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This makes me feel good about their product and their commitment to it. Next time I’m in the market for a power meter, I’ll definitely remember this.
Ah, ha! So I am no crazy. I had already boxed mine up and shipped it back for a refund before seeing this post. Makes sense, but I don’t know that it all boils down to a temperature shift issue. I dropped big bucks on an Elemnt just because the Watteam support insisted my problems were because I couldn’t zero within the Cyclemeter app on my iPhone. Cannot tell you how disappointed I was to find that despite the pricey new head unit the power meter still gave me crap data.
Anyway, I hope it works out for them but in any case they need to really improve on their customer service. I know that others have reported what I experienced with good service at the start but it dwindled to next to nothing.
Very customer-facing approach.
Bravo
The customer service experience of JJ seems to be at odds with that experienced by Ray.
My previous comment was in reaction to Ray’s post. Let’s hope that Ray’s experience is the norm and that JJ’s experience was just a one-off
I think if I was following JJ’s trials correctly over the last few weeks that they were fairly responsive initially, but than seemed to be more grasping for straws towards the end.
I suspect that’s mostly inline with them coming to grips on it being a bigger problem than they realized.
That seemed to be online with what others were reporting as well.
Yes Ray, I think that you summed it up nicely and I agree with you. I realize that my initial comments sound harsh but I do hope they succeed. If I do not have a power meter by the time they get it all sorted I may just try them again.
While I appreciate your frustration, surely you had to be aware you were using v1 from an unproven vendor.
That’s the cost of being bleeding edge.
It seems like they are acting responsibly and I agree w others that if they pass the DCR test when the bugs r fixed they’re worth considering.
Now let me get back to my proven Garmin 810 that still has trouble syncing via Bluetooth to my iPhone…
Great to hear they are supporting the current users, hope they get it figured out sooner then later as I’m just starting a build I would love to use them on.
So, just so I can verify that I’m seeing the same thing that others are seeing…
My perception has been that as the temperature increases, the readings get lower.
I’ve noticed that as the weather warms up, similar effort rides have been giving lower power numbers. I’ve been going crazy re-calibrating from my Garmin every time I start and mid-ride and saying to myself “there’s no way that was a 250w pull, I was doing 350 for the same effort yesterday” or “I was killing myself going up that hill, how was it only 400w?”
Has Watteam sent out an email with this info to people who have pre-ordered? There is nothing on their website or facebook page.
It is great they are acknowledging an issue an working to correct it but there is no info out there other than what we have here. I am now on the fence if I want to keep my order or cancel and pick up a different meter
Hi Darren,
We’re sending out a newsletter to our existing customers and pre-orders in the coming hours.
Thanks, I hope you guys can work through the issues without too much rework. I look forward to seeing the update
Are you watching, LIMITS?
Good on Watteam for taking the tough decision, I hope it pans out well for them in the end.
Watteam,
Please respond to my refund request sent directly to your support email sent on the 16th. I have still heard nothing. Failing on initial shipping date is one thing, failing on delivering a useful product is another.. but failing to refund and ignoring customers in light of this would be a step too far.
Dear Matt, we’ve looked at our records and couldn’t find a refund request from you. Please email our support team at support@watteam.com with your order number or call us at 1-949-656-8609 and we’ll be happy to issue a refund today.
Best,
Watteam Support
Hi Watteam,
It was sent 14/4 at 11.22pm AEST. I have resent it to your support address again on 21/4 at 9:16pm AEST.
Regards,
Matt
Hi Ray and Watteam,
I noticed that when I am on my trainer and the fan blowinig toward the pedals, my power output would become frantic, say like jumping between 90 to 180ish. Is this a temperature compensation problem? I never owned a power meter before, so not sure whether this is a problem or not.
Thanks,
Howard
I didn’t see the jumping frantic, but rather the jumped at stayed at a much higher value aspect (with a fan). It sounds like they were investigating whether or not that was related to temp comp.
