Floating across my virtual desk this morning is a crowd-funded campaign for an indoor smart bike, the Energym RE:GEN indoor bike. Among its claim to fame is that you can charge your toothbrush with it. Also, it has a glowing light to indicate your current power and FTP.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
The campaign started about three weeks ago, and has surpassed their initial funding goal, though that goal was put so low as to not be meaningful (which is common). In this case, it’s clear the point of the Indiegogo campaign is to get media/social media attention, something a normal product launch probably wouldn’t do. Any money raised is merely icing on top, unless of course things go so poorly as to be an embarrassment (also sometimes happens).
In any event, let me be clear up front: I don’t recommend buying this smart bike. Not because it’s inherently bad, but because my trust in crowd-funded platforms continues to decline, and I just don’t see enough of the right terms and industry lingo in this crowdfunding page to believe they know what they’re doing – even if their marketing is quite good. Mind you, you can also have companies with plenty of industry lingo and proper term usage screw things up too. Screwing up crowd-funded campaigns does not discriminate between industry insiders or not.
Still, there are some interesting things I figured a quick post on would be worthy. The unit is sorta akin to a blend of a Stages SB20 Bike, and that of a Peloton Bike+, in that it actually includes a digital resistance control system (whereas the original Peloton Bike doesn’t). That means it can control the resistance of the bike, according to their crowd-funded page.
In their specs, they claim +/- 5% power accuracy, up to 2,000w. For reference, most of the higher-end smart bikes on the market have accuracy claims of +/- 1-2%. However, the Peloton Bike+ doesn’t actually make a claim, best I can tell – though, my testing finds it in that range. Whereas the original Peloton Bike floats in the +/- 5-8% range depending on a lot of factors.
In any event, +/- 5% is a fairly big range for a $2,200 device that promotes Zwift compatibility (whereas less a concern for general fitness reasons). That power accuracy level is basically similar to $500 smart trainers on the market. But we don’t know if they’ll hit that accuracy level. As readers around here know, I’ve literally made a decade-long business out of demonstrating that even the best power meter companies in the world don’t often meet their accuracy claims.
That said, unlike a Peloton Bike/Bike+, it appears to actually connect to Zwift using either ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart (or perhaps both). The details there are fuzzy – they never mention those protocol words anywhere.
And in fact, the FAQ around this aspect gives me plenty of pause:
“Can the RE:GEN connect to Zwift?
YES! Using our smartphone app, you can connect your RE:GEN bike to Zwift.”
And by ‘plenty of pause’, I mean ‘Dear god…please no.’
It sounds like they’re probably doing some sort of passthrough via their smartphone app, which won’t end well. We’ve seen this movie before. Anything relaying cycling data through a smartphone back out to another device for race-level speeds never ends well, either lag-wise or stability-wise. And while they do have a jazzy video showing Zwift and someone riding, it doesn’t appear to show both screen and rider in one frame doing a sprint or such for us to deduce lag/latency, or even a swag at accuracy.
First, a picture of the bike atop my favorite Ikea rug (actually, it’s not Ikea, but we do have the same rug in our kids’ bedroom, it’s very soft and we like it a lot). However…Why exactly would you put a bike you’re going to pour buckets of sweat on a rug that’s going to soak it up like a sponge?
Nonetheless, destroyed rugs aside, as you can see, it’s got the large flywheel up front (exact weight is unspecified), as well as a tablet holder – but not an actual display. Looks like most generic spin bikes.
Meanwhile, off the back, it’s got a spoiler or something. Presumably to assist with aerodynamics while going fast. Frankly, I don’t really understand what that large piece is. It doesn’t appear to serve any purpose, except perhaps to stash Christmas wrapping paper. I do get that there are only so many ways to make a spin bike look unique, but I’m not sure adding bulk is one of the best choices.
The other unique aspect is actually up on the handlebars, the large black thingy with the neon green illuminated racing stripe. That’s the special removable battery. If you remember back to a few paragraphs ago, this thing’s jam in life is that it’s recharging the environment, your body, and your toothbrush. It’s doing so with that huge e-bike sized battery that sits awkwardly next to your chest while hunkered down doing intervals.
While I’m not an expert, I’d argue that’s where a water bottle should go. Or, a phone holder. Or, an M&M’s holder. Or really, anything else. Nonetheless, let’s take a closer look at it.
All the Powers:
The specs of the battery are a bit conflicting. In one image it lists it as 6,000mAh, which is pretty small. The average lipstick-sized battery pack is usually 5,000mAh, and many day-pack ones (like I use constantly) are 10,000-20,000mAh (half the size of a paperback book, and costing $16).
Simple math says most cell phones take about 2,500-3,000mAh of juice, so a 6,000mAh pack is basically 2 full charges. But this thing is FAR too large to only be 6,000mAh. And in fact, elsewhere in the specs they list 100 watt-hours, which generally would translate to about 26,000mAh. And that’d be about the proper size of a device like this, given the extra lighting on it, as well as the full-sized AC plugs for laptops or such.
Ok, fine, we’ve got a generic-sized battery bank that’s somehow the size of a torpedo. Normally, one I can also buy on Amazon for $15 (not the $200+ they list later in their campaign). Though this one does have 100w charging, which normally costs more. You don’t tend to see that in most battery banks until a bit higher up, and is useful for charging a laptop or such. But this doesn’t seem to have the capacity for that as spec’d.
