This is not a review. This is a placeholder post for sharing data from a production/final LIMITS power meter. This unit was not sent to me by LIMITS (which I am also a paid Indiegogo backer of), but rather a DCR reader (Jon Entwistle), who happened to go to the LIMITS launch event in Scotland. A handful of units were handed out at that event, and he sent me his in order to test and provide public data on. I do not know when backer units will ship (mine included).
Box Contents:
The unit was shipped to me in the original box, however batteries were removed prior to shipping at the request of his local post office. As a result, I bought the same battery type (Duracell 303/357) here locally to use. Otherwise, below are the contents of the box.
Note the box is much smaller than I anticipated, hence the inclusion of a can of Coke for comparison. I think if I had an egg handy it would be about the height of an egg standing up.
I do not believe the unit was used prior to my receiving it. However the parts were likely removed from the box originally to get out the batteries, which is likely why there are some grease marks on the internals of the box. I do see some very light oxidation looking orange stuff on the internals of the metal parts inside the LIMITS unit and the spare. I don’t know if it’s rust, but has a similar color. Super faint/thin layer. I’ve seen this before on parts that are not final/finished from companies, as if there hasn’t been a protective coating applied yet. This may be due to some other factor, not sure. Either way, it appears harmless at this stage.
Installation:
Next, was installation. I used the paper instructions included in the box. Here’s some photos from that. Note that like some other power meters (i.e. Garmin Vector), you will need a torque wrench to properly install.
It took me about an hour to install it, most of which was due to the instructions being a little bit confusing. An easily fixable problem after they’ve received a bit of feedback I’m sure. Otherwise things were fairly straightforward.
The only notable item is that if your pedals don’t have a way to use a pedal wrench on them between the pedal body and crank arm, then be super-careful when using the internally required 8mm to 6mm step-down spacers, that it doesn’t fall in between the pedal threaded portion and the internal LIMITS shell. Always apply steady force from both sides (this isn’t noted in the manual). Else, you’ll get your pedal stuck half-way on/off and no (easy) way to ever really separate the two. It’ll make more sense when you have to install it yourself.
Once done and batteries are installed, it’ll show a blue light indicating it’s booting up.
Following installation I set the crank length (in my case 175mm), and then did an initial calibration putting the LIMITS power meter in the correct position. I then did a 10 minute set-in/calibration/bed-in trainer ride, followed by another calibration (Cal value 170). Upon seeing oddities with power (significant separation/drift) within 30-45 seconds I did another calibration (Cal value 172). I then did a ride of about 5 minutes to further normalize things (Cal value 179). At that point I headed outside for an initial test ride.
Accuracy Testing Process:
I haven’t written a full post on power meter accuracy testing, so I’ll do the short-hand version for now. I believe in testing power meters across a broad range of conditions – both environmental (i.e. indoors/outdoors/cold/hot/rough terrain/etc…), as well as workout types (intervals/high cadence/low cadence/sustained efforts of a set value). This is based on years of power meter testing and figuring out where power meters often fail the most (cold but shifting to warm, and rainy on rough roads, in case you were wondering).
When it comes to the bike that I’m using to test LIMITS, it’s a Giant Defy2 road bike. Both the bike and all other power meters and head units on it have been purchased by me. The power meters being used concurrently on this bike are:
Unit 1: PowerTap P1 Power Meter Pedals
Unit 2: Quarq RIKEN Crank Spider Power Meter
Unit 3: Stages Left-Only Power Meter
Unit 4: PowerTap G3 Wheel Hub Power Meter (upon return of rear wheel from servicing)
Trainers: Wahoo KICKR trainer & TACX NEO
+ the LIMITS Power meter
On occasion I may add other units to the mix, both trainer based and non-direct force power meters (i.e. PowerPod or PowerCal). The goal in looking at power meter accuracy data is to establish either agreement of power meters (a majority or quorum), or to establish a known reason why the majority may be incorrect. An example where the majority could be incorrect and a single unit getting it right would be rough roads where all but one unit had issues (it happens). Normally though, the majority are correct.
I use a custom developed tool that takes standard .FIT/.TCX files from major GPS computers and plots the data onto charts. It also provides additional power meter analysis capabilities to more easily demonstrate errors (i.e. Mean/Max charts, Left/Right comparisons, etc…). Each of my test rides goes into that system, and the link next to each one allows you to open it up in the same platform that I use. Additionally, you can download the original .FIT files and do your own comparison.
In the case of testing right now, I’m using Garmin Edge 520’s, Edge 1000’s, and Forerunner 920XT’s to capture the bulk of the data. I often will capture data twice (on more than one device), if I suspect any sort of issues around transmission (i.e. drop-outs), allowing me to narrow down the specific cause.
Things to note/analyze:
Cadence: Look for variances, and if variances exist – see if in satellite view they line up to rougher roads (i.e. cobblestones)
Variability: Validate that if a given unit is low (or high) on one ride, it doesn’t fluctuate above/below other PM’s, it should at least be consistent on a given ride
Temperature drift: On rides with significant temperature differences, validate a unit doesn’t drift slowly high or low
Responsiveness: Sometimes when a company can’t fix variability issues, they’ll add smoothing. This manifests itself easily in sprints
Accuracy: Obviously, it should be within 2% or so of the group. Note that if multiple units have +/- ranges of 2%, then it really could be as far as 4% apart
Mean-Max Graph: This is the great equalizer of power meter graphs. It’s the closest you can get to having a single chart declare accuracy
Left/Right Variations: Because some power meters are left-only, you’ll want to use the option to compare left against virtual left (such as on the PowerTap P1’s)
Smoothing: In most of my graphs I apply a dynamic smoothing value of 5-10 seconds (depending on the length), which makes it easier to analyze. The smoothing value is listed at the bottom of the analyze page.
Ride Average Power: Be very careful when looking at this value. Two power meters can be completely wrong the entire time, and still have a nearly identical average. It’s the worst possible metric to use when comparing data sets. If you see someone using average power as the comparison point, close your browser tab on that site.
Finally, a brief word on accuracy/consistency religion. Often I’ll see people say “It doesn’t matter if it’s accurate, as long as it’s consistent”. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with power meters. While something may be consistent to itself, eventually you’ll want to replace that product when it fulfills its natural life (or is killed). You want those two products to match, otherwise you’ll have years of otherwise very valuable power meter data that’s useless. Further, popular race time estimation sites like BestBikeSplit and others really depend on having accurate power meter data to feed into their models. If your data is wrong, your time estimations will also be wrong. All of this ignores the fact that typically speaking I’ve never found a power meter that was consistently wrong. In fact – when I see issues they are *always* inconsistently wrong. Be it based on cadence, temperature, road conditions, etc… I’ve yet once to find a single unit that was purely 5% high/low or 10w high/lower. The math simply doesn’t work that way in power meters.
LIMITS Power Meter Data
Below is the ongoing data from my testing of the LIMITS power meter. Note I’ve included the initial calibration ride, merely to demonstrate the importance of the initial calibration ride. Like any other power meter I test, I do a settling in ride. While the results seen there were slightly unusual for an initial calibration ride – they certainly aren’t unheard of. Said differently: Don’t over think that one ride.
I’ll update the table below each time I ride. As a triathlete, I don’t ride every day, but roughly every other day in order to fit in both runs and swims. Again, you can download the original files after you click the ‘Analyze’ link next to each set, towards the bottom of that page.
LIMITS Data Sets
| Date | Workout Structure | Indoors or Outdoors | Analyzer Link |
|---|
| 13-June | Initial Settling/Calibration Ride | Trainer | Analyze |
| 13-June | Post Calibration 5-min Validation Check Ride | Trainer | Analyze |
| 13-June | Initial Outdoor Test Ride | Outdoors | Analyze |
| 14-June | Indoor low-cadence/high-cadence & steady-state 20min interval | Trainer | Analyze |
| 17-June | Evening sunset ride | Outdoors | Analyze |
| 18-June | Long steady-state held intensity | Trainer | Analyze |
| 22-June | New bike Settling/Calibration Ride | Outdoors | Analyze |
| 22-June | Riding in the mountains with temp shifts | Outdoors | Analyze |
| 26-June | New bike Settling/Calibration Ride (returned home) | Trainer | Analyze |
| 26-June | Afternoon 90min ride with cobbles | Outdoors | Analyze |
| 28-June | Zwift Trainer Ride | Trainer | Analyze |
| 29-June | Caen Ride to Sea and Back | Outdoors | Analyze |
| 01-July | Afternoon Park Loops | Outdoors | Analyze |
| 09-July | Evening Versailles Ride | Outdoors | Analyze |
| 12-July | Evening Vincennes Ride | Outdoors | Analyze |
As for when I’ll write a review, I would likely base it on once LIMITS starts shipping units to backers. Or, if for some reason they determine that the unit given to the backer who gave it to me ended up not being a final product shipped to backers – then I’d reset and start again.
Thanks a lot Ray for all your efforts!
First impression: wow…… there’s a lot of work that needs to be done still. Hope that they can fix stuff with firmware changes. I was kind of happy with the results of the initial ourtdoor ride but then I saw the indoor trainer session of today (14th). Apart from the obvious high cadence issues, it is worrying to see such a massive difference in power between LIMITS and the “established” competitors.
I noticed the calibration values between the indoor & outdoor rides are different (175 vs 172). Do you think that (a substantial part) of the over- and underestimated wattages are derived from that? Or do you think (at this early point) that it is firmware-related?
Calibration value shifts are normal in power meters. In fact, you want them to shift with different temperature conditions (or other changes).
Yes, thank you for this. Its been an interesting journey and I’m happy to see that the PM does actually exist and try to measure power; hopefully Limits will be more forthcoming with tweaks over the next few months. How does the manual describe updating the firmware – is that a self-service process or will you have to send it in?
The firmware update appears to be fully limits-style: they refer to an app on their webpage, but the page they refer to does not exist……
I’m not aware of any app available at this time. However, it is semi-common that power meter makers don’t make the firmware app available until they have a firmware update available.
I guess we can now see why Limits never published any data for public consumption
subscribing for dramatic purposes.
Battery cap looks a little chewed up in the photos; is that from your efforts, Ray or the postal service?
And initial thoughts on the durability of the plastic used?
Given I didn’t have sole custody of the unit from start to finish, I can’t say whether or not something ‘odd’ happened prior to me. I didn’t use any tools on the battery caps, just my fingers.
In my case for battery cap usage it was normal (though slowly finicky). Once you figure out the trick to the battery cap closing, then it’s easy. I suppose keeping it small would pretty challenging, while also maintaining proper waterproofing.
There are a few marks on the plastic used, which are actually for alignment to other marks on the shell. I suspect those may appear to be scratches, but are actually alignment marks.
Jon did go for a ride with his unit on his mountain bike, and he mentioned in his blog post about it continually stepping on the Limits unit while riding. I would assume that of the two units he was given, that he passed the unused one on to his client, and sent you his used-one meter?
I assumed that was the unit that was pre-attached to the mountain bikes they had at teh event. For most launch events companies tend to have bike pre-installed and ready to go. It minimizes the chances of something going wrong.
I’ll check though with him.
Just to save you getting in touch with him again, I just re-read his post, and the relevant bit is below.
I’d be concerned if the cap is breaking after only 1 or 2 rides.
——————————–
After long chats with each individual in the Limits team, COO Gordon Drummond gave me a couple the units I had ordered and even installed one of them on my mountain bike which gave me a great excuse to try it out and ride the awesome trails at Glentress.
Ahh perfect, I missed that.
I will be interested to see how battery life holds up… it can’t be any worse than my stages ;)
Does it look like the battery cap in photo #12 is cracked?
I’m travelling today/tomorrow, so can’t quite take a closer look at the cap. There were two sets of caps in the packaging. Given I didn’t have sole custody of the unit from start to finish, I can’t say whether or not something ‘odd’ happened prior to me.
In my case for battery cap usage it was normal (though slowly finicky). Once you figure out the trick to the battery cap closing, then it’s easy. I suppose keeping it small would pretty challenging, while also maintaining proper waterproofing.
Seems to be a massive difference between outdoor and indoor. Could have something happened indoors to screw up the data like that?
I followed their instructions for calibration at 3PM (crank orientation) prior to each ride. The cal value seemed normal inside (temp was 83.6*F at that time of the morning in the cave).
Just as i thought.
Too fiddly
Too many ‘calibration’ rides needed
Too dependent on ‘torque’ being spot on.
Too easy to break.
And most of all the measurements are way out.
Why oh why oh why bother.
When are these so called power meter producers going to realise that your average Joe cyclist just wants to fit and forget. No hassle.
Im out.
Just goes to prove these cheapy power meters are rubbish and like everything in life if you want the best you have to pay for it.
Were you able to look at that battery cap again to see if it was cracked?
Hi Kim-
First, attached is a crappy photo. It’s 1AM and I don’t have natural light in the cave to make it prettier.
There appears to be two hair-line cracks on a single battery cap. None of the other three caps have any cracks. I don’t know/remember if these were pre-me or not. The cracks do not extend to the interior, and are only on the surface of the exterior.
Thanks for the closer examination. I would still be worried about hairline cracks over the long run.
That looks like a molding defect to me, notice the rounded edges.
Just wanted to thank you Ray for sharing this information – it’s been incredibly frustrating to date not getting any clear, relevant and objective information about this product from Limits themselves or anyone else. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Guy.
Note, I’ve posted tonight’s ride. Another longer trainer ride is on the schedule for tomorrow.
Jon, did say he’d ridden (against LIMITs advice) in normal boots/shoes and not clipped in pedals.So that could explain some stomping on the LIMITS pm itself and damage to the battery casing.
DC, how are you find the change in Q-Factor?
If its a repeatable problem, then the cadence problems are a severe issue and need fixing for before release. 120rpm is not that fast, especially on the Track or a road based fixie where you can regularly hit 140+!
Will be interesting to see how 2-3 months of consistent riding it hold up.. Will power comparisons be repeatably inaccurate, or get worse/better as it “beds in” (or out!). Battery life (not a major problem really to change batteries one a month or something), water exposure (and what happens once it’s been wet and then dries out)…
Thanks again to Jon and DC for giving us this opportunity to see it finaly performing in the real world.