To be 100% clear though, no other power meter has issues with fans on trainers – so as I noted to them, it wasn’t really acceptable. Hopefully they’ll sort it out.
I am glad to receive the update from Watteam. I love their attitude, it is the way it should be for all companies in the world.
I will wait another 2 months before I made the decision to buy a power meter and will put watteam on higher priority.
That’s WatTeam finished then.
Sorry to say it, but once you have a reputation for being inaccurate it’s hard to shake, first impressions and all that. When you think they have had since 2014 to produce this, test it out, then build it properly, its a bit off-putting to find the product doesn’t work, and don’t try and convince me by saying ‘some of my rides were ok’, how do you know? you don’t. Any metric could be out on a ride, you just won’t know. If i had you up against a wall and said I’m going to put a bullet through your head based on the accuracy of this product would you trust it? simple answer is no.
And before you go saying ‘nothing else is 100% accurate either’, you and I both know there are power meters you would trust more with your life than this.
Its game over for WatTeam, they had a good punt but they won’t recover from this, I predict within a year they will be struggling for sales and eventually they will pull out of the power meter market.
I don’t think it’s game over at all. They shipped 140 units, saw issues, and stopped to address.
They’ve got a good price point, and one that appeals to consumers. So assuming they can fix things, they’ll be fine. Had they continued to push forwards and let it slog on for months and let review after review come in and say they were inaccurate, then they’d be hosed. But in this case, they made the right choice to nip it before it got to thatpoint.
To my knowledge there are no reviews published of the PowerBeat at this point.
I’m going to agree with Ray. While this is defiantly a speed bump, I don’t thin it’s “game over”.
First, from my personal experience, I’ve received great customer support. Hopefully JJ’s experience was an anomaly, because at least for me, taking care of your customers far outweighs a few hiccups with the initial product rollout. Especially if they have made a promise to make it right as they did with the free upgrade to 2.0. While I’ve experienced some issues with power readings myself, I think they are definitely on the right track. I think they just need to get the bugs worked out, and it looks like they are getting out in front of it by addressing the issue head on instead of continuing to ship and trying to fix it with product in flight.
Not the first company in this market to have a hiccup with a product rollout, and I’m sure they won’t be the last. Probably not the best example, but I remember hearing about iBike (newton and power pod) back in the mid 2000’s and everyone thinking it was vaporware and that they’d never get off the ground. And while they may not have had the market success of Stages or Wahoo, they are still around and still putting out product.
Stages got a negative review by Ray initially and then fixed their issues. Now they sell wildly. They could do this because they were just about the cheapest PM out at the time. Watteam is in a similar position, they will be the cheapest dual sided power meter available.
I am one of the 140. Eagerly awaiting v2.0. Not complaining, just listing a few issues to see if anyone else experienced the same. I have done at least 12 water bag calibrations and have had varied results (including weighing bags to the hundredth). If I do it on a work stand I get #s that are way low, or with no power at all. If I do it with the bike upside down I get better #s. No matter how many attempts I end up with #s that are 80/20 left/right. I cannot comment on current accuracy, as I have no other meter to compare to. I did have a spike the other day of 10,235 watts. Was not even breathing hard. I have tried comparing my results with this: link to gribble.org
I’m in the 140. Same thing with calibration. Every time differ settings (‘Gain’ – numbers on support page). I compare my power with Strava estimation and other riders (same weight). Sometimes it pretty accurate (off by 10 watts), other times +-30%. Bluetooth is working great with Polar m450. I’ll probably wait for update 2.0.
To be fair, the variance in calibration numbers day to day isn’t a bad thing by itself. That just represents change in temperature typically (a good thing to track, if done properly).
The challenge is/was the variance in calibration numbers within a ride, or even within a few seconds if repeated.
Now that second one (variance of cal numbers within a few seconds) was due to a software bug that should have been resolved in the latest firmware update. That bug would incorrectly average the previous calibration value with the current. Hence why WatTeam was suggesting doing 3-4 calibration values, so ‘clear’ that issue. So I was doing 3-4 in a row, until all 3-4 matched.