Still, there’s two things that stick out at me:
A) Why on earth is it on the handlebars? Why not place it in that spoiler thing at the back? That’s a *FAR* better place for it. First, it wouldn’t be awkwardly on the handlebars taking up real estate, and second, it could then be even better. Plus, it’d give purpose to the spoiler.
B) Why so small? Normally, companies limit their portable battery sizes to 100 watt hours, because of worldwide rules limiting their use on airplanes above that size. But in this case, nobody is taking that beast on a plane anyway. So, why bother keeping it so small? Go big! The unit I use for shooting outdoors sometimes, or road trips, is 240 watt hours. It’s about the size of a small shoebox. But of course, you could form that differently. Point being, that would be legit useful if, as they suggest, when your home loses power you can use it for power.
And then finally, the most obvious question:
C) With all this re-charging prowess, why not power the actual bike from it? It’d easily power this bike, since the bike doesn’t have a screen. In fact, there are numerous bikes that do that today already. We saw that with the Tacx Bike, which has the ability to self-power for most functions, and many other generic spin bikes too.
And then more recently, the TrueKinetix TrueBike actually not only self-powers, but does re-charge the large internal battery, which in turn powers the full display system (and everything else).
In fact, going one step further, TrueKinetix plans to offer a connector accessory that’ll actually allow you to plug the bike back into the power system and feed electricity back into your home/grid. Obviously, the logistics of that are tricky depending on your country/home/etc, but here in the Netherlands, that’s apparently a simpler concept to execute upon (where both they, and I, are located).
In any event, my entire point here is that I think the idea of a battery bank on the back of a bike isn’t a bad idea, it’s just not a terribly well executed idea in this case. Further, since we’re talking ‘being green’ as a main and repeatedly stated selling point of this product (even being the name of the product), I’d take a swag that the ecological footprint of this entire battery system might be questionable to begin with, especially compared to a cleaner energy source like solar or wind. But I’ll let that slide for the moment.
Sweatcoins – Not Bitcoins:
The bike includes Sweatcoin integration. For those outside the UK, you’re probably like: ‘What da fuq is Sweatcoin?’
Whereas those in the UK are likely in the know, or at least vaguely aware of it.
Essentially, Sweatcoin is like frequent flyer miles for working out. Be it steps or pedaling, you get credit for doing healthy things. Those coins can in turn be redeemed for a variety of real-world things, including Paypal gift cards. And to its credit, the app has a pretty darn strong rating on the app store with 175,000 ratings at 4.5 stars. You can’t get that many ratings/stars being complete hot garbage:
Now, I’m all for these types of integrations (when done properly). We continue to see the rise of employer-driven health and fitness rewards programs (over the past decade+), and this isn’t much different, except done at the bike level. I suppose there’s nothing stopping any other company (Wahoo/Garmin/etc) from doing this, except for the fact they’d have to pay money out for no good reason.
Garmin/Wahoo/Stages/etc have users that are already working out on their own accord, without needing another carrot to drive/change their behavior. And while the internal details of how Sweatcoin works aren’t super clear, it sounds like some portion of the system works via B2B affiliate schemes. Basically, Sweatcoin drives interest to secondary platforms/apps/subscriptions/devices, and get a bit back from that.
And that all ignores the pretty heavy advertiser/marketing tracking push that they appear to be collecting and sharing, basically, if you check on ‘See details’, almost every option has the answer of ‘Yes, they’re doing that’.
Now mind you, I presume you can use the RE:GEN bike without Sweatcoin, it’s just that they’ve spent development time integrating it, and marketing time promoting it, so thus, I poked into it. I mean, poked enough to try to understand it, without poking too far and getting dirty.
Wrap-Up:
Finally, it’s worth mentioning price – as that’s where things get a bit funky. The company, Energym, is based in the UK, so things are clearly slanted that way pricing-wise, though, they offer pricing in USD/EUR/GBP. And at first glance, things are good here – at least for UK folks. That is the base price they’ve got for the early birds, and there are some (err…basically all) of those available at 1,699GBP. And yes, that is the rough correct conversion to USD.
But that’s not the correct cost for the Peloton Bike+. That price is $2,495, not $3,320. That’s because Energym incorrectly did conversion from the UK price to USD, rather than just looking up the correct USD price. Sure, you could get local state taxes, but not every state has that, and even then, it doesn’t add anywhere near that much. However, one would have to seriously debate why exactly you’d compare it to the Peloton Bike+ versus the base Peloton (at $1,899), since RE:GEN doesn’t include *ANY* display, which is included on all Peloton Bikes. Just as it is on the NordicTrack S22i.
And again, if we compared the price of the NordicTrack S22i in the US, the actual price is $1,999, not $2,814. Their monthly subscription fees are sorta correct, because the S22i includes the first year free – so that’s some $400 less there.
All of which ignores the fact that RE:GEN doesn’t appear to actually even have a service yet (instructors/studio/etc…) – yet, charges a fee for it. Despite the fact that the entire campaign page fails to show, even once, the training app open. They only mention (once) that it somehow exists:
“…tap into the Energym app where you can track your workouts and access virtual classes, personalised workouts, and the online rider community”
But again, no pictures or imagery from it. Though, toothbrushes.
Shipping and import-fees wise, things could get dicey too. For UK buyers, they don’t actually appear to clarify anywhere if UK folks will get dinged on import charges, which would be substantial. Just as they would be for the EU – some 19% or so for me in Europe. Shipping-wise, everyone has to pay what are basically the freight charges, and pretty similar to what competitors charge (if slightly less).