I for one am suprised they’ve actualy got a product at all, even if one that doesn’t work too well. But as you’ve said before 90% of the way is the easy part.
Steve, I did note that Jon rode with just his boots on. But my concern as soon as LIMITS posted a picture of the final product was that if you missed clipping in (say with speedplay pedals/cleats) there was a strong likelihood that the cleat would break off the cover. Bear in mind also that the final external configuration of LIMITS is not even close to what they “advertised” while getting people to support the campaign.
RE: Battery cover
I don’t see too much of an issue with missed clip-ins causing damage to the covers. I suspect the most likely scenario is that someone will not properly screw it on (a tiny bit finicky, but then again, most power meter battery caps are). If you don’t screw it on, it’ll easily fall off.
It’s hard to judge at this stage if there will be any waterproofing issues (though it was wet on two of my rides). I think the internals of the cap have an interesting waterproofing design I haven’t seen before (no o-ring, but rather a suction-cup style design). Time will tell there. But again, I think if it’s sealed you’re fine. If it’s not properly tightened you’re hosed (like any other PM).
RE: Q-Factor
Non-issue, don’t even notice. I think many folks forget that the Q-factor between a mountain bike and road bike differs. So if you swap bike types, you’re already adjusting q-factor constantly.
To some riders with functional knee & hip issues and prior injuries Q-Factor is important. Fore this reason my wife uses kneesavers to get a bigger Q-factor.
It would however be nice if we had an actual answer in mm, how much does it increase Q-factor or put even more simply, How much space does it take between the crank and the pedal?
I’ll try and find a tape measure around the hotel somewhere to measure it…
Ah you took the LIMITS along on your trip? So I guess you’ll plan to take it out mountainbiking. Interested to see those data!
Indeed, though, I haven’t quite decided if I’ll stash it on a road or mountain bike. I rented a mtn bike this afternoon, but will also pickup a road bike tomorrow. I only have one other power meter with me (PowerTap P1 pedals), so the data will kinda just be a two-unit comparison.
Right now I’m leaning towards road bike, simply because I don’t have mountain-specific shoes, so I’d be using my road shoes on a mountain bike.
Did you ever take the Limits mtn biking?
I’ve ridden my Limits all winter (and replaced several batteries due to the cold temps) and finally got around to switching the Limits over to my summer ride… a mtn bike.
After the second ride on real dirt, I’ve shattered not just the battery cover, but the battery chamber itself. Bummer!!!
This is NOT a good choice for a mtn bike power meter.
Didn’t mention how it got smashed.
I routinely take pedal strikes on rocks. One them took out the meter.
Really looking forward to that next trainer ride. The second outdoor ride looks much more promising again. If I see correctly, we continue to see that Limits has problems to track peaks in power. However, sections of steady effort (i.e. not interrupted by traffic light stops etc.) seem to lead Limits to track more power than its competitors. This should not be due to the point of measurement, since you are also using power meter pedals, i.e. the nature of power to be measured is virtually identical (no loss in the system). My suspicion is that the Limits team knows they have a tendency to catch too much power, and overcompensate their excess in the peaks from the software side. However, that’s consistent with what we saw on the first trainer ride, so I’m really looking forward to that one.
That said, thank you very much also from me for this service to us. Should you ever get to Milan, Berlin, Rotterdam, I’d be happy to help you find some good rides. In the mean-time, I’m happy to support your work financially.
Very interesting looking through the data. Seems they have issues with peak powers. Other than that, it looks to follow close-ish with other meters.. at least in the averages. Something a firmware update can fix you think?
I don’t know in the case of LIMITS.
In some cases I’ve seen power meter companies fix issues like that via firmware (i.e. Stages – albeit theirs was minor), and an in other cases it’s required going back to the drawing board on hardware (i.e. WatTeam, Brim Brothers).
Beginning to think more that the ‘launch event’ was a sham. Why hand out a few power meters to those who attended and not ship any to backers? The product is clearly far from the finished article so why deliver to those at the event? If I paid $xxx and received a device giving out the data we see above I wouldn’t be best pleased…!
Limits, it really, really isn’t difficult. Just cut the crap, admit you only now have a decent working prototype and it will likely be another 12 months at least before the product is actually an accurate power meter. It’s beyond frustrating watching you continue to antagonise people with false promises.
Hi All-
I’ve uploaded today’s trainer files and added to the table: link to dcrainmaker.com
Cheers.
Latest Steady-State data = Ouch……
Yes this does not bode well for LIMITS as it is now. I hope they will not send out batches of meters that are performing equally bad…. Maybe, just maybe, they learn a bit from these comparisons.
Could the wacky readings be the result of damage to the power meter that Jon may have caused, when he used it with hiking boots?
He notes in his review that the manual states to not use standard shoes, as they may cause “irreparable damage to the sensor”:
“For Limits this is arguably the worst-case-scenario but they were quite happy for me to pedal away into the woods using flat pedals and hiking boots, even though the manual clearly states not to use standard shoes as they may cause irreparable damage to the sensor.”
The damaged battery cap suggests the test ride could indeed have been a bit rough.
Even if that were the case, a product that can be irreparably damaged by flat shoes in a short ride is completely unsuitable for sale and not fit for purpose. What happens when you miss a clip in and accidentally kick it?
I would see the warning in the manual as just that, but not something that would cause concern. They wouldn’t have let him do it if there was a real danger of that happening.
I would like to believe that this misaccuracy comes from the first testing. But on the other Hand, why don’t we see any other Date being published from independent Tester? Comes to mind that these data exists, but also proof Problems in Powerpeaks.. That might as well explain why we don’t hear anything from Limits now, they probably try to solve this adjusting the firmware. Still a shame they don’t speak up for weeks.
In most power meters, the part that can be damaged is inside in an axle area (or along it). I very much doubt any touching/rubbing of the battery cap area would impact that (even if that did occur).
That said, LIMITS is aware of this post and me having a unit. We’ve chatted a bit about the data since the first days posting. To date, they haven’t brought up any concerns on/about the install/unit. They are looking to do deeper analysis of the data and some items/questions I brought up to them this week.
Wes has made a very good point. Not only a missed clip-in; what happens if the bike falls over? For you mountain bikers, what happens if your pedal hits an obstacle? When I asked before I “supported” LIMITS and they gave me a diameter that was less than the width of my Campy Record crank arm. Now look at it.
I just re-read Ray’s November post on LIMITS’ untruthfulness. He hit the nail on the head. LIMITS team should be ashamed of themselves.
Thats pretty gracious of you to work with them given how aggressively they have dealt with you in the past
Indeed Ray, it is very good to hear that they are in contact with you about the testing results, and I think it is awesome of you to facilitate LIMITS development through your power meter comparison data, despite the rather ugly history. Thank you!
Good to hear Limits are talking to SOMEONE anyway. The silence is deafening out here.
Excellent.
This is the best news so far.
They are actually discussing results with Ray!
My take is that LIMITS is a company that got in way over their heads.
Poor communications exacerbated/compounded that perception.
However, I have faith that they will have a functional product some day.
Lets hope that the marketing/communications/business management side also catches up, or they won’t be around long.
Thanks Ray for your work on this, and the site in general.
So generally speaking it’s a bit poor then. Especially when you put the power down (if you pardon the expression).
Frustrating but at least it proves that some people did get units – I wasn’t convinced it actually happened.
Well, technically we know that one person was personally handed a couple of units. I’m still really surprised even after everything that we’ve seen to date that there haven’t been more (of the first batch of 50 if nothing else) people popping up and sharing that they’ve got a unit, regardless as to how accurate they are.
I got mine 2 weeks ago. Updating took about 2 minutes total and fitting to the bike was simple, as long as you think about how to remove it, and what the spacers/ adaptor are for.
I ran the unit on zwift for the first night, and I must admit i appeared to have lost at least 60 watts and could not keep up with my normal group. After re calibration it was much better, and appeared to track the Tacx I-genius power closely, if a little behind.
I switched it to my road bike and then did 50 miles on it, and all looked about right averaging around 200 watts, but i did have a 5 seconds drop out under full load up a hill
On the other hand there may be a ton of people out there who got their units and are happy with them. The overall majority of backers may have no knowledge of this forum at all. So it is unsurprising that there are not huge amounts of people on here responding. I don’t think you can really judge a unit based on a handful of very interested people on one forum. Still too early to tell.
Hi Ray,
Is there any way to keep the same color/power meter association with your charts between rides? The LIMiTS power meter data seems to be changing between orange, blue, and purple colors across different ride files.
Man there’s a lot of haters out there. Seems to me that people are demanding way too much of a three man start up that is trying to solve a problem.. Viz getting an affordable power meter on the market in record time.
How surprising that they have not been that great at communication. Do you want them to spend a ton of time and money on better PR or get their heads down and get the job done ?
It’s very good news that Ray is talking to them. As he has an unbiased attitude when it comes to reviews… OK Ray I am forgiving some of your rather hyperbolic early posts, re Limits.
I am encouraged that this unit is coming into existence. As a Speedplay and Campy user my affordable options are pretty limited.. And absent any news from Dyno-Velo.. (Unless Ray knows something..) Limits may be in my future.
On Q-Factor.. I understand Ray, you say not an issue. But surely knowing wether it is an issue or not might not show up on a few rides. After a few sportives I wonder if some riders physiology will be affected or will we just get used to it and adjust.
Sir Roger – most of us who are critical of the LIMITS team are only asking that they deliver what they have repeatedly promised. They do not have to “spend a ton of time and money on PR.” All they have to do is spend 30 minutes a week telling us what is happening. That is all we have asked. I have not seen anyone demand that they produce any sort of slick PR campaign. And, it would be most helpful if the they whould stop repeatedly promising what they cannot deliver. Simple as that.
I’m trying to see if I can get the colors to be ‘sticky’ to a given ANT+ ID (and thus, a given power meter). Talking with the developer about it.
As for communication – remember that communication is free. It doesn’t cost more than 10-15 minutes to send out brief updates. They need not be fancy or with lots of pictures. Many crowd funded projects make that mistake. It’s easy to get heads-down in something, but crowd funded projects need to remember they owe they existence to their backers. And the only two things backers want are updates and a product. It’s also easy to try and boil the ocean in every update, rather than just giving a simple weekly or biweekly update with a single photo (or not).
Unless you have an injury, I really do think q-factor concerns are overrated (my opinion, though there aren’t any true studies on it either). There are simply too many cyclists that switch back and forth between road and mountain bikes for it to really be an major issue (which have different q-factors). Like any slight change, there would likely be small muscle differences of course, but that’s true of road to mountain, or even changing your seatpost height.
Sir Roger, limits have a person whose job title is “Marketing Manager”. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for someone with that title to be expected to find 20-30 minutes per week to update the people that have contributed hundreds of dollars each with a progress report. Is that such an unreasonable expectation?
What about the money that was spent on marketing? That £20k+ spent to sponsor a local junior team. Wouldn’t that have been better spent getting a product to market, rather than marketing a product no one can buy.
Contrary to what you say people are not demanding too much. They are actually asking for less than the small three man, and a marketing manager, team promised. That apologetic update a month ago has quickly been forgotten and broken.
+1 sir Roger. Spot on.
The outdoor riding data looks reasonable any much better than the indoor trainer. Temperature related maybe?
Hard to say what’s causing the discrepancies from ride to ride. In some other power meters I’ve even seen crazy stuff like a fan being pointed at it causing issues, or in another case it was lack of coasting. So if I coasted (stopped pedaling) it would reset itself – which you do often outdoors, whereas on a trainer I never stop pedaling. That one took a while to figure out why it was so weird indoors. Fwiw, I did stop pedaling near the end of the trainer ride before doing a few minutes more at the end, though it didn’t an impact on things.
I’m hoping that LIMITS can shed some light on it.
It looks to me the power meter messes up as soon as RPM hit >120, at least on the cadence part indoors.
Can you test this outdoors next ride Ray?
Thanks for the new outdoor ride in the US. Can you quickly explain why you did a new calibration ride? Curious how re-calibration will affect indoor performance. Outdoors, the picture continues to be not too bad (dare to say: rather good), maybe looks even better than in the previous outdoor rides.
In the comments at the bottom of the ride he says he put it on a rental bike so needed to recalibrate it.
I overlooked that (thank you), but if then he has to re-calibrate again for his own bike, we’ll know better if this weird indoor performance was maybe (maybe) just because something went wrong in the calibration process, and Limits essentially would have to work on making that error-proof.
As noted, it was a rental bike – so the calibration/settling you do anytime you move it to a new bike. You still do a zero off-set before each ride however.
I think I noted before I made the trip that I wouldn’t use the data from this trip as an indicator in either direction – that’s because I only had two power meters, so there’s no way of knowing for sure which one was right.
A couple of interesting things to note though:
– There was a fair bit of a temperature shift during the ride, both at base to peak, but also over time because of warming.
– The roads were largely buttery smooth and brand-new pavement
– My cadence was largely in a very small window
– My power output was also very consistent with virtually no spikes
– There was almost no stop/go, as I would get in a city (I think I only hit one light)
Finally, keep in mind that the settling process is merely riding your bike – that’s all. At the end of which you do a zero-offset, just like you do before each ride. So there’s actually nothing magical about it per se. It’s just settling the power meter, just like other companies do. The only difference is how big of a gap I see during that settling period. But if it’s just ten minutes…then that’s really not a big deal unto itself as long as it ends up correct each.
That’s all.
Ray it would be nice to hear your thoughts on Limits vs the Favro BePro. From the pics the Limits one looks to be mored durable.
I’d say it’s a bit of a wash in terms of durability. I feel like LIMITS is a bit more ‘protected’ because it’s flush up against the crank arm, rather than having an airgap on both sides of the pod like BePro.
On the flip side, BePro’s battery design has held up well now for a year (from feedback on readers), being re-chargeable with a waterproof port. Battery cap cracking concerns aside on LIMITS, usually waterproofing type issues with battery caps themselves often take 6-9 months to start to come to fruition. So may be a bit too soon to say there.