(Note: This all ignores the water bag issues, which like you I became exceedingly good at. And for those curious – the issue isn’t the water bags per se, since that’s fine. It was the variability you’d see in terms of repeating what appeared to be identical weigh-ins each time with them. I believe they can simply solve this in software though ,since on the backend via support if you called they knew exactly which weigh-ins were ‘bad’. So simply exposing that sort of detail to the user in real-time would have made us all happy.)
I am also one of the 140. I have had lots of issues on the trainer (not fan-related, as I had the same experience in a hotel room with no fan. Hey, gotta pass the down time at my kid’s soccer tournaments somehow). Power starts off pretty much in-line with Zwift ZPower (via a Kurt Kinetic trainer with Garmin speed sensor). However, it very quickly drifts very low, to the tune of 80w-100w difference.
Outdoors, I *think* I am usually getting pretty decent results, though I have noticed occasional oddly low numbers. When I say “decent”, I mean they are roughly where I would expect them to be based on the admittedly suspect ZPower numbers. I weighed my bags and I think they were overfilled (they were 4.6kg, not 4.5kg). Assuming my heavy bags were causing PowerBeat to underreport wattage, that would likely put me even closer to my ZPower range.
I seem to be getting spotty balance figures, with somewhat frequent “80%+” readings on my Garmin 810. I have been unsure whether that is a problem with the sensor, an issue of the timing of measurement within my pedal stroke or even poor pedal stroke technique. Whatever the cause, it is obviously something that needs fixing.
When I bought this, I expected there was a pretty good likelihood of not getting accurate power readings for the first couple of months. I assumed there would be algorithm tweaking for quite a while and that it would take real-world user data to get things dialed-in. Now maybe there is a hardware issue. Whatever. The price point and features (assuming they eventually get this to work) were right for me to take that risk and I am happy to give it some time. Cycling toys and patience don’t usually go together for me, but it isn’t going to kill me to wait a bit longer to see this play out.
I appreciate that WatTeam is choosing to pause to focus on fixing this, rather than compounding the crap-show by continuing to ship units and adding to the support overload. I am happy to contribute data to help get this resolved. WatTeam, I am probably your only Chris D. in NY state, so feel free to hit me up.
Hey Ray, are there any updates from Watteam?
No. To be honest, I kinda expect them to go quiet for a while. While they’ve discussed no timelines with me, I’m mentally expecting that we’ll probably hear major news around the Eurobike/Interbike timeframe. I suspect the challenge is deeper than they first realized (hence the stopping of shipping).
I could be wrong, and would be happy to get an update saying it’s mere weeks away – but just in terms of my uninformed guesstimate, I’d say fall.
Hi
Our R&D team is working hard on smoothing out the issues, we currently don’t have an ETA but hoping to offer a better and improved version as soon as we can and we’ll communicate a more solid timeline once we know more.
Hope there is a update soon. Just leave a msg to show my support.
Any news on what is happening? it´s been 3 months since the update ?
Any behind the scenes info on the update Watteam sent out today?
Evidently they have a new sensor that fixes things.
They do. They’re hoping to get it to me shortly to have me try out and see if it fixes the issues that I saw previously.
Hi Ray, I came across your website while looking to see if others are having the issue I am! I received my replacement and after gluing steps and upon waiting 24+ hours the glue is not holding the sensor to the arm. The customer service was very helpful and sent a second sensor. After the gluing process (I made an extra effort to follow the steps to minute details and waited at leat 30 hours) I got the same result; the rubber around the sensor plate doesn’t stay glued to the crank arms. Have you heard if others are having the same issue? I have the Shimano aluminum arm.
Thanks!
Rai,
What cranks do you have? With my 6800 Ultegras I had tons of issues with the old v1 sensors staying attached. One of the things we ended up doing when working with support was sanding the arm under where the sensor is glued down. That was added as an official procedure with the new gluing instructions. I’ve worked with their support team a lot over the last 11 months. If nothing else, they are very dedicated to working on these issues until they get it right.