So, here’s the thing: I wouldn’t be opposed to a sub-$2,000USD indoor smart bike that was +/-5% accuracy with controllable resistance. Though, I’d say +/- 3% would be the realistic sweet spot. There’s clearly quite a market for such a device. One only need to look at the feedback for people trying to figure out how to use regular $1,895 Peloton bikes with Zwift, or the plethora of people’s comments after the initial Wattbike ATOM launched at roughly that pricing before shifting prices for USD launch. There’s huge demand there, and if someone can tap into that I suspect they’ll have a nice revenue stream.
And invariably, we’ll likely see it. As much as a company like Zwift would enjoy selling Wahoo KICKR Bike priced $3,500 bikes/hardware, they only need to look at Peloton’s sales numbers (give or take 300,000 bikes a quarter) to see the real money is in lower-priced bikes. And as is the case for Peloton, the subscription revenue is what Zwift is most interested in long-term, not the hardware.
As for the RE:GEN bike, no, I won’t be buying it. But, I do think the battery bits are mildly interesting, at least if reconfigured in a way that was more beneficial to end users, and if they could pull down the prices to something more realistic for a unit without a display.
With that – thanks for reading!
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I’m pretty sure all the extra waffles I will eat will cost more on my wallet and environment than just charging the stuff while sitting around doing nothing
Someone sitting around during the pandemic with too much time on their hands thought they’d get clever, probably reached out to some generic Alibaba seller and got an entirely generic spin-bike slightly gussied up (with that aerodynamic spoiler), slapped a few other things on it and started a clever marketing campaign to extract money from unsuspecting buyers.
The fact it doesn’t even broadcast power, speed and cadence over standard ANT+ and BLE sport profiles screams support for the above criticisms. This thing is utter trash and needs to die a fast death.
While we’re at it: didn’t you comment some years ago that Peloton originally had their bike selling for about half what it does but jacked the price up to “add-value?” At least they have a solid platform underneath (my spouse loves hers and is a hardcore cyclocross rider aside).
The actual cost to build generic spin bikes isn’t that high and RE:GEN doesn’t even have a compelling platform – they just added some cheap, stupid doo-dads to justify the ridiculous price.
OK, rant done. I just hate this type of dead-end crap. It drains cash from actually great products and platforms. People would be better off buying a refurbished Kickr Core and sticking ANY cheap bicycle frame on it.
Given they show the battery at 6000mAh and 100Wh, I’m confused. I presume the 6000mAh is at 5V (which is the USB voltage), so delivering 6A for 1 hour at 5V is 30Wh. Yet they also show the battery rated as 100Wh (energy is Watt-hours). And, if the bike is rated at 2000W peak, then at 5V, that’s 400 amps being dumped into the battery. I don’t think the wires are thick enough. Perhaps that fancy doo-dad hanging off the back is for some resisters to dump the excess energy. More likely, there is some other way to dump most of the energy and there is just a tiny generator there like one used to have to run bike lights.
That aside, the battery is still too small. If one rides for an hour at 200W, one would need a 200Wh battery. On the other hand, there is a 100W USB C port, so you can charge up your laptop while putting in the km’s; the battery on the bike is like the battery on a Prius, there for the extra boost when the engine isn’t putting out the watts.
This is exactly why (m)Ah is a lousy way of specifying battery capacity.
It is comparable only if the voltage of the batteries are constant.
Sure, using mAh has worked for a long time for constant voltage applications like rechargeable AA batteries (1.2V) and traditional USB-stuff (5V). I’m pretty sure quite a few people have made the mistake of comparing the mAh-values between batteries of different voltages, though.
And nowadays with variable voltage in USB PD applications, you can’t be sure of the battery voltage unless explicitly specified. And even the voltage of AA batteries is not constant over different battery chemistries. Single use AA batteries are usually 1.5V and the rechargeable ones are 1.2V, so you can’t directly compare the mAh values between those either.
To remove the ambiguity, all battery capacities should be specified as (m)Wh.
Massaging numbers until things make sense, here’s the calc:
Assume 100Wh is close enough to be “true.”
100Wh/6A = 16.66V, which happens to be very close to 4 * 4.2V
In other words, I’m pretty certain we’re talking about a 4S (4 cells in series) 6Ah battery pack, and they’ve incorrectly calculated the power contained therein as 6A*4(cells)*4.2V (peak full-charge cell voltage) rather than the correct 6*4*3.7V (nominal cell voltage through discharge curve) = 88.8Wh.
Or they’re rounding one of those numbers, somewhere – but the above analysis lines up perfectly.
I agree mAh is a terrible way to describe cell capacity, but each market generally operates consistently:
A 3AH tool battery is 3AH at the pack voltage, typically 3 or 5 cells (“12V” and “18V” or “20V” systems, respectively).
A 10,000mAh power bank is 10Ah at 3.7V (single-cell LiPo pack), because 5V USB applications basically never use >1S packs. In the rare instance they do, they quote mAh as if it were a 1S pack, whether or not it is.
As an aside: for the number of cells they show, assuming they’re the 18650s that nearly every cylindrical battery pack is made from, that pack is more like 270Wh. So in the finished product, it’ll either be physically smaller than shown, electrically larger than stated, or full of a lot of dead space so it’ll feel light and cheap.