Thank you so much for putting this info out there for us Ray!
I don’t have a power meter yet, so I’m not familiar with what the results look like on an ordinary calibration ride. In the first file from 6/22, is that kind of disparity typical? The second ride on 6/22 looks much more promising so I’m trying to understand if the calibration ride is a normal anomaly.
Settling rides on many power meters (Vector, Quarq, bePro, and even the PowerTap P1’s to a very limited degree), usually produce some disparity. But it’s often more in the 3-6% range.
What I saw/seen above is well beyond the norms for a settling ride, but at the same time, if a unit settles within 10 minutes or so on such a ride, I really wouldn’t hold it against them as long as it does so consistently every time (meaning, anytime you move between bikes). I’m interested to see if that properly occurs again when I put it back on my regular road bike. Regardless of that, I may try switching it to my tri bike mid-next week or so – just to see if there are any notable differences in either direction.
Wow.. June 22nd mountain ride looks significantly better than other rides
as Steven says suddenly that actually looks halfway competent on a ride that you’d think, in theory, could show more variation than other rides.
I’m assuming nothing magic happened between it and the previous rides and nothing changed from the previous calibration ride?
Yup, see my comments above as well here: link to dcrainmaker.com The PowerTap P1’s went with it (so same from all rides).
Given it was a ride on a different bike (re-installed), I’m interested to see what happens when I now re-install back on my bike when I return home.
Regarding the ride on the 22nd, the Edge 520 was the head unit, on previous rides you were using the Edge 1000 paired with the Limits unit, I now it shouldn’t affect thing but could you continue to pair the Limits with an Edge 520 to see if that continuos to make the Limits results “more in line” with the other power meter’s. Its the only variable I can see that is not affecting all units (Temperate / elevation / etc).
Thanks, and great to see some real world data – if only the Limits team provided some updates…..
Cheers
Yeah, I’ll keep mixing it up. Though, I’ve actually been dual recording the LIMITS on other units each ride (i.e. a FR920XT as well) – just to circumvent that very issue.
Note/FYI – I’ve added data from this weekend to the table.
I think Limits just doesn’t like riding in the EU so much. ;) Confirms your other France outdoor rides, not as nice as the Colorado ride. This time, Limits actually started already above average, then went below, then back up. However, Limits switches from below average to above average shortly after your Stages power record ends. Could there be any sort of interaction?
“I think Limits just doesn’t like riding in the EU so much.”
So many potential Brexit jokes here…
In any case, I think the key difference between Colorado & France rides may actually be road smoothness. The roads simply being very smooth in Park City (almost all new). Not 100% sure, but I think it could be related.
RE: Out on the road today
The key shift in today’s ride was ascending up a hill that contained substantial cobbles (800m long section). The shift occurred at/around that timeframe. I haven’t analyzed it too deeply yet to see precisely when it shifted (during/after, at the turnaround 5 minutes later, etc…).
RE: Stages power ending
Remember that it was just the battery running out on the Edge 520 in that case (connected to the Stages) during the calibration ride. I simply changed to another head unit for the subsequent ride on the road. No interaction with a unit just turning off.
So Ray are you still talking to LIMITS regarding your comparative measurements? Would be reassuring to know for backers as the LIMITS team surely is not communicating at all anymore at this moment ….
Hi Koen-
Thanks. I think my answer I just left for James (even though you asked first) probably covers both your questions: link to dcrainmaker.com
Cheers.
Ray,
They’ve just announced on indiegogo they are working with you regarding the above data, but they haven’t stated how they are going to resolve the issues you’ve encountered, have you been given any indication that it is a issue with this particular meter or that they have a working solution to rectify this ? They are saying now 4-6 due to delivery/ logistic issues but I feel this is a buffer to allow them to sort out the issues you have found. If only they just told us this we would be so much more happy. It’s just smoke and mirrors St the moment.
Hi James-
I have raised specific issues to them via e-mail based on testing thus far. Some are minor things like suggestions for improving the installation instructions to minimize complications/confusion during install. Others are more accuracy focused (such as around issues with peaks, high/low cadence, and shifts).
We had a very brief 5-minute call during a layover at the airport last week, where they noted they’re aiming to get some details/answers/clarity back to me either this week or next week. We didn’t discuss anything else. I’ll likely be shifting bikes again mid-week to see if I see different results on another bike (that’d be the third bike).
Cheers.
Is there something wrong with the stages data in the Afternoon 26th June file? Heartrate and Power seem way off?
Indeed, it seems like the FR920XT dropped the ANT+ connection (permanently) for some reason. Unclear why, though I’m starting to suspect there’s something up in the latest 920XT firmware causing ANT+ drops. As I actually swapped to another 920XT just prior to this ride, as I was seeing the same drops from a different power meter on another 920XT. I wanted to eliminate HW issues.
No worries, it’s a core reason why for all these rides I’ve actually recorded the LIMITS on two different devices, just to eliminate any head unit issues. For example, on this ride I recorded it on an Edge 1000 & Wahoo ELEMNT.
I decided to play a little game, call guess the power meter by looking at the graph and guessing which color line was limits. It wasn’t hard. The disagreement with other PMs is pretty easy to pick out but my hope is that these are issues that can be tightened up via firmware.
Hello Ray,
I just finished looking at the June 26 ride data. The power data is noticeable on the Limits compared to all the rest, but it looks pretty consistent throughout the test. For the price point of limits as an entry level pm wouldn’t consistency be more of a worry compared to how well it meshes with other high-end pm’s? Especially when we look at all the end result stats, where the Limits was fairly comparable to the rest of the pm’s?
I would also like to see how well it compares to the PowerPod, which is also in the same price range.
The challenge on the 26th ride was that it wasn’t consistent, it shifted/swung quite a bit (though mirrored).
I don’t know what the final retail cost of LIMITS will be (once all is said and done), but at this point you can get 4iiii for sub-$400 and Stages in that same ballpark I believe. Also, the PowerPod as you noted, at sub-$300. I haven’t mounted the PowerPod back on this bike, merely because at the moment I’ve kinda got a lot going on with that bike (in terms of head units, recording, etc…), and I’m slightly hesitant to make it even more complex (usually complexity leads to errors). That said, this was actually the same bike setup I did the PowerPod testing on earlier this winter, where it tested extremely well.
Ray explains why consistency and accuracy compared to other PM’s is important in the article above – final paragraph under the heading “Accuracy Testing Process”.
Also, there’s no guarantee that a different LIMITS build would produce the same results as the one DC has. Not sure how you’d test LIMITS vs LIMITS (when there is more than 1 proved to be in existence), but I’d be very suprised if they are all equally (and identically) as bad as each other.
Since I’m not sure what I should be looking at in your analysis data, what’s the take-home message at this point? I’m still hoping that this turns out to be a useful investment.
Thanks, Nicole
As Ray has said before, testing power meters has so many factors that few people have the ability to do it. I find it interesting with other website & magazine reviews of power meters where a product is given a rating but there is no detail on how they reached any of their conclusions regarding accuracy & consistency
The graphs are good to look at and I can point to bits saying “that doesn’t look right” but i’m relying on Ray’s setup and data for that comment. There is context required which isn’t in the data, e.g road surface, weather, temperature, jay walking tourists, etc. So only he knows what it really means at this point. You have to be aware of armchair analysts who will take a graph and make declarations without having all the facts. Personally, I will wait for Ray’s formally published post before making any decisions… I subscribe because of the integrity of his reviews :)
One thing that does interest me is the comparison with Brim Brothers who have spent years bringing their PM to market with the last 5%. I wonder if Limits are in the same position and that’s how i’m treating their product, it’s 95% there but can they sort the last few percent it in a short timescale?
From the 26 June rides looks like LIMITS power deviation from other PMs are due to the inconsistency in the Cadence rather than the torque. Am I reading the graphs correctly ?
I realise this is just a place holder post but it doesn’t appear using the keyword search.
I found it from a link from 27th June 5 Random things post (link to dcrainmaker.com), until then I didn’t know this page existed.
I realise there has been a lot of huffing and puffing over this product, but it seems unbalanced to me that searching for ‘LIMITS’ in your search box finds your other posts, but does not bring up this one.
I’ll go back to my lunch now, keep up the good work.
It doesn’t show up in search results as something is broken where no ‘Pages’ are showing up in search results (versus a ‘Post’ type). I had it on my to-do list to troubleshoot why. Will hit up the support folks today.
Sorry!
Ok, the search results should be fixed now (it now shows ‘Page type’ results, which also includes this LIMITS post).
Hi Ray,
Thanks once again for your ongoing excellent work and communication in testing this. I have a quick question relating to your opinion on the durability and strength of LIMITS…
In the instruction manual it states that LIMITS is “designed for a maximum rider weight of 90kg”. Unfortunately I’m heavier than this :( (Work in progress!) Do you think it would be strong enough to withstand greater loading? Purely in your opinion of course.
I’m a bit disappointed that this was not communicated at the time of launch as this would have made me think twice and I’m sure other backers will fall foul of this fairly low 14st 4lb upper weight limit. Interested to hear your thoughts…
Some pedal based power meters do include this limitation, such as Vector. The question would be around where the limitation stays from:
A) A component safety limitation (forces exerted)
B) Strain gauge limitations
In most cases, unless you’re both above the weight limit and a really darn good cyclist, it probably won’t matter. That’s because it’s just a weight limit – but not a force limit. So in reality they’re probably doing some math for the top-end force limit on the pedals that could cause breakage (either in terms of physical breakage, or sensors inside). Since obviously someone at 91kg pedaling easy is going to exert far less force than someone at 89kg in an all-out sprint for their life.
Ultimately, the challenging is knowing whether it’s just an accuracy thing or a mechanical thing. Given you’d be set to find out when you’re exerting the most pressure on the unit (in a sprint, potentially at high speed), I’d be hesitant to want to know the results unless I was on a trainer.
Agreed – I’ve had a folding pedal shear off on my Brompton as I was attempting to sprint away from the lights in London and it’s a very scary experience which really knocked my confidence. Imagine pressing down hard with your left foot, it going straight through the pedal and over you go onto the road right in front of the traffic…not good.
I think I’ll be testing it out on the trainer first of all (whilst concentrating on losing the weight, it’s only a matter of a few kilos!)
Apologies if someone already asked this one but I couldn’t see it in the thread.
1 hour to fit. Was that just because it was the first time or is it going to take that sort of time to fit and remove regularly?
A major part of their sales pitch was that they could easily and quickly be swapped from bike to bike, but if I am wasting an hour (or more by the time I remove them from the previous bike) each time that I change bikes then I could change a powertap wheel or garmin pedals much faster and I could probably do a set of crank arms in half that.
Thanks
Kevin
It was mostly a first time thing. I’ve found that on subsequent installs if you leave the pedals simply attached to the pods, it dramatically speeds up installation time (under 5-7 minutes). You’ll still need to do the calibration ride (as shown in the test results), but it helps a ton.
These last set of results are really encouraging.
If you had not had the initial widely inaccurate results from the first couple of rides, do you know think the results are generally falling within the “Industry acceptable” range?
Do you think the initial wild results were due to inital fitting issues, or has the unit its self just settled down after a few good rides?
regards
nick
I think I’d be looking at two key areas:
1) Drift (from being above/below the group trend to the opposite)
2) High effort shortages (anytime I show any effort)
In general on power meters, I’m not as worried about delays that ‘correct’ themselves within 1-3 seconds – as that’s often just a natural result of comparing numerous head units/power meters. I’m moderately concerned when units have longer delays (i.e. 5-10 seconds) but then matches the group. But I’m really concerned if during a sprint a unit never catches the sprint at all – and never gets to the peak power ranges.
Note as discussed a bit in the post, I’m not however overly concerned if one unit shows a max one-sec power of 853w, and another 833w and another 888w. I am concerned if a unit is hundreds of watts off though.
Hi Ray,
Any concerns on shoes catching on the battery covers throughout the pedal stroke?
I haven’t seen any issues with that to date.
Thanks for the great work! Waiting for your review before making the decision. Did it come with Bluetooth as promised on Indiegogo?
Not at this time.
not a feature i need but given the following statement seems a bit crap….
Does LIMITS work with Bluetooth Smart?
We are releasing Bluetooth support and everyone who has pre-order LIMITS through Indiegogo will receive it with both Bluetooth & ANT+ support.
Any ideas if the hardware has the technology in it for a future firmware update or have they just ignore that bit?
For some reason I thought they said in some update somewhere that they were planning on releasing the BLE portion in a firmware update. But maybe that’s just in my head.
In either case, assuming they put in a compatible chipset (nearly impossible not to these days), then it would be a relatively ‘simple’ firmware update. The bigger issue is validating compatibility with Suunto and Polar (mostly Polar), since it’s been a nightmare for power meter compatibility over BLE, as all the companies continue to play tug of war on exact interpretation of standards…and the consumers are the rope.
It’s a bit worrying that I can tell which trace is the limits one in every file now without having to check the colour coded list. I think that says it all really.
What is there to worry about. Limits will certainly have the same high level of customer service as they have demonstrated so far. We all know they will be on top of firmware updates as well, just like they have with every backers’ question to them.
I’ve been chatting with @CyclingScience1 on twitter who wrote the last article I saw about Limits. He says he’s been told that all original UK backers will get theirs by the 21st July…
Interesting. What is his relationship to the LIMITS team? Can you post a link to the article he wrote?
So they have gone from backers will receive theirs in 4-6 weeks from the 27th of June to everyone will have theirs by the 21st of July. So they suddenly jumped ahead of schedule aye?
link to cyclingweekly.co.uk
Sadly, I had hoped you were referring to a more recent article. The author also said this, “Cycling Weekly, which exclusively revealed the project in April 2015, will be running full tests of Limits.” Have you seen any additional testing from him or CW? Since you are in touch with him, perhaps you could ask if he still intends to publish results from more tests.
Thanks.
Hi All-
FYI – I’ve put up some more data from Friday into the table (July 1st). I’ll be able to resume riding tomorrow and will continue posting ride data as I ride them.