I did get a pair of the new sensors over the holidays when they were still testing them, and I did have one come off a new 6800 crankset on the non-drive side. The current ones I have, since they sent the official release of v2, are mounted to a crank that I had mounted several v1 sensors to. It has been sanded down nearly to bare aluminum. I haven’t had any issues with this set of sensors, but at this point it’s only been about two weeks.
It definitely can be frustrating, but customer support has been really good in my case, so I’ve been OK with waiting for all the bugs to get worked out and relaying the issues I’ve come across.
Hi Drew, thanks for the information. I have the same exact crank! I’ve contacted the customer support and waiting to see what they say. I assume they will have to send me a new sensor again unless I can reglue the cover back on and not sure how that will impact the pm. I will be sure to sand the crank down to the aluminum next time. It seems the glue they are providing is not sticking to the sensor cover for some reason.
I think the two part epoxy that they are using now is much better than the glue they used with the first generation, but I also definitely think there is something with the coating/anodization Shimano put on the Ultegra 6800 cranks that is causing problems with adhesion. I’m also not suggesting that you sand them down that far as if you decide not to stay with the Watteam pm it will leave the crank arms permanently defaced.
In my case, I didn’t intentionally sand them down that far, early on they suggested light sanding with the paper that was sent with the v1 sensor and they just ended up that way after repeatedly cleaning and re-gluing sensors. I wasn’t terribly worried about scarring them as I had other scrapes and scratches on the arms and a second, clean, crankset. The switch to wet-sanding with the ultra fine grit paper came a little later on, maybe a month or two before I got to test the v2 sensors. They were on a clean crankset, the “official” replacements that came earlier this month are on the “old” heavily sanded one.
So have you now resolved all your issues with the v2 sensors and the new glue?
I have ultegra 6800 cranks, and have now tried 3 sets of the v2 sensors. Whilst the sensors seem to stick on ok, I’m getting very low readings from the Powerbeat pods (generally less than 50% of the power that is reported by my trainer)
I’ve had extensive email discussion with Watteam support, (they’ve sent me 2 sets of replacement sensors, which I have diligently followed the installation instructions and waited 48hrs for the glue to dry), but I still get the same low readings.
Has anyone managed to get sensible, reliable readings using the ultegra 6800 crank? I know it is supposed to be on the supported list, but I’m beginning to wonder if the coating on the crank just isn’t suitable…..
I’m no longer confident that this product will work for me and am planning to return it. Any other suggestions before I do that?
Matt,
I’ve had similar issues with both v1 and v2 on Ultegra 6800 cranks and couldn’t tell you how many I’ve replaced between the two. Usually the bigger problem for me was the non-drive side would lose its bond and while the sensor would still be stuck to the crank arm, it would come off very easily when I went to replace it. It definitely seems to be something to do with the finish Shimano put on the cranks as I’ve had the problem with multiple 6800 cranksets.
Sanding through that finish seems to have helped resolve that issue for me so far with the new glue. I mean, over repeated installs, I’ve sanded pretty much clear through the anodizing to bare aluminum. I’ve had the same pair of sensors holding good since about a month after v2 was released; and while I don’t have a second meter to measure against, numbers are pretty close to Strava estimates.
One way to tell if something may be off if look at your calibration and zeroing values. When zeroing from my Garmin, I would get numbers like -21 if something was off. Also, check your left right balance. I would put my bike on rollers and find a speed and cadence that I could hold consistently with one leg. Then I’d alternate 30s both, left, right and look at the power. If you’re doing twice as much power with the left than the right doing a static test like that, something is off.
I understand your frustration, it can be infuriating at times. I was at the point of almost asking for a refund a few times. The only thing that kept me coming back was the customer service, which for me has been impeccable. Between replacement sensors, pods, skype calls while gluing, they have always taken care of me. That’s what has kept me sticking around to wait for them to work out the kinks.
Thanks Drew, that is very helpful.
Agree that Watteam support are fantastic and I really don’t want to send it back. I want to see them succeed because they seem so close to having a fantastic product.