I agree with your assessment that there’s no practical reason (for the customer) to limit the pack size to 100Wh, but I’ll add that there’s a VERY practical reason to make it a fair bit larger:
My FTP is kinda mediocre right now at 217w. My typical bike workout is 1h, and an average one might have an IF of .5 or .7. In other words, I’m generating a minimum of 110Wh throughout an average workout.
Add to that, power in to a LiPo pack is NOT constant, and will tail off to zero in the top 20% of the pack size. So they’re either going to need a double-or-triple-as-large pack to collect the full power from the end of the workout, or they’re going to need to burn the power resistively. To be fair, I think there’s going to HAVE to be a 2kW-peak space heater tucked in there somewhere, or the product just won’t work out, so this whole argument mainly boils down to maximizing energy harvested, which – this product is selling the IDEA of eco-friendliness, not a practical solution for it.
HI Ray, Quick understanding question.
You would have to pay 1700 pounds to get the bike in house. Then you pay 14 pounds a month to be able to use and if you want to use it with swift you pay an additional 13 pounds per month. So lets say the device works for 3 years then the operating costs are 1700 + (36* 27) = 2675 pounds!!! For that money you buy a Tacx or whatever bike fitted trainer, a decent bike with ultegra and a garmin 830 that can do route simulation as well. And above all you can also still go outside.
I guess I am not their target audience. I find it a hackload of coins needed to train inside.
Indeed, the value prop just isn’t there for this specific bike. While the resistance control tech is found on higher end bikes, the lack of a display with this type of spin bike puts it much lower in price typically ($1,000ish), rather than $2K+.
Still, to be fair on operating costs, their prices are no different than Zwift in that regard. And I think ultimately, Zwift prices will go up substantially from where they are (if not for all levels, then for premium tiers or such). Peloton has easily shown that people are more than willing to pay more, for higher quality content. Though, Peloton’s platform is far more polished as an entire “thing” than Zwift’s, in terms of the end-user experiance inclusive from hardware to software (a large part of why Zwift is building their own hardware).
I suppose technically it could be a range, as in 0-2000w, or whatever. And I suppose technically, they could basically do what a few apps/platforms do wherein during an FTP test it’s showing your FTP calculations live.
But yeah, that’s all much more precise than a non-numbered glow-stick.
There is a huge market for “sweatcoins”, especially when linked to rewards. Here in SA (and exported some other parts of the world), Discovery has built an empire with their “Vitality” program. The big difference, Vitality works with alot of stuff from your apples, garmins, fitbits, gym cards, bank cards, smartphones and even running events.
Hey Ray,
Appreciate all that you do for the the sports consumer. Any plans on adding a S22i to your equipment / review list? Us S22i users could use an advocate with a loud megaphone to help ifit get some of their problems worked out.
Regarding the battery, they appear to be green 18650 (18mmx65mm cylinder) cells, which vary in capacity (mAh), nominal voltage, and jacket color. They may have selected green for marketing (there isn’t color coding), or because that’s the of hue of green Samsung uses with some of their 18650s. Note, Samsung is among the top dogs in Li-Ion manufacturing.
Regarding the power of that battery pack, I count 26 individual cells. Assuming they’re in series, you’d need a per cell power capacity of about 3.85W. I have never heard of a cell having a nominal capacity of less than 3.2V, so we’ll use that as a minimum. You would need cells with a capacity of just under 1170 mAh for a 26 cell block to be 100W.
They mention $280 for their battery packs (with a *super cool* light that tells you FTP, but only zone, not anything useful, like a number). The crummy Li-Ion cells mentioned earlier are about $3 retail, the Samsungs are about $6.25. Even building your own batteries and not including bulk discounts using good cells, it’d cost less than $500, with bad cells, less than $250, with bad cells and in bulk, easily under $200. Their customer’s workout just saved them 220W, but they would have had to put $840 just for battery packs. They must really want they super green instagram clout.
The spec for QC3 is 36W, for QC4 it’s 100W, so are they applying that 100W to the battery? If that’s where the mistake is (and assuming they aren’t being cheap with the batteries), for a good 18650 at 2500 mAh, that’s a total capacity of about 234W.
Note: elsewhere they show a screenshot of a workout where someone output 220W. Either the former is right or that means that person (if they even exist) would have had to do a battery change 3 times in their workout. Also, the 6,000 mAh begins to look a lot more like 60,000-65,0000 mAh that 26 Li-Ion cells in series should have unless they’re completing gauging their customers. It wouldn’t be the first bit of marketing they didn’t proofread either (lots of grammatical errors and missing punctuation everywhere).
Couple final thoughts:
It doesn’t seem like they have registered anything with the FCC, which you kind of have to in order to sell connected devices in the US. I have searched through FCC filings (which are all public at FCCID io) trying to find specs for the battery, but came up empty.
Others mentioned similar things, but in regard to charging. The USB spec doesn’t come into play unless they’re charging via USB (which is extremely unlikely). It seems more to be the case that they say various power tools manufacturers coming up with new ways to use their batteries (and sell more things). Some have flashlights, hand warmers, etc. that interface directly with the battery. The power pack has attachments to power phones as well, but they don’t charge via USB, they charge via their proprietary battery charges (that are all somehow different yet use exactly the same cells). The bike charges the battery in the same way, then you use the battery pack to power other things.
Sorry it’s taken us a few weeks to get back to you. We’ve only just recovered from CJ’s comments below your post. Christ on a Peloton, he’s brutal! Dropshipping from Ali Baba!? Ouch! Although, at least he didn’t say we were dropshipping from Wish…
Thankfully, someone cracked open the smelling salts and now we’re ready to respond to a few of the *checks notes* interesting assumptions raised in the article.