Cheers.
Pretty much the same picture of most rides and certainly of those post re-calibration: Limits doesn’t get the peaks, and in steady efforts measures a few watt too high as compared to the rest. Enjoy your ride today though.
Just noticed though… I think you accidentally flagged the last two rides as Trainer, even though both Caen and the park loops seem to have been outdoors.
While they’re off they’re certainly not as bad as they could have been – if they were selling for $99 or something I could even see recommending them as a “far better than nothing” solution. At a similar price point to the well tested guys though? Much harder.
Ahh, good catch on tagging. Fixed. Thanks Thomas!
And indeed, yes, pretty much the same story across the board in rides. Roughly follows contours (with some drift over time) of other units, except for any form of hard efforts, in which case it drops off significantly.
So what would be your educated guess (if you are able to make an educated guess that is): is this behavior due to immature software or hardware?
Yes we are all waiting anxiously for your initial overall evaluation of the unit that you have!
It’s hard to say whether it’s software or hardware. All power meters smooth data (from dozens to hundreds of points per second down to typically 1 per second) in some manner, it’s just a matter of whether they get the smoothing right.
In the case of LIMITS, it appears they’re adding in significant smoothing when a non-normal event occurs, which likely impacts the peaks/sprints we see. The hard part is knowing whether it can be addressed via drawing back the smoothing, or if that has the effect of increasing accuracy fluctuations (which is typically why companies increase smoothing).
Gut feel is for trying to ride something like ironman at a sub ftp flat effort it might do the job. For something like trainer road where you need accuracy at hard efforts, maybe not so much.
It was the latter I was hoping to use it for.
It appears from your posts they have a lot of mechical and electrical noise heading into the a/d converter. This would lead to a heavy averaging algorithm of many samples which would explain the heavy smoothing and delay in data from event. I have hopes for the design but I think their time table lead to a poorly designed product.
Latest one is one of the worst yet – seems to be low all over the shop not just on the big efforts.
Yes. LIMITS seemingly has big problems with consistency from ride to ride.
So now it’s your fault they won’t send my Limits device to me. Curse you Maker
Just glue 65g of lead to your crank, then spin up a random number generator to produce your power figures. It’ll be just like actually having Limits on your bike.
I purchased limits last year with belief it would allow me to get into power meter training. Frankly my family’s budget wouldn’t withstand a much more expensive unit (my children need to go to college and my house must be maintained). Is their hope of getting a unit that performs well? Reading Cogan’s Power Meter book to prepare.
My apologies for the large photo. I’d delete if I knew how.
LIMITs latest update is farcical to new levels, and the paid up “backers” (although most are/were probably unwitting backers as they’ll have believed they had a product/prototype at the start of the campaign), are starting to get quite justifiably apprehensive to say the least.
They now claim they are now holding back all the units due to failed “power profile tests” (which apparently they knew about anyway, and DC here has just “highlighted” what they already knew), yet the tiny number ( 500 watt peaks etc). Do they exist, or were they faked graphs.
“LIMITS is Launched! – It’s now time to Push Your LIMITS SMART” – That was 2 months ago!
Contrary to my intial optimism when an actual unit was proved to at least exist, this whole campaign is still getting worse and worse, and has now descended back to a pack of meanlinless drivel, only now is becoming more and more obvious how one update actually directly contradicts previous ones, (instead of in the early days you could be misled by smoke and mirror posts&pictures that didnt actually contain any facts that could be proven or disproven.)
And yet STILL they take more money!
I believe at this stage they’ve probably ran out of money, and are hoping they get enough extra money to fund/fix the orders of the original backers, and then they’ll hope to play catch-up with the new backers if they ever get anything usable (presumably by starting yet another funding stage if they ever get 500 more naive enough people to fill the current one).
Or, they’ll just disappear behind one of their mirrors in a puff of their own smoke.
Unless DC, you have any real factual/technical information from them about the problems they are working on and/or any proposed resolutions even if in-complete or exeprimental solultions?
(We coud do with an “edit post” feature…)
“yet the tiny number ( 500 watt peaks etc). Do they exist, or were they faked graphs.” – I meant to say here:
“Yet the tiny number they did hand out they were calling the fininshed product and presumably they had ran the same power profile tests on those. Did those handed out units pass the tests? Or did they fail them (which must be the case for the one DC has) but then hand them out anyway? Or do the not actually do any actual profile tests at all?
And what would have happened if DC had not obtained the one he got, would they just be handing out inaccurate PMs? Or would they have given the same line about failed tests and with-held units?
And then what about PM#104-108 from these graphs… link to flickr.com
They seemed to passed those “profile tests” ( 500 watt peaks etc). Do they exist, or were they faked graphs?
Wouldn’t it be funny if Favero BePro engineered a version of their current product to be connected the way Limits is. Frankly I wish Favero would simply offer their product with different spindles so I could use my Speedplays..
I still am holding out hope. I would like to think they bent the truth in their early promotion efforts, then over promised a very aggressive timeline(a problem I haven’t), and are now working hard to achieve what would still be quite an accomplishment – based on my reading of this site (create a power meter in a few years). Frankly I hope they succeed. I took a big risk ($250), although I didn’t know it at the time, and invested in their enterprise with the hope of getting into the power meter training world. I tend to think accusations won’t get them there, however everyone has a right to complain. My hope is that instead constructive advice can flow to the engineers, primarily related to technical issues, not communications struggles. (Finally, thank you Ray for deleting the photo on my previous posting)
Potentially good news – latest update reckons they’ve worked out the problem to be a firmware issue and possibly related to a smoothing issue suggested here. Let’s see what happens eh.
soooo Ray, have you received the promised firmware update?
if not it looks like they’ve effectively bricked the only known test unit
…I’m pretty sure I already know the answer but figured I’d ask anyway
I haven’t received it yet, but will hit them up on Monday for it.
…and to be fair, their update said they were doing QA over the weekend on it, so it’s logical they’re doing further internal testing before sending it outside.
any updates on the updates Ray?
As an investor I am anxious to see if they have fixed the issues and are comming close to a solution.
No other updates. At the moment I’ve stopped collecting data on the LIMITS unit, until a firmware update and/or some other change.
I think I’ve collected more than enough data to demonstrate the current accuracy levels, and given LIMITS recent e-mail on needing more work, I’m not sure what additional data without change will bring (other than lots of administrivia for me).
Cheers.
Thank you DC rainmaker , you have gaven more information then limits did !
Hi Ray,
Just wondering have you received the updated firmware and had a chance to test it?
Its a sad state of affairs when we (the backers) have to consult with a third party independent reviewer to get any details? I’ve continually requested details from Limits but its a complete waste of time, we get spoon fed marketing spin. The only positive details I’ve had is since you received a unit and confirmed it was not indeed vaporware.
Thanks and keep up the good work.
No, I haven’t received it yet. They sent a note over I think either last Thursday saying they’ll get the firmware over to me once they’re comfortable it’s solved the issues.
The fixes are divided into two camps, one focused on the cadence algorithm (which then flows downhill into power related items), and then another related to a low pass filter.
While they’re at it, they’ll also be swapping to calibration at 6-o’clock instead of 3PM (based on some feedback I gave them), which will just make general usability easier. Also, they answered an earlier question I had regarding the calibration numbers and what they mean in terms of negative or positive. -175 or 175 refer to how many degrees from the install angle the unit is. Thus, it sounds like the number is really more to identify mechanical shift (common during initial rides) than things like temperature drift.
Ray, thanks for the detailed answer.
Someone pointed this out to me today: link to cyclingweekly.co.uk.
Let’s hope Eyjafjallajökull doesn’t erupt again! :D
To be honest, I’m pretty relaxed about receiving my LIMITS unit. I think it’ll come good. I hope…
I assume you still have not received the new firmware. From their update of 14 days ago it seems that it should have been to you by now. I am concerned that they are going to update the firmware and start distribution without any independent testing. I went back and reread your April 2015 article on LIMITS. Boy were you right!
Not yet, no.
What’s your process for getting the power data from the .fit into a graph? I’m sure I’ve seen you mention it before but search is failing me.
It’s a bit of custom software that runs online. I’m trying to get it to the point of opening it up a bit to others (I have beta testers now), while also balancing that with not really being able to provide too much support for it for others (just lack of time on my part and the developers part).
Glad that you’re working with LIMITS now, and I’m curious – do you know yet if you’ll be able to update the Firmware on your unit or if you’ll have to ship/take it over to Scotland to have them re-flash it?
My understanding from them is that it’s a flashable firmware item, since they noted to me they’d shoot it over once they were comfortable with it/stability from their test riders.. I haven’t discussed it further since the last communication back in late July.
I also haven’t really done any more capturing of data on the units lately (though, they are on one of the bikes I ride), merely because it’s just adding more overhead without any real tangible benefit. Once they give me a firmware update, since the units are already mounted (and stabilized), it’d be an easy thing to continue testing.
Ray, looks like Limits provided a new update essentially saying they may have fixed issue and are doing more testing. Any news on your front?
Just seen that Limits are starting to ship this week – did you receive any updates to firmware to enable further testing?
Wow. Stunned. Why DC did not get a firmware update to help Limits prove they’ve fixed the issues ahead of shipping is unbelievable (actually though, with their history, I guess it was to be expected).
They claimed “calibration repeatability” was the problem. If “calibration repeatability” means the ability to perform repeatable calibration tests in the same conditions and get the same values, I did not see Ray hint towards that being an issue?
Then what about power > 500watts which was simply completely wrong?
And Cadence > 120?
Well I guess if the are shipping, Ray will get his officially shipped version and be able to verify what, if anything, is fixed…
But Joe Public who might not read DC’s webby, could get theirs plug in and ride off into the sunset blissfully unaware how inaccurate and flawed the thing is.
I haven’t received any firmware update.
I guess they do not yet have the app to do the OTA firmware updates ready? (Dreading the months of pointless posts up to it actually being available…)
I just hope whatever they’ve corrected with the calibration, that the device is at the very least consistent. I have no other power meter to compare it to, so I won’t honestly know if it is 2% accurate compared to X, Y or Z power meter.
They also said they would release an “app” allowing units already in the field to be upgraded. (Although the reality is DC’s/Jons was probably the only one).
However, DC, even if you did not get a firmware sent privately during their “qualification” phase, if the units are now shipping with updated firmware, that firmware version should also be publically available anyway now to the whole world to allow upgrades to be performed by existing customers. Or
Almost a week on from LIMITS announcing they’re shipping, has anyone on here actually received one?
Same question has been posed on the LIMITS Facebook and Indiegogo pages. No one has yet said they received a unit.
I am at Eurobike this week, will see if they happen to be here ;)
I met with them for a short bit at Eurobike today.
Quickly, of note:
1) They said they’ve shipped 300 units to backers as of the end of today.
2) Said units all have updated firmware
3) I picked up one of those updated units in-person today, pictures included. I won’t get a chance to install it till the weekend, as I didn’t bring the right tools with me.
4) BLE is enabled for over the air firmware updates, though neither app is in the App Store yet. It sounded like the Android app was closer to ready.
5) BLE broadcasting of power is not yet enabled, but it sounded like that might happen this week. They were working through some BLE power profile certification issues (which, to be fair, is a nightmare for that specific certification).
6) The battery caps have not been changed since the previous units in June. However, there were minor changes to the injection molding process. Still, they conceded they’d be susceptible to cracks (all mine have since broken), which is why they give you extras it the box. Should you need additional caps, they’d just send them upon request.
6) Next comment immediately following this will be a picture of their booth/them, simply to demonstrate they were there.
They’ll be there through Saturday (but not Sunday), for those stopping by to visit. That includes the Saturday public day.
…and secondary post with pic of their booth.
Sounds like tensions have at least started to ease.
Would be good to have had an email or something to say if you were/weren’t in the initial 300. I suspect I’m borderline, probably just outside that lot.
It’s interesting that the claim they’ve shipped 300 units. Drummond has repeatedly said that it’s a first-come, first-served basis. My order number is #289, and I have received nothing via email, no tracking info, no “we’ve shipped your order” notification.
Unsurprisingly, seems that either they lied about the shipping order, or they lied about actually shipping some units.
where did you find your order number? I’ve looked and can’t see a specific email
Not sure if it was in a mail too, but you can see it on the Indiegogo site if you go to My Contributions, then View Order Details
Cheers – as it is I’m number 88 – didn’t realise I got in so early.
My order was #84 Nothing arrived yet and no notification.
Two limits arrived via royal mail today ?
Your postman comes at 5:30am?!
I’m going to point out this is a joke before anyone feels the need to correct it!
Nope, postman came at 9am. Two limits, there’s an amendment note to t the calibration instructions. If take a pic and post but can’t seem to with this android device.
I’m in bonnie Scotland btw, and an early backer, so may be why I have mine early.
If you just have a little patience, then I’m sure you’re arrive soon ?
Guess we are all looking forward to your hands-on experiences.
Hi Graham,
Have you any idea what order number you where on the iIdiegogo campaign. I’m trying to figure out where I stand in terms on getting my unit. I was order #171 so I should be towards the front of the queue. The only issue being I’m in Ireland so obviously transit time will be a couple of days longer than a unit being delivered by Royal Mail.
Hi Thomas, unfortunately I’ve been off the bike for the last 4 weeks or so, on the cusp of good health again, so I think you’ll see others experience before mine
Hi Stephen,
Can’t recall, I’m sure it was reasonably early in the campaign
looking at the envelope it was posted on the 30/Aug
there was now shipping or tracking notification, there was absolutely no paperwork in the envelope, not even a compliments slip
What colour did you go for – black or silver? All the pics I’ve seen so far are black. I’m #289, also in Scotland, but nothing yet. I ordered silver and wondered if that was reason.
Black x 2
Picture worked
Apologies about the auto text errors, written in haste?
Hopefully I should be inline for a delivery from the postman soon. I’m order 171 so well inside first 600. Only problem being I’m in Ireland so postage from uk should be 1 week approx. I’ll keep u posted.
