latest 2.6.538 or something like that
I did the update but the program failed to start afterwards saying msvcp120.dll file missing.

I reinstalled the older 502 version and started my workout.

3/4 way through the workout in a rest section the kickr went into full brake mode,
target power should have been 86w but I could barely turn the pedals, paused for a few seconds and tried
it would allow me to spin a little then it would crank it back to full brake.

https://www.trainerroad.com/...1985768-Black-Kaweah

Ah, sorry about that. We were missing a file. That's now updated.

Could you send me your logs for that workout? I'd like to see what the Kickr is doing.

The latest beta has an option to set a constant offset on the Kickr. So if you're always 20 watts off you can just lock that in for the workout.

---

CEO at TrainerRoad
Co-host of the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast

I upgraded and was wondering what others' experiences were. pre upgrade I was getting long dropouts, heat drift, and a lot of variability in power over any interval.

The new firmware seems to have addressed the heat drift but it's definitely harder than it used to be (same offset on the spindown). My MHR was 20 beats over what it was in the same workout before the new FW. variability is the same or worse.

I may downgrade. I prefer a 25W higher FTP even if it's wrong...
SS

New upgrades seem to work for me.

New 20min FTP test today. Sadly I am not as awesome anymore. I liked my KICKR power numbers.

Hi Nate, any updates when the new features (power meter control specifically) will be available for the ios app? The PC version nicely, but I've ordered an ipad mini that I would like to start using when I travel rather than packing the laptop. I am assuming power meter control is not available for ios since I have not seen an update on my phone for TR in many weeks.

Since this thread is probably fullest of people that know the kickr's failure modes, I thought I'd ask here to figure this out.

Two days ago I got 4 minutes into an ergmode workout on my kickr when the power readings went straight to zero and stayed there. The braking force also went to zero so that it took like 2 minutes for it to spin down from a 53x12 spin. I did a power-off reboot a couple times and let it sit until yesterday when I tried again and had the same result.

Anyone had anything similar? Is this one of those "top cap" issues? Anyone know if this is user-fixable (without needing new parts) or will I have to talk to wahoo and have parts shipped?

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

I had something similar. Do you have ANT+ and Bluetooth communication to the Kickr? One thing that might have helped me was to unplug then replug the two connections to the top cap. Easy to do, just need to remove the top cap, then gently pull them off and then re-plug. Mine has been working fine on both ANT+ and Bluetooth since then.

I've got ANT+ comms (tour de giro and my 310XT immediately pick it up at 0W), don't know about BT. I'll install the official wahoo app next time I'm home and I'll take a look at those wires.

One other notable is that it was the first time I'd put the bike on it for a couple weeks (we've had nasty weather this week after several weeks of outdoor rides). So I might've knocked something as I got set up again. It had been behaving very well all winter. I don't think I unplugged or reset it once since December.

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

I've got a guy working on it today. We just released a new iOS beta yesterday. I suspect we'll get another beta out with this feature in it next week or the week after that.

Here's the new stuff in the current iOS beta that was just released:

- KICKR spin-down
- inRide spin-down
- inRide Pro-flywheel option
- Power meter zeroing
- Improved SRM support
- KICKR modes (ERG, Resistance, & Standard)
- That issue with ANT not working correctly on older iOS devices has been fixed

---

CEO at TrainerRoad
Co-host of the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast

Maybe this is all in my head, but ever since the update (4 rides on it so far) I feel like I'm being "nudged" down to a cadence in the 88-90 rpm range. I usually stick to 95, and I keep trying to put it back there, but I feel like I have to work hard to keep it there. This happens if I'm in any training zone, so it's not like I'm getting forced downward because I don't have the power at that cadence. I know this cadence nudging is a feature in perfpro... is it being put into trainerroad, or is this just in my head? I am using Vectors, and all software for Vector, Kickr and Trainerroad is newest.