But first, we wanted to thank you. We genuinely do appreciate the time you’ve taken to write about the RE:GEN. You’ve made some valid points. Clearly, your audience respects and values your candour.
We’d also like to extend an invitation to you. You’re very welcome to come to Birmingham and visit our office. You can see the bike. You can try it out and talk through the technology with our CEO and engineering team. With COVID, that might not be ideal for you right now, so know that our invitation is open indefinitely. Come whenever you like. We’d love to have you.
You said that you don’t trust crowdfunding. That’s fair enough but that’s an opinion. Crowdfunding allows us to get our product to market faster. We’re a start-up. We’re not quite at Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth yet. Crowdfunding allows us to connect with early adopters of technology. They pre-order the RE:GEN upfront and we get to kickstart the manufacturing process. Early adopters are people who enjoy being at the front of the line when it comes to innovative tech. They understand that there may be some iterative changes to design or output. They become part of the development process. They’re also super chilled about waiting a few months until it’s perfected and delivered. For some new companies, crowdfunding is the best way to get a product in front of an audience. We may have lowballed the campaign target but that wasn’t a cynical social media ploy. The bikes will be built and delivered. We’ve never said or believed otherwise.
Our actual power input meter accuracy is aiming to be closer to 3% but we’re still running tests to ensure that’s completely correct. As we’re creating power, the output accuracy is closer to 100%. So, when calculating input power from the legs, we just need to minus the known efficiency losses in our system which is handled by our onboard smart chip. It’s a super cool way to measure power. You’re also not paying out for expensive Favero or Garmin power meter pedals.
We’re using Bluetooth Smart Wireless protocol directly from the bike so there’ll definitely be no pass through via the app. That would be a really bad idea. The RE:GEN will also use WIFI for smart over-the-air updating – a bit like Tesla do. That way we can develop cool new training programmes for cyclists and update these on the fly going forward.
Okay, so maybe we got a little carried away with the stock images. The IKEA rug? You’re right. Unfortunately, COVID restrictions meant we had to cancel a lot of photoshoots. We wanted people to see how the bike would look in the home. But yeah, probably not a good idea to sweat it out over a furry rug.
The weight of the flywheel is 15 kg
That’s not a spoiler on the back. It’s actually the EnerBox. It houses the electronics module. You didn’t think complex energy generation and load balancing just happened out of nowhere, did you? It had to go somewhere and that was the most logical place to put it. We’re glad you liked the design though. We worked hard to make it functional and attractive. Our marketing team loved the idea of the wrapping paper, though. You’ve given them some banging ideas for a Christmas photoshoot!
High-five to the guy in the comments who rightly pointed out that mAh doesn’t mean much for the battery. This is where your criticism falls flat. That’s not the number you want to be looking at. What you should be taking notice of are the watt-hours. That’s why the battery isn’t adding up for you. Battery capacity should always focus on watt-hours. Ours is 100Wh. With our efficiencies that’s the equivalent of 14 full phone charges from a single workout. With the average cyclist generating around 200Wh in 1 hour workout, we’re proud to have developed the RE:GEN system to be 85-92% efficient. Meaning we can capture around 180Wh from the average cyclist’s workout straight into our battery.
The Ohm battery will come in two sizes: 100Wh & 220Wh. The one pictured was the same size as our 220Wh battery which will be released later on as an upgrade. We want people to be able to USE the green power they generate and not let it go to waste, so after your workout the battery can then be unclipped and used to power your phones, laptops and devices. We also sell an inverter attachment so you can power your mains appliances too. Oh, and you can still use the RE:GEN with or without the battery. It uses smart detection to check if the battery is present to charge it up.
The extra lighting on the Ohm battery is an FTP meter which is a live power meter. It uses a 5-colour zoning system allowing users to quickly and easily see how hard they’re working. That would be harder if the battery was on the back of the bike. But maybe we’ll stick it on the back if we ever decide to develop the RE:GEN tandem 😉. Naturally, the battery IS sweatproof (unlike that IKEA rug).
You wanted to know why “with all this re-charging prowess, why not power the actual bike from it”. Well, the RE:GEN bike IS powered from it… that’s kind of the point.
We completely agree that using an inverter to feed power back into the home or grid is the way forward. In fact, that’s exactly what we’re working on. Though there are some important safety challenges to overcome when pushing 240/110v directly into your home grid… so please don’t try this at home kids! We’re working on it and we’re looking to implement this into a RE:GEN bike add-on in due course.
We’re also using eco-plastic and low-carbon manufacturing to build the bike wherever possible. It doesn’t make sense to include a screen. It would mean more materials used and more cost for the customer. Almost everyone has a tablet or smartphone these days. There’s no need to add more pointless tech. The bike works with existing tablets and phones or connects to smart TVs. And yes, the bike and battery provides power to these if they need it to.
You’re right! You can use the bike without Sweatcoin. We wanted to add an incentive for people to exercise and generate clean power. Some people find exercising difficult to maintain. We thought this might be a bonus for those who prefer the carrot rather than the stick method.
Our hands are tied on shipping charges at the moment, but we are looking into ways of making this more affordable. Once we’ve launched our website, we’re aiming to offer a payment scheme to make the bike and delivery more affordable to more people.