U.K. Backers still paid $10 shipping fee so that is around Royal Mail 1st class recorded delivery prices which is what I expect.
I have just taken delivery of them from Royal Mail. I was order 145. I am in London.
Unfortunately my bike is in for a service at the moment so won’t be able to get them onto a bike until the middle of next week. Just my luck after this long wait !
Hi Tim,
Any ideas what your order number was on indiegogo?
I’ve emailed limits logistics email but I am waiting for a response. Hopefully all the early bird backers are being looked after!
it was 145. I had received no communication about receiving the power meter though. Just turned up.
Another picture
One More
Just picked Mine up at eurobike
Paul Gower posted this on the indiegogo site, “Just had mine delivered order number 2288 ordered 28 may 2016. Something else for the moaners to moan about!!!”
Disregarding the snide remark, if he is telling the truth, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to whom they are shipping.
My bet is that they sorted orders by locale, and are probably shipping UK based ones first.
Well I’m in the UK so I’m not sure that is the case.
Well, doesn’t mean they’ve got enough units to ship all UK units, but we haven’t seen any non-UK (+ Ireland) orders yet to my knowledge.
That would directly contradict Drummond’s statement that orders are filled on a first come first served basis, but that would also fit the Limits experience so far.
You’d think they’d send them out to early bird backers first without worrying about geography, but that would imply some sort of interest in customer service.
Hi Ray,
Certainly nothing here for me in Ireland yet.
Have you heard of a delivery to Ireland, as per your comment above? As previously mentioned, I’m order 171 so would expect early delivery?
I’m in north of England, my order number is low 80’s and another club member is low 50’s. No deliveries yet. No communication. Just seems random. Another example of poor customer care.
Well, just fitted it and did a few mins on the turbo.
Really easy to fit tbh and calibrate (I think)
Tested about 1 min of +120 rpm and it seemed to work fine. Now going for a short ride (which will either clear my chest, or have me off the bike for while). the Tour of Britain’s passing, it would be rude not to.
on the turbo the short ride looked fine at a glance, avg pwr @ 164 and the high cadence minute or two registering at +120rpm
on the road for 22 miles the 30 sec pwr was generally between 425 and 550 which I thought was odd.
just plugged the garmin in and been given a avg pwr of 404W which would be nice, but can’t be the case on a gentle 17mph post illness, no effort ride. not owning a pwr meter before the only comparison I have is trainer road estimates based on the power curve of my turbo, the best ftp being 298W, I was considerably fitter in March when I did that.
Not being scientific about it, but If you’d avg’d 400Watts for 22mile, you’d have done it in something like 45mins at an avg speed of around 30mph.
Unless you weigh about 35stone ;)
Not a good omen for the first report of a backer on this shipment.
yup clearly not right! tho the turbo data looks fine, so I have a strong sense of user error at the mo
couple of things going through my head
when i got the bike outside and switched the garmin on, the usual detect HR monitor, detect speed/cadence sensor come up. the detect Pwr Meter detect, calibrate msg didn’t. So I powered the garmin down and and restarted it, same again. so I just rode of, the msg did come up after a short distance. so I stopped and aligned the crank to 6 o’clock and calibrated it.
Obviously I should have just spun the cranks and woke the pwr meter before starting and I would have got this msg.
Another thing, installing the pwr meter itself asks for a torque of 40nm, my wrench only does to 20nm, so i just put it on pretty tight with an allen key.
I’d wait for Rays report before putting much behind my efforts
Graham,
That’s quite a high torque for a hollowed out 9/16″ (14mm) pedal thread. Its less than what shimano recommend (35-55nm I think) on their pedals although alot of people, me being one of them, just nip pedals up and add a 1/4 or 1/2 turn because pedals naturally tighten in use because of reverse thread.
I would say getting 40nm on the the limits threads, even with a capable torque wrench will be giving it some.
Ray said in an earlier post that he would be testing his new LIMITS unit this weekend. Hopefully we will have his full report very soon.
Note, after install you’ll really want to ensure that you do a 10min calibration ride with some hard efforts in it, then do another zero offset.
I haven’t had a chance to re-install yet this weekend.
If you read the manual, calibration needs to be done at 3 O’clock position. (alligned with rear fork)
It was 3 O’Clock, but has since been changed to 6 O’Clock in the lastest firmware update. This was done to make it easier (and to match with what others like Stages do). Visually getting 3-oclock right is actually slightly more tricky from above than vertical.
I don’t know if/why the manual hasn’t been updated.
the manual hasn’t been updated, but a separate note is enclosed with the 6 o’clock instruction/amendment
conscious of not wanting to turn Rays page into a Limits FAQ/help/troubleshooting page (a short fall on their site at the mo)… but thinking about why my power reading was ~ double what I would have expected
I’ve not switched off my garmin GSC10 cadence sensor, aware that the limits device measures and utilises cadence as part of the calc’, so do I need to make any changes to the what the GSC10 to eliminates it’s cadence reading?
How do we perform a “zero offset”?
Picked mine up yesterday from post office and have installed today and tried a couple of 15 minute turbo rides to test it out…
So far, I might as well not have it on to be honest, the power is jumping repeatedly from 0w – 200w – 0w – 500w – 0w – 300w – 90w – 100w – 0w – 600w etc – I gave it 10 minutes and re-calibrated then carried out for 5 more minutes each time but the same thing happening. I was watching the live power, 3s power, 10s power and 30s power – obviously the intervals didn’t show 0w drops but did show power bouncing all over the place which considering I was riding a steady cadence of 70rpm and showing 17-18mph consistent from speed sensor. Also noticed that my garmin won’t pick it up as a cadence sensor for some reason, but Zwift did… odd.
Tried with both a garmin 800 head unit and also a USB ant+ receiver with Zwift and got the same problem on the Zwift software (constantly jumping from 0wpkg to some seemingly random other).
Perhaps I have done some setup wrong and maybe Ray could point out what, but I followed the instructions for calibration (6 o’clock position once I noticed the amendment slip), set data recording to 1s intervals [on garmin] as per stages recommendations and ignoring zero values.
One other thing I noticed, if I slow my cadence right down to 30rpm, was that the 0w jumps seem to be being caused by it being one-sided but not ‘calculating’ my right side power, I can see the power drop to 0w on my right pedal stroke, and then jump to some (seemingly random) high number on the left stroke… which I guess means two things; 1. I need to work on my pedalling! and 2) Seems it’s not telling the Garmin any calculated right side figure.
If the weather looks ok I’ll commute tomorrow which means a 2hour ride so I’ll update then, but so far – not impressed! I do recall Ray saying at some point to give PMs a few rides initially though, so hopefully it’s just that.
Order number 1126 – based in the UK and received mine today. Not had chance to ride with it yet though
Installed and used today, installation is straightforward except I always find it really hard to get my pedals off!
Unit is useless – power readings all all over the place – see my power graph from Garmin.
I did an initial calibration and one after 10mins of hard/easy efforts, calibration factor changed slightly.
Could you post this together with speed data? They are not only jumping up and down a lot, but they also seem rather high all together.
What I find remarkable is that a relatively small problem (peaks not being recognized in their full power and power meter readings switching from being consistently too low to being consistently too high during a workout) seems to have turned into a huge problem from Ray’s initial test unit to your market units that received a firmware update. Yet, that at the same time they started shipping these units stating that the initial bug was fixed, and didn’t notice that the fix led to that even worse behavior. Somehow I have the feeling that something went wrong when they updated the firmware.
similar experience yesterday. I’ve now removed my Garmin cadence sensor magnet & re calibrated
I noticed I have huge peaks 1400 watts
these do occur on incline ramps, however i noticed that the limits cadence and power dropped dramatically when I shifted up on an incline
This is, unfortunately, exactly the same as I am getting. Endless spikes between zero and a random higher number. Absolutely useless unit.
Their “support” is in keeping with communications from the rest of the campaign – non-existent. They’ve failed to acknowledge by support email in 3 days now, despite having stated on 5th they’d set up that support address specifically for technical issues. They are shockingly bad with their customer service/communications.
When mine (eventually) arrives I plan to stick on the bike with my Powertap P1s and do a direct comparison between the two. I’ll post the comparison when it’s done.
This is my ride with the with elevation and speed data included – I can’t see any pattern to it. I was surprised to see I was only putting out 14w towards the top of the long climb in the middle of my ride!
got an email back from Limits Support
“Finally, we have noted that the output data is fluctuating and to this end we will be releasing a new version of firmware on Monday next week with an app to update your product.”
Got mine today – order number 2053. Fitting was straight-forward however having been out for an installation lap of Richmond Park, there’s definitely something funny going on with the calibration. Following the 6o’clock positioning errata instruction in the box produces power numbers that look roughly double what they should be. Calibrating at the 3o’clock position produces much lower numbers that look too low.
How do you tell which Power meter is which in the graphs?
Picked a unit at Eurobike last week for evaluation purposes before I put it in my shop.
Sorry to say, but until now it’s useless, I’ll give another try tomorrow, but after that I wil take it of my bike.
2 reasons:
1. no decent data, I hope they get this solved.
2. Q-factor is 2x 17mm=34mm wider, that’s not working for me. I feel injury coming up rightaway. Might be a personal thing.
Q-factor is indeed a personal thing – I run 20mm spacers due to fit reasons so these are ideal for me, some of the more off-road guys I know would think any road stance width is skinny, some will probably not notice and for some, like yourself, it’ll be a deal breaker. To be fair to Limits, it’s not as though we didn’t know about the Q-factor though and it’s something without any hard and fast answers (Google ‘self selected Q factor’ for some interesting reading).
Today I did some extra testing:
Comparing Limits to my Infocrank on a Navi2coach and on a Wahoo ELEMNT.
1. Limits + ELEMNT
2. InfoCrank + Navi2coach
3. Limits + Navi2coach
4. InfoCrank + ELEMNT
I don’t know what is going wrong here, but it seems not alle datapoint are sent correctly. If I smooth the powerdata to 30s avg, the powerprofile during the ride looks the same, just another level.
I attached the files, so if you like, have a look at them.
About the Q-factor, almost got thrown of the bike, because I hit the road with my pedal in a corner.
I was order #30 and I got mine on Saturday. Well, I picked it up from the post office on Tuesday after the postman just gave me the card instead of ringing the bell. Have not installed it yet. Amazed it ever turned up after all the delays.
Got mine today, haven’t installed it yet but it’s here. Live in ik
Is it possible that these erratic power readings are due to problem of sampling time? Is it possible the Garmin is reading power at very small time increments?
The way Garmin head units work is they record at 1s intervals when a power meter is attached (all units). The LIMITS will broadcast at 1s, but repeating likely at 4Hz (4 times a second). I haven’t looked at their broadcasts using a WASP to see how it works, but, it wouldn’t be a broadcast issue.
One other thing for folks to validate with really wrong wattages is that your crank length is set correctly. There are cases with older Garmin units where the crank length can get into an error state and end up with something like 110 or 130mm, which would really hose up things. I’d encourage folks to set the crank length twice (once to something like 175mm, and then again to whatever your actual length). Just to validate it’s set it.
If the graphs posted by by people so far are anything to go on, any review or comparison by DC with LIMITs vs some known standards will be irrelevant anyway.
If those LIMITs are so inaccurate, then there is surely no way they will all be as inaccurate as each other.
Whilst pretty bad, the initial data that formed this thread (ie Jon’s original LIMITs) was no where near as bad as what is being posted now.
So if possible like Ray can you “review” not the LIMITs that LIMITs gave him at the show (that might be selectively chosen for you with them knowing its destination and purpose and considering LIMITs existing practices that would not a wild assumption!), but one of the ones that the recent data here has been posted from.
Would anyone up for a swap or to ship temporarily yours to Ray for his testing?
“…any review or comparison by DC with **HIS** LIMITs vs some known standards…”
Mostly disappointing information from those who have received their limits. Waiting anxiously for Ray’s review of the unit he picked up at eurobike.
It might be a little bit, I had hoped to install last weekend…but life got in the way. This week I’ve got family in town, and so the earliest I’d have prelim data is Sunday. But that’d be a first ride, so it’s almost toss-away data.
I’d again encourage folks that have just installed to definitely do that 10-minute ride, and throw some hard efforts into it. It’s better to do 3x30secs hard, than a 30-minute easy peddle. The intensity tightens things up, which reduces any movement.
Ok guys had mine for a week and done about 300 miles with it. Regardless of what I try, ride for a bit calibrate, high cadence, low cadence the data is all over the place it reads massive surges then almost zero, the average power on my rides has simply been not possible I cannot average 320w for 3 hours wish I could. Either I have done something wrong which I think is unlikely or the unit has a problem. I have emailed support with no answer. If I discover anything I will post it here.
OK so been messing around a bit here based on the advice given. My Edge 500 showed no method of changing crank arm length and also when I looked at power sensor details the edge displayed a blank screen. Decided this was very odd and factory reset my edge. Once done paired the Limits and had access to crank arm settings and when I checked sensor details gave it displays all of the information about the Limits. Took a while to set the edge back to where I wanted it and of course lost me historical data which is in Strava / Gamin anyhow.. Calibrated ready to perform a calibration ride as suggested by DC tomorrow. Will report what I find.
I’ve had a reply from Support at last. Apparently new firmware and App will be released on Monday to correct the issues a few of us have been describing (wild numbers, crazy fluctuations, clearly not right), so here’s hoping that sorts it.
Yesterday i raced my limits in a Dutch crit. Well, ita not really useful then as of q-factor. Had a couple of clips with my peddle on the tarmac becauso of it.
Good thing i was planning to uae it on either tt or cx
My Limits was delivered on the 5th. I didn’t put it on the bike until this weekend. Looks the same as others, roughly twice the power I would expect. My FTP is about 230W and I was averaging 26 km/h. 360W average is flattering to say the least. I haven’t been back on the bike since then so I’ll re-calibrate and try again.
Apologies to DCR for using his thread to discuss this but his is the only game in town regarding info on Limits at the moment.
Fwiw, LIMITS sent me over the details today on the new firmware update and the associated files. My understanding is that they’ll be releasing it later today publicly.
