No.

Why would you want to do that? The idea behind a power meter is really to just be consistent.

That's the problem with a single sided pm, it's not consistent.

People don't consistently pedal the same across a rage of powers or cadences and even change balance from hour to hour and shorter.

In this situation, you might be better off setting the head unit to display power as a % of FTP, rather than watts.

Maybe you could even use this function to display the correct watts but in %?

Let´s say your ftp is 250. 115w of that comes from the left. If you set your ftp *in the head unit* to 230 it will display 100% Ftp when you pedal at FTP. But if you set you ftp to 92 in the head unit it will display 250% when you pedal at ftp.

Someone who is better than me at math might correct this, but as far as I can calculate if you set your head unit FTP to twice the left percentage. The "%ftp" will display your correct power numbers (in %).

2*(FTP*left% / 100) / (FTP/100)

Yes. Get the other half to make it dual sided.

I exeperienced roughly the same thing a few years ago with a 4iiii Precision.
I was tested with PM that read L/R balance and I was 44/56.
Fortunately, the 4iiii is "adjustable" with an app. Although at 4iiii they told me it was better to keep it the way it was calibrated and just accept the actual numbers it read.
It's just a little depressing to train based on lower numbers because you change your toy ;-).

Louis :-)

I can use my single sided PM to do bike testing at the same average wattage where I hit my five minute loop on the dot or perhaps plus or minus 1-2 seconds.
I don't care what the number says as long as it lets me do what I want to do. I find the arguments against single sided meters are silly.

Says a dude posting on a thread where the OP just provided a classic example of lousy data from a single-sided PM. I'm really glad it works for you. As for our household, we have a single-sided Stages that came with a second hand bike and it has no battery in it because the data was total crap for both of us. But if I want to get a bunch of PRs in Zwift by 10-15% I should dust it off and use it as my power source, LOL.

I guess I did not really read his initial post as providing "lousy" data. If the object of the pm was to have a perfect number to represent your fitness, then it would be a problem, i.e. his left leg reading was up and down. But even if there is an imbalance, what does it matter if his left leg always produces 48 percent of the power? It will double and read a little low, but so what? Are you trying to become a better cyclist, or have the truest possible number on your pm?

I'm intrigued how the single you used was total crap? How did that inhibit your training? If it is something to do with indoor cycling then I will admit to ignorance because I never ride on a trainer.

It's providing lousy data because he puts out more power with his right leg so his power numbers will be understated. Which will really become an issue if he ever acquires an accurate power meter since the two devices will not match, his historical data will be of very limited usefulness, and running the two devices on different bikes will be very problematical.

Plus it's not a simple matter of being a fixed amount off. For me, I'm left leg dominant so the left leg Stages was overestimating my overall average power by 10-12%. But it was clear from looking at the data that I was more unbalanced at lower power outputs than I was at higher power outputs. So an easy recovery ride would be more inaccurate and a maximum effort time trial would be more accurate, and within a ride the accuracy varies depending on my power output.

When my wife tested the Stages she was nursing a pulled muscle on her right leg so her power number were overstated by a whopping average of 20%. Now that she's recovered, her power balance is much closer but that was enough for us to pull the battery out of the Stages and just use it as a dumb crank. The discrepancy meant that the Stages would have grossly under-reported the actual power loss due to her injury.

In addition, the Stages had a very high rate of dropouts, enough to add additional inaccuracy. Ours is a Gen 2 and I believe they've improved this with Gen 3 but it was not very impressive to say the least.

In our household we have 4 power meters, 3 smart trainers, plus the Stages which is not in use. All 4 power meters and the one direct drive trainer match one another extremely closely so we can use each at different times and know we will get consistent data across all our training. The two wheel-on smart trainers will be somewhat in the ballpark only with careful calibration so we use our power meters as the power source to be consistent. And the Stages would not be consistent with the other devices so it's basically useless to us.

If you're lucky enough to have very symmetrical pedalling, good for you. But a lot of us don't and for us single-sided is a very bad investment.

That is pretty interesting and provides me with something I can show my wife to prove I don't spend that much on cycling equipment. :) I guess my usage is pretty simplistic in comparison and I would advise someone asking about a single side what they intended to use it to do. Mine has done everything I need but then, I don't save a bunch of data--well, any data at all, actually. I bought the single-side for $100 new and the head unit for $130 and frankly, it provides more info that I really want even then. I'm not a detailed number cruncher for file analyzer.

Great idea, thanks.

Is there no calibration option for stages? On my vectors, I can adjust the reading up or down 25% to accommodate a poor calibration (or in this case alter the readings to allow for an imbalance compensation).