We hope this has cleared a few things up. Thank you again for the time you took to write about the RE:GEN. We hope you’ll write about us again in the future. Who knows maybe we’ll partner with IKEA for a range of indoor cycling sweat rugs. Keep our invitation in mind, too. Come and give the bike a proper rider’s review. Our engineering team would be happy to give you a few pointers on power electronics too… 😉
A smart home allows homeowners to control appliances, thermostats, lights, and other devices remotely using a smartphone or tablet through an internet …
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The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2023 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
I’m pretty sure all the extra waffles I will eat will cost more on my wallet and environment than just charging the stuff while sitting around doing nothing
This abomination doesn’t deserve any attention.
Someone sitting around during the pandemic with too much time on their hands thought they’d get clever, probably reached out to some generic Alibaba seller and got an entirely generic spin-bike slightly gussied up (with that aerodynamic spoiler), slapped a few other things on it and started a clever marketing campaign to extract money from unsuspecting buyers.
The fact it doesn’t even broadcast power, speed and cadence over standard ANT+ and BLE sport profiles screams support for the above criticisms. This thing is utter trash and needs to die a fast death.
While we’re at it: didn’t you comment some years ago that Peloton originally had their bike selling for about half what it does but jacked the price up to “add-value?” At least they have a solid platform underneath (my spouse loves hers and is a hardcore cyclocross rider aside).
The actual cost to build generic spin bikes isn’t that high and RE:GEN doesn’t even have a compelling platform – they just added some cheap, stupid doo-dads to justify the ridiculous price.
OK, rant done. I just hate this type of dead-end crap. It drains cash from actually great products and platforms. People would be better off buying a refurbished Kickr Core and sticking ANY cheap bicycle frame on it.
Given they show the battery at 6000mAh and 100Wh, I’m confused. I presume the 6000mAh is at 5V (which is the USB voltage), so delivering 6A for 1 hour at 5V is 30Wh. Yet they also show the battery rated as 100Wh (energy is Watt-hours). And, if the bike is rated at 2000W peak, then at 5V, that’s 400 amps being dumped into the battery. I don’t think the wires are thick enough. Perhaps that fancy doo-dad hanging off the back is for some resisters to dump the excess energy. More likely, there is some other way to dump most of the energy and there is just a tiny generator there like one used to have to run bike lights.
That aside, the battery is still too small. If one rides for an hour at 200W, one would need a 200Wh battery. On the other hand, there is a 100W USB C port, so you can charge up your laptop while putting in the km’s; the battery on the bike is like the battery on a Prius, there for the extra boost when the engine isn’t putting out the watts.
This is exactly why (m)Ah is a lousy way of specifying battery capacity.
It is comparable only if the voltage of the batteries are constant.
Sure, using mAh has worked for a long time for constant voltage applications like rechargeable AA batteries (1.2V) and traditional USB-stuff (5V). I’m pretty sure quite a few people have made the mistake of comparing the mAh-values between batteries of different voltages, though.
And nowadays with variable voltage in USB PD applications, you can’t be sure of the battery voltage unless explicitly specified. And even the voltage of AA batteries is not constant over different battery chemistries. Single use AA batteries are usually 1.5V and the rechargeable ones are 1.2V, so you can’t directly compare the mAh values between those either.
To remove the ambiguity, all battery capacities should be specified as (m)Wh.
Agree. I thought about going into the whole mess of voltage, but then yeah…it quickly gets confusing.
Massaging numbers until things make sense, here’s the calc:
Assume 100Wh is close enough to be “true.”
100Wh/6A = 16.66V, which happens to be very close to 4 * 4.2V
In other words, I’m pretty certain we’re talking about a 4S (4 cells in series) 6Ah battery pack, and they’ve incorrectly calculated the power contained therein as 6A*4(cells)*4.2V (peak full-charge cell voltage) rather than the correct 6*4*3.7V (nominal cell voltage through discharge curve) = 88.8Wh.
Or they’re rounding one of those numbers, somewhere – but the above analysis lines up perfectly.
I agree mAh is a terrible way to describe cell capacity, but each market generally operates consistently:
A 3AH tool battery is 3AH at the pack voltage, typically 3 or 5 cells (“12V” and “18V” or “20V” systems, respectively).
A 10,000mAh power bank is 10Ah at 3.7V (single-cell LiPo pack), because 5V USB applications basically never use >1S packs. In the rare instance they do, they quote mAh as if it were a 1S pack, whether or not it is.
As an aside: for the number of cells they show, assuming they’re the 18650s that nearly every cylindrical battery pack is made from, that pack is more like 270Wh. So in the finished product, it’ll either be physically smaller than shown, electrically larger than stated, or full of a lot of dead space so it’ll feel light and cheap.
I agree with your assessment that there’s no practical reason (for the customer) to limit the pack size to 100Wh, but I’ll add that there’s a VERY practical reason to make it a fair bit larger:
My FTP is kinda mediocre right now at 217w. My typical bike workout is 1h, and an average one might have an IF of .5 or .7. In other words, I’m generating a minimum of 110Wh throughout an average workout.
Add to that, power in to a LiPo pack is NOT constant, and will tail off to zero in the top 20% of the pack size. So they’re either going to need a double-or-triple-as-large pack to collect the full power from the end of the workout, or they’re going to need to burn the power resistively. To be fair, I think there’s going to HAVE to be a 2kW-peak space heater tucked in there somewhere, or the product just won’t work out, so this whole argument mainly boils down to maximizing energy harvested, which – this product is selling the IDEA of eco-friendliness, not a practical solution for it.