Thanks Ray. I checked when I got in from work to see if the update was available. Hopefully I’ll be able to install that this week and try again. No need to panic just yet.
Yeah, the update will require them posting the update files. The app is already in the app store, as they’ll be using the Nordic Semiconduer updater app. Typically that app is only used by companies as a way to flash firmware on units, as it’s a bit cumbersome. Most companies will roll their own app to do over the air firmware update. But I suppose this is an OK workaround until then.
Given how it’s a bit cumbersome (you have to use iTunes on your PC/Mac to move the files over first), I expect there to be some confusion. Their instructions are fine (same as every other company that uses it for internal/beta builds), but it’s not something the average person would normally want to attempt.
” it’s not something the average person would normally want to attempt.” Oh Oh – I’m an average person – where does that leave me?
I’d just eat ice cream instead. It’s the smarter average person move.
I’m sure anyone with patience can accomplish it, it’s just not something any company ever has consumers do. It’s not technically hard.
For context, the instructions are virtually identical to these ones here for a different product using the same chipset, except skip step #5: link to blueupbeacons.com
Thanks yet again Ray. Those instructions seem straightforward enough.
No support for Android I’m guessing then at the moment :-(
Not that it matters just yet anyway because even though I’m early bird backer I still haven’t received my paper yet.
Should say paper weight…
There are a few apps in the Play store currently from Nordic Semiconductor, so I’m guessing one of them (“nRF Connect for Mobile” or “nRF Toolbox for BLE” seem the most likely candidates).
Guess we will see when it happens – Monday has come and gone, but by now nobody should be surprised anymore.
As long as the problems are software related, and not hardware related, there is hope
Yeah, those Android apps will work fine.
From the backer update I just received, looking at the PDF it is indeed the nRF Toolbox one. Odd that they say they are still working on the Android based apps, as that is already in the Play Store.
More worrying to me right now is that their shipping schedule in the mail mentions nothing of my region.
Well, just got a reply on my mail to logistics (took a few days, but I guess they receive a lot of other, less friendly, mails) – they plan to bulk ship to South Africa by end of the month.
This looks to be hands down the best way to get my power numbers up. No extra training required and wham bam, instant increase in power!
No firmware update then. Such a shame. DC. I take it you have the firmware files. Have you tested them any thoughts?
No, I haven’t had a chance yet. I’m scrambling getting stuff ready for other announcement-timed posts (and backlogged Eurobike posts) and head out on a plane first thing in the morning.
I won’t be taking the LIMITS, since it’s a bit finicky to move between bikes in terms of calibration (I did that during my Park City trip this summer). With rental bikes, I’ll often just do 1 or 2 rides, especially at Interbike where I’m on test bikes. So the ability to toss the P1’s on there and know they work within a few minutes is key, versus having to have extra tools to get the LIMITS on there and then having to wait/etc…
Once I return though, they’ll be hot on the docket.
That’s hardly a glowing reference to one of their key selling points “truly interchangeable”.
There’s a whole lot of claims they’ve made that don’t stack up so far. “Delivered by December 2015”, “ready for independent review”, “we have to be realistic”, “first come, first served”, “accurate to +/- 2%”, “firmware update on Monday”….the list goes on.
The fact that it might not be as easy to change over as they indicate is small beans compared to the outright lies they’ve told so far. By “interchangeable” they might just mean that you can actually do it, rather than being something like the 4iiii meter that is destroyed if you remove it from the crank.
What about “smartest power meter in the world”
I think Ray is has extra complexity if his pedals don’t have a spanner thing, and only having a hex tightening do-dah, where you have to attach through the LIMITS with a long extension and maybe a 6/5 (5/4?) step down jigger (both provided by LIMITS). If he left the LIMITS and the pedal attached he’d only need a 9mm hex key to attach. It doesn’t seem that complicated to me. Apart from 9mm being fairly uncommon, and I have to use the step down adapter provided and an 8mm key. I guess it is slightly more complicated. Calibrating is very quick.
Mine was being shipped last week. Not had it yet. Hope it turns up soon or I won’t be around to receive it
Sorry to all other backers who are still waiting, but I received mine last week. Installed yesterday and first ride was last night, a club run in biblical thunder storm, one of the wettest rides ever. Limits held up to the weather and averaged power readings seemed to be in the ballpark of what I expected. A lot more testing required however, but dare I say it that my initial fears have not been realised in full. Time will tell. Thanks DC for everything you do
Well I was order number 51 and I’ve heard nothing. Emailed them earlier this week and no response. It would be courteous to fulfil orders in order especially as I’m here in the UK so location is no excuse.
Have tried to flash software update to limits, have followed instructions but the updating app cannot find limits, seriously pissed off now and my garmin 500 now won’t calibrate with it either.
I managed to update the firmware on mine. I followed the instructions from Limits and my iPhone and iPad both couldn’t find the meter on Bluetooth. A guy called Jon Hancock left a comment on their Facebook page saying that you had to take a battery out and replace it after a few seconds. This gives you the blue LED light and the unit appeared on bluetooth and I could upload the update from NRF Toolbox. Went for a quick 5km cycle round the village and the numbers seem a lot more realistic – avg. 176W and 23.7km/h. Previously I’d had an average of 364W at 26 km/h and 262W at 28.4 km/h. Power output still looks pretty spiky to me but I don’t have output from another power meter to compare it to. Here’s the power and speed from my short ride this evening.
david, apparently you can only connect to it when the blue light is on. apparently you need to remove one of the batteries for a second and connect to it once the light comes back on.
Hi All,
Anybody have any success updating firmware using the android Nrf Ble app. I’ve downloaded the app , still waiting to receive my Limits unit, and it appears identical to the ios version of the app.
I did manage to load the Update using the Android equivalent nRF Toolbox. I did need to remove the battery to get the blue light before it would load.
However my Garmin Edge 1000 wouldn’t connect any more and after removing the sensor from the list I can’t find it to reconnect. So I’m not very happy.
I’ll wait for the Android instructions, but I can’t imagine they would be any different.
Hi Allan,
Thanks for that. Hopefully I’ll get the update working using android
Instructions for Android.
1. Download the firmware zip file to your phone (link to limits.technology).
2. Enable Bluetooth on your phone
3. Open the Nordic nrf toolbox app (install it first obviously).
4. Select DFU.
5. On your phone, in the app, click select file, then Distribution Packet (ZIP) file type and locate the fw zip file downloaded in step 1.
6. Remove a battery from LIMITS, put it back in, the blue light should come on.
7. Back to your phone and the app, click select device, choose LIMITS.
8. Select upload.
It’s as easy as that.
Please note, any issues with the update is NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY and you do this at your own risk, these are unofficial instructions, but it worked for me with no issues at all.
Thanks Stephen.
I’d had quick look at the android app and looks straight forward. Just waiting for the Postie to knock on the door with Limits is his hand
Thanks Stephen for instructions on updating using android platform, worked fine!
Thanks to DC Rainmaker for all the great reviews/info etc…
thanks Stephen, that saved me a world of iOS updates and pain
Is anyone else having problems with the Android app? I have a OnePlus2 and when I select the .zip file on my device within the toolbox the file options within are greyed out and unselectable.
Any help would be greatly received.
Thanks
At what step in the instructions are you having issues with? And can you provide a screenshot? I’ve read your issue several times and I’m a bit confused tbh.
Hi Stephen
Step 5. I can select the zip file, it then seems to open showing three grayed out files. I can not select anything or move forward.
Martin
hhmm, seems like your file manager has opened the zip file. On my phone, in the Nordic app DFU, I select file, pick Distribution File (ZIP), press OK, which opens the document selector screen, where I choose the Limits_Update_v2_1.zip file. It then takes me back to the DFU screen with the zip file selected.
Is your zip file still archived as a zip file on your phone? If not, then that is the issue. If it is, then, have a look at your file manager settings, have a look for anything regarding auto opening or unarchiving zip files etc. Sorry I can’t be of any further help.
Sorted it, thanks. Had to move the file to Dropbox and as you it worked first time.
You were correct Stephen, the native Android file manager on my device was opening the zip file and confusing the toolkit app.
Sorted now. Time for the firmware update.
M
Nice one!
No wonder LIMITS are loathed to put out a set of Android instructions with all the differences between the devices, it’s a bit of a minefield! However, if everyone with issues finds this page and the Facebook one, we should be able to help most people out.
Now, we just need the product to be more accurate!
What impact does crank length have on power readings? Reason I ask is that I am using the limits with wahoo fitness using the rflkt as an ant+ bridge and there is no way to update the crank length – this means it defaults to 172.5 rather than the 175 cranks I as using. I suspect that it will lead to higher meter readings which is exactly what I am experiencing. Question is – what percentage higher should they be?
It’s of variable impact based on cadence. But the back of the napkin math is about 2-3% offset for 172.5 to 175mm, in average cadence ranges of 85-105rpm.
One of the Garmin Vector engineers wrote out either a table or the formula once to show the rough offsets for average cadence ranges if you misconfigure it. It’s somewhere on the Garmin Forums….
Thanks. Thats what I thought – not as much difference as I experienced. I’ve switched bikes and done a calibration run and things seem much closer to the power from the cyclops power synch – although I am aware that power from turbo trainer vs pedal power meter is going to differ due to the inertia with the fly wheel.
In this case, it’s not complicated and there’s no need for Garmin’s tables/formulas. Since the force is whatever is actually measured, the power meter is just using the wrong radius to do the integral of force * distance to get the work done. In other words, it should be multiplying by 175, and it’s actually multiplying by 172.5, so it’s under computing by 172.5/175 = 0.986. (This is not a case where you worry about the forces changing because your legs are the same but they’re moving around a larger circle; the force is measured and it’s just misconverting it into power.)
Hi.
I have Garmin Fenix 3 and Limits Power Meter.
How i can change the crank length? I need to download any special application from appstore?
Regards,
Alex
Ensure your F3 is up to date, and then ensure the LIMITS is connected, and then within the sensors menu you’ll find the option.
I don’t think I’ve tried LIMITS with the F3.
I’m now slightly worried about mine. The power numbers from my ride with LIMITS looked a little high, but not _totally_ unreasonable. Then I found that my crank length was set to 110mm, not 175mm – so with that factored in the numbers would have been extremely high, like crazy high. Will be riding at the weekend with the correct settings to confirm.
So I performed the update yesterday with no issues using iOS app. Performed a short 20 min test ride and there is s noticeable improvement time will tell.
Will try to update with battery out tonight but in the mean time I done an 20min fpt test, seems kinda accurate but the graph on garmin connect looks all wrong too spikey
that’s a horrible looking power graph for a 20 min FTP test!!
Really ugly for a 20 minute FTP. Not at all smooth.
He took breaks every 2.8 seconds, obviously. It can get tiring and all.
So here is my comparison with my stages PM
link to analyze.dcrainmaker.com
I’ll leave the analyzing bit to the pro’s
this is after the update btw
Now, that doesn’t even look too bad. Just consistently about the same relative amount of watts too low.
it tracks similarly which seems to be a better step in the right direction. However the number are approximately 30% off on the intervals or efforts, more so on the spikes, and it is a stages it is being compared to. It is better but it is still not looking that great.
I’m thinking my numbers seemed consistently fairly high, average 264 watts for 50 minutes, nearly 3w/kg and I am really not very fit at the moment. Pleased with the tracking to effort, especially after some of the graphs I saw before the last software update.
I have friends with 4iii and a Garmin pedal, we will try to get a three way comparison done.
Updated tonight by taking battery out and putting straight back in uploaded fine. Done a 10 min ride on turbo and the graph looks a lot better
My email to limits support today. I hope its self explanatory. Previous emails about data issues have not been answered by them
Hi,
Issues post 2.1 update
Further to previous emails, I fitted limits to my track bike yesterday to do some sprint training on the road. Regrettably there were big issues with flat out sprint power up to 600 watts above what i would expect. I would normally expect to see up to 1400 w sprinting on a road bike using Powertap but the numbers from Limits were Chris Hoy crazy ! I tried recalibration 3 times but with no improvement. Crank setting on the Garmin was correct for the track bike at 165mm
I also had some issues with Limits when I fitted it to my road bike and did a hilly 82km road race at the weekend. 20 min power looked broadly correct during the race at c 300 w, however on the climbs, (say steady 380 w), when the surges came without changing gear (>500w) and the climbing rate increased the power number actually fell away, sometimes to nil !
I’ve been training and racing with power for a long time so have a pretty good understanding of what my body can push out and power profiling and I can pretty much tell what the power number is going to be on the Garmin from the feeling in my legs. Most of my data has come from outdoor road riding with a Powertap or indoors on a Watt Bike. I find for example the FTP numbers very similar between WattB and Powertap, I did a FTP pre update to 2.1 and it was over 30 watts up. Post 2.1 the number FTP looks broadly correct.
As it stands I just can’t use the Limits because its going to mess up all my power profiling on the training software I use.
Please can you get back to me and let me know your thoughts. I attach an image of my power curve from yesterdays ride. If it would be of help I can send you the TCX file’s of both the track bike and road race
Kind regards
I agree Rich I’m in a similar position where i use a watt bike for training too. I think going to small claims court to get our money back will be the only way forward. It isn’t what was advertised.
:-)
Really !! read the small print ..
“By contributing to a campaign you are supporting an idea, project, or cause you care about and want to help make happen. Like anyone getting in on an early-stage project, you accept the risk that the project may experiences changes, delays, unforeseen challenges, and it’s possible that a project you fund might not come to fruition. ”
Theres a ton o disclaimers in Indiegogo.. You are spinning your wheels if you think legal action is an option. You may have to face the fact that you took a risk and got burned. That is the nature of investing in ventures of this kind. There is no come back.
That covers Indiegogo. Limits however were selling a working product not a concept that hadn’t been developed.
I don’t think you are right there. The product has not reached retail. The only way to get it is through the Indiegogo crowdfunding scheme, ie through becoming an investor. In doing so you basically relinquish any right to sue them.
I just fitted mine to a wattbike this morning and a quick rest ride (albeit in my day clothes!) showed numbers which were very high.