Will keep trying and think your suggestion of sanding off the coating on the crank is a good idea. Will report back, but interested if anyone else with the ultegra 6800 cranks is still having issues?
Ultegra 6800 crank user. Got the new gen2 model from CT in early April, it has never worked properly.
Had minor balance issues, which last month escalated to over-reporting power numbers, which yesterday devolved into a left sensor that’s reporting 1000+ watts from this 51kg weakling.
Contacted support, they answer the phone right away, so fingers crossed.
Ray, what power meter would you recommend right above WattTeam’s (their spelling kills me) option, should this not work out? Willing to spend a few extra bucks at this stage.
Price-wise, the next up the ladder is bePro, which is solid. Note my post from Friday about their new version coming out sometime this summer.
Hello. I have received an email from them with a pretty affordable option they will be releasing. Have you test their latest products? Any recommendation? Thanks for your great work!!
I don’t believe that the power meter itself has changed. This appears to just be a change in configuration offerings (single or dual).
Should be the same as the G2, which Ray reviewed here:
link to dcrainmaker.com
Big difference is the availability of a Left only option, which I presume is just an App update allowing for calibration of a single pod along with a few other features. Currently, the app does not like to connect to a single pod, much less zero or calibrate a single pod.
I will say, dropping the price of the dual by $100, offering to glue on the sensors for $99 and the 2-pack offering for an extra $200 seem like very interesting offers.
Honestly, for me, given the number of issues I’ve had with the sensors staying on Ultegra 6800 cranks, I’d be curious as to how they will address those issues with the $99 send in option. If it’s $99 each time you have to send it in because a sensor popped off… that will be an issue with consumers.
On a side note… to those who have been having L/R balance issues on g2; from my last exchange with support, it sounds like small variances in having the sensor centered on the crank arm may be causing this. I have floated the suggestion to them that I personally like the G1 method of setting the sensors better than the current system with the rubber bands. I found it much easier to keep the sensors lined up and that perhaps they should have a hybrid mechanism where you use a mechanical alignment tool to keep the sensors lined up while setting the elastic bands.
They sent me a 6800 crank with the sensors glued on (excellent customer service) but recently the power was erratic so I checked the sensors. The left one was partially detached. It has been hot where I live so not sure if the temperature affected. It’s a glue issue it seems. I was going to throw on some super glue but no sure how that will fix it. I contacted them through in app support option but haven’t heard back. Might just have to get a new crank and try this new offer.
They did the same for me, and I ran into the same issue after about 2-3 months. I also found a third 6800 crank locally for about $100.
I now have three sets of identical 6800 cranks. Every time a sensor comes off on its own I contact support, they send me a new sensor with glue. I sand the old glue off of the detached sensor and re-glue it on a crank arm that doesn’t have a sensor. New sensor goes on the crank arm that the old sensor fell off of. This leaves me with a possible spare to use while I’m waiting for the next new sensor to come in.
I’ve found in doing this that about 1/2 the time, if the sensor comes off on its own and isn’t damaged, it works just fine. I also now have a surplus of 3-4 used sensors that have fallen off. If I could find a suitable replacement for the epoxy they provide, I’d probably have three fully usable cranks with glued on sensors, just in case.
Drew are you still having issues? Recently I had to get a replacement sensor and I noticed the problem is not with the sensor coming off from the pedal it is the rubber cover coming off from the pedal. I assume the sensor will be wrecked once water gets in. I think the epoxy does not work with the rubber and the pedal. I am gonna try to find an epoxy that glues rube and metal.
Had the sensor fall off my crank today after 3 days! Epoxy was very hard to work and black when it arrived so could have spoilt. Awaiting a reply as to what they will do to fix this but as I am in the UK could be a long time to fix. Not the best introduction to power meters so far for me!
Hello Faarn, we apologize for the inconvenience you have encountered. Please make sure you write to support@watteam.com, and they will assist you ASAP.
Thank you, and safe rides.