HI Ray, Quick understanding question.
You would have to pay 1700 pounds to get the bike in house. Then you pay 14 pounds a month to be able to use and if you want to use it with swift you pay an additional 13 pounds per month. So lets say the device works for 3 years then the operating costs are 1700 + (36* 27) = 2675 pounds!!! For that money you buy a Tacx or whatever bike fitted trainer, a decent bike with ultegra and a garmin 830 that can do route simulation as well. And above all you can also still go outside.
I guess I am not their target audience. I find it a hackload of coins needed to train inside.
Indeed, the value prop just isn’t there for this specific bike. While the resistance control tech is found on higher end bikes, the lack of a display with this type of spin bike puts it much lower in price typically ($1,000ish), rather than $2K+.
Still, to be fair on operating costs, their prices are no different than Zwift in that regard. And I think ultimately, Zwift prices will go up substantially from where they are (if not for all levels, then for premium tiers or such). Peloton has easily shown that people are more than willing to pay more, for higher quality content. Though, Peloton’s platform is far more polished as an entire “thing” than Zwift’s, in terms of the end-user experiance inclusive from hardware to software (a large part of why Zwift is building their own hardware).
I’m curious how a bunch of LED lights will “transform into a live power meter” that can somehow “display your FTP” in any meaningful way.
I suppose technically it could be a range, as in 0-2000w, or whatever. And I suppose technically, they could basically do what a few apps/platforms do wherein during an FTP test it’s showing your FTP calculations live.
But yeah, that’s all much more precise than a non-numbered glow-stick.
There is a huge market for “sweatcoins”, especially when linked to rewards. Here in SA (and exported some other parts of the world), Discovery has built an empire with their “Vitality” program. The big difference, Vitality works with alot of stuff from your apples, garmins, fitbits, gym cards, bank cards, smartphones and even running events.
link to discovery.co.za
Hey Ray,
Appreciate all that you do for the the sports consumer. Any plans on adding a S22i to your equipment / review list? Us S22i users could use an advocate with a loud megaphone to help ifit get some of their problems worked out.
Regarding the battery, they appear to be green 18650 (18mmx65mm cylinder) cells, which vary in capacity (mAh), nominal voltage, and jacket color. They may have selected green for marketing (there isn’t color coding), or because that’s the of hue of green Samsung uses with some of their 18650s. Note, Samsung is among the top dogs in Li-Ion manufacturing.
Regarding the power of that battery pack, I count 26 individual cells. Assuming they’re in series, you’d need a per cell power capacity of about 3.85W. I have never heard of a cell having a nominal capacity of less than 3.2V, so we’ll use that as a minimum. You would need cells with a capacity of just under 1170 mAh for a 26 cell block to be 100W.
They mention $280 for their battery packs (with a *super cool* light that tells you FTP, but only zone, not anything useful, like a number). The crummy Li-Ion cells mentioned earlier are about $3 retail, the Samsungs are about $6.25. Even building your own batteries and not including bulk discounts using good cells, it’d cost less than $500, with bad cells, less than $250, with bad cells and in bulk, easily under $200. Their customer’s workout just saved them 220W, but they would have had to put $840 just for battery packs. They must really want they super green instagram clout.
The spec for QC3 is 36W, for QC4 it’s 100W, so are they applying that 100W to the battery? If that’s where the mistake is (and assuming they aren’t being cheap with the batteries), for a good 18650 at 2500 mAh, that’s a total capacity of about 234W.
Note: elsewhere they show a screenshot of a workout where someone output 220W. Either the former is right or that means that person (if they even exist) would have had to do a battery change 3 times in their workout. Also, the 6,000 mAh begins to look a lot more like 60,000-65,0000 mAh that 26 Li-Ion cells in series should have unless they’re completing gauging their customers. It wouldn’t be the first bit of marketing they didn’t proofread either (lots of grammatical errors and missing punctuation everywhere).
Couple final thoughts:
It doesn’t seem like they have registered anything with the FCC, which you kind of have to in order to sell connected devices in the US. I have searched through FCC filings (which are all public at FCCID io) trying to find specs for the battery, but came up empty.
Others mentioned similar things, but in regard to charging. The USB spec doesn’t come into play unless they’re charging via USB (which is extremely unlikely). It seems more to be the case that they say various power tools manufacturers coming up with new ways to use their batteries (and sell more things). Some have flashlights, hand warmers, etc. that interface directly with the battery. The power pack has attachments to power phones as well, but they don’t charge via USB, they charge via their proprietary battery charges (that are all somehow different yet use exactly the same cells). The bike charges the battery in the same way, then you use the battery pack to power other things.
Hi DC Rainmaker!
Sorry it’s taken us a few weeks to get back to you. We’ve only just recovered from CJ’s comments below your post. Christ on a Peloton, he’s brutal! Dropshipping from Ali Baba!? Ouch! Although, at least he didn’t say we were dropshipping from Wish…
Thankfully, someone cracked open the smelling salts and now we’re ready to respond to a few of the *checks notes* interesting assumptions raised in the article.
But first, we wanted to thank you. We genuinely do appreciate the time you’ve taken to write about the RE:GEN. You’ve made some valid points. Clearly, your audience respects and values your candour.