Paddling along at 130w on the bike and the Linits qas showing around 180-200w. Ramping it uo to 300w and the Limits was showing 400w.
Maybe if these discrepancies are consistent and can be mapped across to the actual values then a firmware update can algorithmically rectify them?
Hoping to get a chance to have a proper spin on the WB later today. I have two garmins so will record the data from both the WB itself and the Limits and see how it fares up.
So I calibrated this afternoon, set the crank length (the internet leads me to believe the wattbike has 170mm cranks) did a ten minute bedding in ride and recalibrated.
I then recorded a 50 min ride alongaide the wattbike data. I hope to get the results up on YouTube and make the files available when i get chance but to cut a long story short the figures were waaay off.
I averaged just over 280 for the 50 mins with a couple of mins at over 400w and a bit of sprint right at the end. Just steady pacing other than that.
I’d live to think for one moment the wattbike was wrong but as we have three wattbikes and I have a Stages (got sick of waiting for Limits to launch) I know what I can hold and what I can’t. What I most certainly can’t hold is 374w for 50 minutes which is the Limits figure.
Clearly the margin grows the more watts you bang out but I couldn’t work out on the fly whether this was scaling proportionally or not.
Either I was doing something badly wrong today or the device, in its present firmware incarnation is useful only to boost the ego :-)
I’m sorry to see how this looks to be going
Limits just arrived (UK address), I was around #852 on Indiegogo, will try and install and check by/over the weekend.
I got my Limits a couple of days ago and tested it in conjunction with my Rotor INpower.
The results are not exactly encouraging…
link to youtu.be
Are you on the latest version 2.1 of the firmware?
You can’t expect two different PM’s to have exactly the same numbers as long as the number is consistantly wrong then you can still use it. PM’s are like bathroom scales your ok if you weigh yourself in your own but step on anyone else’s and you can get a different result. Have used two different garmins at the same time indoors with a cadence monitor and outside with satilites and had different results.
DC has already commented on this aspect…
But to use your analagy… If I weigh 70kgs on my scales, and I think i’m a good healthy weight with nothing to worry about, and then I go to the doctors and I weigh 110kgs, then he will tell me I am clinically obese/overweight and in serious danger of diabetes/stoke etc…
If I weigh 71 or 72 on my Doctors scales, then we both agree I am of a healthy weight, or if I weigh 108/109 kgs on my scales we both agree I am overweight.
Accuracy means accuracy, not just consisency from 1 measurement to the next on the same device. 1Kg has a definitive value as measured by some worldwide standard of measurement, as does 1 watt.
If a PM records 101/102 watts when its really a watt of power, we can say they are accurate to 1 / 2%. If its measuring 0, 130, 150, 200 or whatever, then its not fit for purpose.
(Arrgh DC, where is “Edit Post”)
…
“If a PM records 101/102 watts when its really 100 watt of power, we can say they are accurate to 1 / 2%. If its measuring 90, 130, 150, 200 or whatever, then its not fit for purpose.”
Davey, Steve –
To a degree, I think we’re graying the line between accuracy and precision here, of which I would say LIMITS has neither. Based on Ray’s comparison of LIMITS against several other meters on the market, LIMITS fails at precision, and when we look at LIMITS just against itself, more often than not it fails at accuracy (i.e., consistency).
It seems the backers are receiving their units.
It seems the meters are at best marginally useful.
It seems Limits customer service is abysmal.
So who will buy one in the future? Will the company be there in 6 months to replace faulty meters or simply those who run out of replacement battery caps?
Why would anyone buy one from this point going forward, particularly since reliable meters can be had from reliable companies for only a bit more.
Obviously, for me the answer is that the company is history. The CS alone will kill them.
Sounds like the precision and accuracy are pretty bad. Darn. Is the stages unit a good one?
MS i totally agree regarding customer service.
Good customer service doesn’t cost a company directly in terms on having to pay for it, The main expense is the time it takes, having learnt from my time is as a manager in a service industry where the company prided itself on “going the extra mile” for the customer it surprising how many people are will to pay an additional premium to receive a quality service and also are more understanding when from time to time when delays occur.
The company may continue on because of the knowledge gained during development of the limits unit but i could see them moving away from pedal spindle based power meter unit to a crank/crankarm based unit or may even a full pedal system like look keo power or powertap.
From my point of view as a backer, I hope the make some success of the current limits power meter unit and if they do move on to other products that the continue with legacy support.
Why would anyone buy a crank or pedal PM from them when there are already viable, accurate units on the market …
Matt,
if they where to bring a new product to the market that was user friendly, durable, provided accurate and repeatable results at a competitive price, in other words a package that competes with or excels above industry incumbents, I think that the market would have a place for such a product but again its conditional on the product meeting the above specifications. As the market for power meters at a low price point is still very immature, i think there’s space for an existing manufacturer or newcomer to bring out a product to corner this section of the market.
Again this is all hypothetical because we’re dealing, as backers / investors, with the current product that needs refining.
Further to my comment above about crazy 2kw readings and strange number from a road race, here is an image which shows the sudden ‘drop offs’ I experience when climbing. This was taken a couple of days ago on a local hill climb course. The problem is the same across a number of bikes despite re calibration etc. Firmware is 2.1. It occurs when you increase the power from say 300 to 500 w. You can see the cadence is consistent.
My view is that Limits in its current form is sadly not fit for purpose. This is not to say that the team will not get it right and adapt it. However as it stands, if like me you have been using power for some time, the numbers are at best inconsistant with historical training / race data. Personally I have had to remove all the Limits rides from the Golden Cheetah package i use because of this.
It strikes me that the Limits team released units to backers due to the pressure they were under to get something out there after all the time slippages. In reality the product was not properly tested and should have been held back until they had got it right with the usual longer field tests and feedback from experience power users etc. As it stands the Backers have become the product testers – obvious perhaps that was always going to be the case ! The Limits team are very small with undoubtedly very stretched resources, I don’t mind providing feedback as a Backer if it helps them get it right. But they should have been clear about the potential issues before they started dispatching the units. We are after all the investors in a completely new product and want to help !
Disappointing at this current time yes, but I hope the Limits team can learn from ‘meaningful data’ they are getting back and adapt the firmware to resolve the problems. If however there is a fundamental problem with the hardware, then the issues could be pretty challenging for the Limits team and releasing the units too early a big error, particularly if the fault lies within the design i.e. with no recourse to the Chinese manufacturer.
I keep my fingers crossed that they will eventually get it right. I backed the Limits crowdfunding campaign because I liked the concept of a power meter that I could swap across different bikes with different pedal systems and crank lengths (e.g. one day MTB the next day track bike), this has always been the limitation of my trusty Powertap. If the Limits team can get it to work then I think the product could still be successful.
Kind regards
My take on some of the recent posts and my use of the Limits Power Meter.
I knew I was backing a crowdfunding campaign so I don’t think there’s much recourse if Limits don’t achieve all their stated goals. That’s the nature of the beast I guess. I live in Scotland and I would love to see a Scottish company succeed in this so I’ll still hope for the best.
My hope for the Limits meter was that I could do accurate interval training and at the moment that doesn’t seem to be the case. Absolute accuracy isn’t the issue as I could do an FTP test with the unit and then I just need to know what zone I’m in when I’m training but in use the realtime reading from the unit skips about so much that this isn’t possible. At a 3 sec average it moves constantly by a 100 watts or more. Setting the unit at a 30 sec average as Limits suggest helps a bit but that’s a pretty blunt instrument for 1 or even 2 minute intervals and it still skips around a lot. I might as well use my heart rate monitor which cost a lot less and works.
My hope is that Limits continue to develop the product and issue firmware updates so the unit does become functional. I have no problem installing updates and as an investor rather than a customer I’m OK with a beta testing phase if we can get this right.
I backed Limits as it’s the Power Meter I can afford, most of the established units would nearly double the value of my bike. I understand that even companies like Garmin have issued updates on released products so I’m not writing it off just yet.
So finally got my Limits today, opened pack, read instructions, do not use if you weigh over 200lbs, I am 245, gutted.
First ride with the Limits gave what seems to be a generous 243w average for a hill 68km at 27km/hr overall. I’ve not used a power meter cycling before but on an erg using a concept II a fair bit- my best half marathon worked out at 181w for around 87 min perceived exertion this morning was way less than that effort as was my heart rate. The power output at times fluctuated significantly and seemed at times inconsistent with perceived exertion and other times in the ballpark. I’m tempted to take it off until new firmware and then have another go.
Having said that I updated software to Vers 2.1 without a problem using my android phone and the nrf toolbox but didnt seem to get any option to connect with bluetooth rather than ANT and no option to change crank length (using 170mm not 172.5mm) with my Wahoo Element. I re calibrated at about 15mins into the ride. Has anyone any experience here of set up with the Wahoo Element?
Anyone else UK based still waiting on their unit arriving?
Yep. I was an ‘Early Bird’ so based on the ‘first come, first served’ idea was expecting mine some time ago.
Mind you, given what I’m reading above I’m thinking that as a power meter it might be nearly as useful as a chocolate teapot but would function well as a paperweight.
Yes, I’m still waiting. Ordered back in November.
I’ve emailed them and received no response.
5 hours of use, got low battery warning :-(
Had a bit of an unscientific three-way with LIMITS, single sided Garmin Vectors, and 4iiii at the weekend. Well, two two-ways, as it turned out because we quickly discovered that you can’t do a Vector and LIMITS at the same time.
The 4iiii was consistently a bit lower than the Garmin, but tracked very well. The LIMITS vs the 4iiii was a bit of a different story, tracking not completely consistent, way off in places, but the numbers were generally quite similar.
The garmins said the averages over the whole 25 minute ride were very similar – maybe 10 watts out with a 250 watt average. It’s not +/- 2%, but for my purposes it is just about acceptable.
Oh, and one of my battery caps is broken, too. After 3 rides and only inserting the batteries once.
I am genuinely interested in throwing in the towel and going for the 4iiii. What do you think of it?
Martin
I think it’s definitely better in terms of accuracy, and a cleaner solution with respect to moving your feet around etc. if it fits your cranks.
If you have no problems spending the extra cash go for it. LIMITS is definitely the budget offering, and maybe not even a viable option if it keeps eating batteries and battery covers like people are reporting, and they can’t make the software work better.
I had terrible problems pairing with mine later on yesterday…
Hi Ray,
Once again thanks for all your work on this. I finally got my hands on my Limits unit today, I believe several others in Ireland have also been received.
I have run into a slight issue, I’m hoping you’ve come across it before while testing power meters synced to computer/gps head units.
I have a Cateye Stealth evo+ computer/gps. The sync/calibration process was a piece of cake.
1. Spin Cranks to wake up Limits PM.
2. Navigate to Id Sync screen on Cateye Stealth Evo+ and hit the “Mode” button (only button on top of computer below display) to scan for the limits pm.
3. Cateye finds units and sync is done.
Next is Calibration (the fun starts here)
1.Spin the cranks to wake Limits and ensure you have power figure on Cateye Stealth Evo+. Let the bike spin down so power reading returns to zero while on main/home screen.
2. Hold “Menu” button (on rear of Cateye Stealth Evo+) for 4 seconds and “PW calib” flashes up on display. Leave the Cateye Stealth Evo+ alone to flash for 3 seconds and calibration is complete. Left crank arm should be at 6 o’clock for the entirety on calibration process (while screen is flashing PW Calib).
I completed the calibration process, no problem and tested the PM on the turbo trainer for 20mins. computer was receiving power and cadence reading no problem. Can’t comment on accuracy as its my first foray into power meters.
Then I realise that I have not entered crank arm length details. I have checked the manual and indeed spoken to Cateye America on the phone and have been advised that the Cateye Stealth Evo+ does not have the functionality to input crank arm length.
Have you come across this before? Any advice? What effect is this likely to have?
I have an engineering background so understand the principles of calculating force and could see that the above would be a possible problem.
Appoligies for the length of post.
Thanks Stephen
Sometimes on older units I’ll see lack of ability to enter crank length. In that case, it will impact things. Paul gives you the equation here to see the impact: link to dcrainmaker.com
I believe LIMITS said they’d offer a tool/app to set crank length, but I haven’t seen that yet.
(At this point, based on the accuracy I’ve seen from others here, the difference in crank length between 172.5 and 175mm for example…is the least of ones issues.)
Thanks Ray.
Knowledgeable as always.
I’m hopeful that the data discrepancies will be sorted over time. The only issue I have is the battery caps, not the best design. I would go as far as to say they where an after thought.
Thanks again
You need to go back while, but they had a mention about battery caps themselves…
(7 Months ago, from Today)…
Mechanical
During repeat lock and unlock testing of the battery end caps we witnessed deformation of the locking mechanism & stress cracking of the end cap which could lead to a failure. We’ve made the required design changes & authorised the tooling changes and we expect to receive the final samples in the next 5 days.
(6 Months ago)…
Mechanical
Further testing of the battery end caps has not highlighted any stress cracking. We will continue to test this in-house and on the field test units. An easier process for aligning the end caps has been identified and the details have been added to our install guide.
Steve,
you’re correct about the caps. I think it would have been possible (i’ve looked at the unit briefly to check) to use a threaded interface to secure the caps and indeed maybe use a harder material for the caps.
The difficulty with the current caps is that the location tabs damage easily if the cap is not located perfectly and with wear this will introduce excessive play / slopp which will self-perpetuate as people struggle to locate the cap properly
Finally got my limits yesterday and after reading all the negativity in this thread I was actually quite delighted by the results (although I’m no expert). On the first 20odd minute test I compared Limits with Trainer Road Virtual Power.
During the run it seems that Limits would read 20-30watts higher than TR
After the ride limits average just 13w more than TR, in the peak (max) it was 53w lower and with NP limits was 23w higher (perhaps agreeing with my ride observations).
Limits: link to connect.garmin.com
Virtual: link to connect.garmin.com
I’ll try a proper session tonight :-)
One thing though, I assume that the unit shipped with the latest firmware but I was unable to actually find out as NRF Connect is incompatible with both my phone and tablet (both Samsung). Does anyone know of another app for updating/checking firmware?