We’d also like to extend an invitation to you. You’re very welcome to come to Birmingham and visit our office. You can see the bike. You can try it out and talk through the technology with our CEO and engineering team. With COVID, that might not be ideal for you right now, so know that our invitation is open indefinitely. Come whenever you like. We’d love to have you.
You said that you don’t trust crowdfunding. That’s fair enough but that’s an opinion. Crowdfunding allows us to get our product to market faster. We’re a start-up. We’re not quite at Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth yet. Crowdfunding allows us to connect with early adopters of technology. They pre-order the RE:GEN upfront and we get to kickstart the manufacturing process. Early adopters are people who enjoy being at the front of the line when it comes to innovative tech. They understand that there may be some iterative changes to design or output. They become part of the development process. They’re also super chilled about waiting a few months until it’s perfected and delivered. For some new companies, crowdfunding is the best way to get a product in front of an audience. We may have lowballed the campaign target but that wasn’t a cynical social media ploy. The bikes will be built and delivered. We’ve never said or believed otherwise.
Our actual power input meter accuracy is aiming to be closer to 3% but we’re still running tests to ensure that’s completely correct. As we’re creating power, the output accuracy is closer to 100%. So, when calculating input power from the legs, we just need to minus the known efficiency losses in our system which is handled by our onboard smart chip. It’s a super cool way to measure power. You’re also not paying out for expensive Favero or Garmin power meter pedals.
We’re using Bluetooth Smart Wireless protocol directly from the bike so there’ll definitely be no pass through via the app. That would be a really bad idea. The RE:GEN will also use WIFI for smart over-the-air updating – a bit like Tesla do. That way we can develop cool new training programmes for cyclists and update these on the fly going forward.
Okay, so maybe we got a little carried away with the stock images. The IKEA rug? You’re right. Unfortunately, COVID restrictions meant we had to cancel a lot of photoshoots. We wanted people to see how the bike would look in the home. But yeah, probably not a good idea to sweat it out over a furry rug.
The weight of the flywheel is 15 kg
That’s not a spoiler on the back. It’s actually the EnerBox. It houses the electronics module. You didn’t think complex energy generation and load balancing just happened out of nowhere, did you? It had to go somewhere and that was the most logical place to put it. We’re glad you liked the design though. We worked hard to make it functional and attractive. Our marketing team loved the idea of the wrapping paper, though. You’ve given them some banging ideas for a Christmas photoshoot!
High-five to the guy in the comments who rightly pointed out that mAh doesn’t mean much for the battery. This is where your criticism falls flat. That’s not the number you want to be looking at. What you should be taking notice of are the watt-hours. That’s why the battery isn’t adding up for you. Battery capacity should always focus on watt-hours. Ours is 100Wh. With our efficiencies that’s the equivalent of 14 full phone charges from a single workout. With the average cyclist generating around 200Wh in 1 hour workout, we’re proud to have developed the RE:GEN system to be 85-92% efficient. Meaning we can capture around 180Wh from the average cyclist’s workout straight into our battery.
The Ohm battery will come in two sizes: 100Wh & 220Wh. The one pictured was the same size as our 220Wh battery which will be released later on as an upgrade. We want people to be able to USE the green power they generate and not let it go to waste, so after your workout the battery can then be unclipped and used to power your phones, laptops and devices. We also sell an inverter attachment so you can power your mains appliances too. Oh, and you can still use the RE:GEN with or without the battery. It uses smart detection to check if the battery is present to charge it up.
The extra lighting on the Ohm battery is an FTP meter which is a live power meter. It uses a 5-colour zoning system allowing users to quickly and easily see how hard they’re working. That would be harder if the battery was on the back of the bike. But maybe we’ll stick it on the back if we ever decide to develop the RE:GEN tandem 😉. Naturally, the battery IS sweatproof (unlike that IKEA rug).
You wanted to know why “with all this re-charging prowess, why not power the actual bike from it”. Well, the RE:GEN bike IS powered from it… that’s kind of the point.
We completely agree that using an inverter to feed power back into the home or grid is the way forward. In fact, that’s exactly what we’re working on. Though there are some important safety challenges to overcome when pushing 240/110v directly into your home grid… so please don’t try this at home kids! We’re working on it and we’re looking to implement this into a RE:GEN bike add-on in due course.
We’re also using eco-plastic and low-carbon manufacturing to build the bike wherever possible. It doesn’t make sense to include a screen. It would mean more materials used and more cost for the customer. Almost everyone has a tablet or smartphone these days. There’s no need to add more pointless tech. The bike works with existing tablets and phones or connects to smart TVs. And yes, the bike and battery provides power to these if they need it to.
You’re right! You can use the bike without Sweatcoin. We wanted to add an incentive for people to exercise and generate clean power. Some people find exercising difficult to maintain. We thought this might be a bonus for those who prefer the carrot rather than the stick method.
Our hands are tied on shipping charges at the moment, but we are looking into ways of making this more affordable. Once we’ve launched our website, we’re aiming to offer a payment scheme to make the bike and delivery more affordable to more people.
We hope this has cleared a few things up. Thank you again for the time you took to write about the RE:GEN. We hope you’ll write about us again in the future. Who knows maybe we’ll partner with IKEA for a range of indoor cycling sweat rugs. Keep our invitation in mind, too. Come and give the bike a proper rider’s review. Our engineering team would be happy to give you a few pointers on power electronics too… 😉
Just don’t bring CJ.
A smart home allows homeowners to control appliances, thermostats, lights, and other devices remotely using a smartphone or tablet through an internet …