Thanks,
HLaB
What concerns me somewhat is that the reports that are coming in seem to be all over the place.
It isn’t as if with firmware 2.1 all users seem to he experiencing powers that are much too high OR much too low but instead it appears to be both with many points inbetween.
I don’t kjow exactly what is calibrated and what is not during calibration but such a speead of results not only suggests that things look distinctly uncalibrated (!!) but that any data Ray provides on the basis of one unit may be specific to the unit he has and no more.
What Id be interested to see is one person test multiple units (obviously you can only use one at once but on a turbo trainer or wattbike you could test them all at a set resistance/power one after the other)
After a few days reassuringly I’m still finding the same, Limits is about 15-30w higher than TR on observation using the Turbo Muin Quarq profile in TR for virtual power and about the similar level below in sprints resulting in a smaller discrepancy on average. TR have confirmed that Quarq is the best profile to use for my turbo. There is a wee bit of out put noise but with averaging it over 3 secs its not a problem. Fingers crossed I get the same results when I test outdoors, then for the money (eg. I didn’t pay stages price) I can consider LIMITS a good investment.
Hi Ray
Have you tried it with the new firmware on yet??
Cheers
Chris
A detailed examination would be most useful. Let us know as soon as you can Ray.
Nope. I land back home tomorrow.
Somebody asked if they hadn’t received theirs yet. ME! Ordered 16th Aug 15 .
I did email logistics on the 16th Sep 2016 but as yet no reply, no surprise there then
I have not received mine. Ordered May 2015 from USA.
Finally received mine on Monday – backer number 51 based in the UK.
Install straight forward however when I try and calibrate with my Garmin 520 I get an error 200. Does anyone have any advice how to fix this? or anyone else experienced this?
thanks
I had the error 200 a few times until I read the manual and realise the unit has to be vertical; cranks at 6 O’clock and no tilt of the bike :-)
Finally got mine today. Installation I think went ok. The caps are crap in one word and can come lose on the ride. Tried to update the firmware today but the link on the limits page does not have a zip file within it. Can anyone post a different link to the file on a file sharing page ? I went out anyways on my ride , calibrated after 10 mins then 30 mins during the ride. I did a 17 mile loop which was fairly lumpy in 1 hour. Recorded power for that time was 67w average . I’m 89kg so there is no way this is rigbt.
So if anyone could post a remote link for the firmware zip I would be most grateful as I’ve heard nothing from limits.
it’s here link to limits.technology
And I don’t know what people are doing with the end caps, but mine are fine, tight, easy to fit and get tight, just take your time and there are no issues with them at all.
link to limits.technology
“And I don’t know what people are doing with the end caps, but mine are fine, tight, easy to fit and get tight, just take your time and there are no issues with them at all.”
I wondered that too, when I put them on, but when I checked after 2 rides one was cracked. No idea how or when it happened.
Sorry Stephen, didn’t see your link when I posted. James – the first link is to the page to get it from, the second is the full link to the actual file; either should get you what you want.
no problem at all.
If anyone needs the Android instructions, have a look back at post #259.
On the caps, they can be cracked/torn off pretty easily if you happen to ride your bike without cycling shoes (such as simply using regular shoes while shuttling your bike to an event).
I was just wondering, is anyone *not* fitting the washer(s) when install the PM side ? Having read the install instructions and looked at the unit, the plastic lip is protruding crank-side past the metal ring within it, so I can’t see any way to install as per instructions – so the plastic is not in contact with the crank arm – without using them. Just thought i’d ask before trying to fit, cheers.
Thanks for the firmware link , for some reason it wasn’t coming up as a zip file on the mac but I’ve emailed it to myself now.
On another note I now can’t get my pedal off the limits. It’s a hex pedal but the extender they provide just moves around inside and the hex spacers won’t go past the limits part of the hole if that makes sense. Do I need a long special hex key ?
You should have put the spacer in before you attached the pedal to the LIMITS. If the pedal is on more than hand tight (and even then it’ll be difficult) you’re in a great deal of difficulty.
just double checking, but you don’t need to remove the LIMITS to update the fw. If you’re taking the pedal/LIMITS off for another reason, best of luck (but it sounds screwed to me :-( ).
How did you get the pedal on in the first place without the 8mm to 6mm hex spacer?
“If the pedal is on more than hand tight (and even then it’ll be difficult) you’re in a great deal of difficulty.”
Which is a fancy way of saying…you’re totally hosed.
So, as one who managed to get themselves into this bucket semi-recently, you can undo this with a bit of finagling and a lot of time. The trick is to go and get a tiny hex wrench, one small enough that can re-align in the inner spacer that’s likely fallen into some weird spot in the pedal. It’s not simple, but eventually you can get it back in the right spot. This is what I was referring to in the post in terms of being a bit complex depending on the pedal type.
So in summary of the above 343 comments for those just joining
(1) It’s a good random number generator
(2) your battery cap will eventually break
(3) in a small percentage of cases a faulty install might cause total loss of pedal and cranks
(4) don’t expect an email back from Limits in relation to any of the above.
Ok , firstly I’ve just updated the limits and ridden it again , calibrating during the ride. I averaged 30ws ! This device is a piece of shit in simple terms.
I also didn’t realise the spacers were to go inside my pedal arm as the instructions are so small and poor so I guess they are stuffed as well.
Why send such a poor product out before it worked ? Surely the thing to have done is say it’s not ready yet and these are the reasons why. These guys have taken the Michael out of everyone on Indegogo and if it were not for that site they would be done for fraud . Bunch of C You Next Tuesdays
Further to my comments above; Limits Support have responded to me after sending them some power files.
They do acknowledge there is a problem and said that they are in the throws of testing a new firmware which they say resolves the issues. No time scale as yet
Now this is worrisome.
Well, mine arrived yesterday.
The good stuff:
Nicely packaged, instructions clear enough, firmware upgrade on Android a piece of cake thanks to the guidance in comments here (thanks!), installation and pairing very easy.
The bad:
A seal between the threaded axle and the plastic body of the unit had a small section popped out so will need to take that up with Limits. 9mm sizing on the units is a bit of a pain, who has a 9mm allen key but the pedal spanner adaptor works well.
Its had one 10 minute bedding in ride, and then a longer 2 hour ride. I’m getting numbers that are at least in line with effort being put in but without any point of reference I have no idea if its accurate! It will be interesting to see if the results are consistent and then at least it is some kind of guide, will be watching out keenly for more comparisons!
I’ve actually not put the hex spacers inside the pedal so I am fooked as the diagram was so small. I’m going to see if there’s anything that my LBS can do to remove the limits from the pedal, I’m hoping I can put something down inside and try and get some purchase on the pedal and unlock it.
Yes very foolish of me , but the instructions are not the best and the diagrams are tiny. Ultimately my bad though.
Probably a dumb question and I’m missing something obvious, but if the pedals are hex only, how did you tighten them onto the Limits components?
Maybe if you clamp the pedal spindle and you/they can drill into/through the Limits to get some leverage, you may be able to turn it against the threading
The Limits will probably be as useful after this process as it was before
no drilling necessary – take the pedal body off the spindle, clamp that, and take the LIMITS off.
Nice one J dog I’ll give that a go. To be honest I’ve seen all I need to see. It isn’t simple to install , it’s not accurate or consistent and the Q factor is just way too much. I’m just going to take the hit and get some 4iiii crank 105 £340 or less and non of this nonsense, & customer service.
Dear all
I hate to go against the flow, but I have found the power readings I get to be in the range of what I was expecting. However, I’d like to qualify that by saying the only comparison I have is the estimated power readings for strava segments, I’d be interested in Ray’s thoughts on the estimated power accuracy of strava.
However, my batteries ran down after only a few hours. Bad point.
I think a big issue with these units is the variability between units, we can only go on each other’s reports but it seems that even in their problems they can’t be consistent.
How can we trust the data from this product. How can we trust they can provide a common solution via firmware updates if different units and facing different problems which might stem from manufacturing problems and differences between units..
My only comparison is with Trainer Road Virtual Power and Ive found it reasonably close and stable to that on average (especially considering the price paid). Its been a bit more of a difference in a sprint (due to dropping out) but Trainer Road recommended I switched off my wireless router which hopefully was the source of interference and on a quick 5 min session before I went to bed it was quite stable on the sprints and returning figures in the region I would expect too.
I’ve maybe not used it enough yet (just four nights) but so far (touch wood) the batteries seem to be lasting.
Someone somewhere did a comparison against Strava Virtual Power vs a Power Meter. I can’t remember who or where, but it’s out there (I do remember it was by someone fairly reputable).
I also did a comparison for myself between strava virtual power and power meter data (P1). I made it just for myself, so it is not official (not sure if image attachment is working), but I have to say, that strava virtual power is totally useless. For average power it is quite correct if there is no wind, but that’s all. When weather conditions are tricky, even average power is totally off. You can not see virtual power during the ride, you can not plan your training according power data, virtual power seems to be much more jumpy than expected (strava frequently shows 1000+W spikes for me, while normally I remain under 800W in sprints as well with much less spikes).
For anyone not really familiar with PM data, the AVERAGE power has no useful meaning at all! Read some basic books, like “Racing and training with a power meter”, and you won’t see a matching average as a proper indication any more.
and the second chart from stravistix
Thanks
Strava Virtual Power and Trainer Road Virtual Power are two different animals. I would think TR VR would be more accurate as they take theirs form the known resistance curves of commercially available indoor trainers.
Martin,
It’s difficult to compare when only looking at average power, even if Strava’s average power was accurate (which it isn’t). See my image, that was a test I did with J-Dog last weekend. Pink graph is a 4iiii on the same bike as a Limits, in blue. Despite two big drop outs on the first two climbs from Limits, and Limits failing to register much at all when I was pushing at extreme high and low cadence ranges (3 far right peaks), the average power for both PMs was only a few watts different. If I had stopped the ride 10 mins earlier or continued another 10 mins, the average would have been significantly different.
there you go:) link to blog.veloviewer.com
Just received my limits this afternoon and have spent the last hour or so fitting it and doing some brief tests against trainerroad. seems to be settling down to something like a linear response after a few minutes riding at different intensities. Will be testing accuracy over the next few days. However, something occurred to me which may be useful. After fitting the limits once I was unsure whether the plastic housing was touching the crank, so decided to remove and fit the washer just in case. having screwed the limits back in I realised that the battery compartment, having previously been horizontal, was now pointing up with the crank at the 12 o’clock position, putting it right where I would be likely to stand on it with a misplaced cleat when clipping in. It’s a bit of a pain, but I realised that by trial and error, I could get it threaded in so that the cap was more or less out of the way at my ‘normal’ clipping-in point (there, I’ve invented a new term to rival TSS and FTP: the ‘CIP’: you heard it here first). Could be a semi-solution to the problems people are reporting with breaking the caps? Just a thought. Obviously assumes you usually clip in the same way each time, and I haven’t tested this scientifically!
Hi Ray, thanks for the early look.
Any chance of incorporating some max effort standing starts, or at least hard accelerations from a very slow rolling pace into your testing?
3-4 x 6-8 seconds would be great. At least 10-min rest / recovery in-between each effort. Somewhere safe of course and make sure pedals/cleats and drive train are in good order! If you’d rather not then perhaps someone else could :)
It’s important because it deals with a few issues pertaining to data quality (e.g. accuracy of data during accelerating crank velocities, faithful reporting of actual neuromuscular capabilities, rate of data pick up from a non-pedalling state, temporal resolution of data, aliasing).
There is a well established relationship between pedal force and pedal velocity under such maximal effort before neuromuscular fatigue sets in after a handful of seconds.
Some power meters do not reliably manage to report such a relationship and it’s a great sniff test to add to the MMP chart. It’s a pretty simple analysis plotting those handful of seconds in a quadrant analysis chart of pedal force v pedal speed and demonstrating an inverse linear relationship before fatigue sets in.
These data quality issues may not be all that relevant for a triathlete but for a crit/road/cross racer (and track rider) they do matter and this is being emphasised even more now that power data analysis methodologies have evolved with greater use made of power duration modelling and all the useful things that flow from it (mostly to do with improved individualisation of training). A meter that isn’t reliably picking up on such things can skew the models and provide a false indicator of relative capabilities.
Cheers, Alex
Hi Alex-
Yup, I did a little bit of that mixed here and there into some of the earlier tests, usually a bit longer in duration (15-30s), with about 6-10 mins rest. But I can tweak things a bit down the road, it’s a pretty easy test to mix in.
Cheers.
Sweet. Be good also to annotate the files so know which one to look for with sprint data :)
Which file in this lot has some sprints in it?
I emailed the Limits logistics team to find out when my PM would be shipped. I was notified on the 27th of September that they had sent it. Over a week later it has still not been received and no response to further emails asking where the item is. Whilst I can tolerate delays and teething issues with a brand new product, I cannot tolerate bare faced lies that the item has been sent when it clearly has not. I will be looking to purchase a 4iii product in the future instead… but I still expect to receive the Limits unit that I have paid for!
I’s it worth buying? On eBay it can be found in very good price and I’m thinking about it. I wanted to buy 4iii but clever training Europe doesn’t have it.
I don’t think as it stands you’re going to have many people suggesting it’s a good buy.
Maybe with further firmware updates they’ll get closer but I think the general perception is ultimately the hardware probably isn’t up to the job.
I’ve read on limits Facebook people are saying that batteries lasts for only 5-7 hours. New batteries every week doesn’t sound well.
Ray, when 4iii Precision will be available in Clever Training Europe? Any other proposition for cheat PM?
read this KramiIN link to dcrainmaker.com
Limits responded indicating that people were replacing their batteries with the commonly available LR44’s rather than the specified but less commonly available higher voltage SR44’s. I’ve replaced with the SR44’s but its too early to comment on battery life as I only did that last night.
On only the 2nd ride with mine I got a low battery warning. This after about 1 hours use at most.
That is ridiculous. Their website states replacing batteries once a year.
I will now try and contact them on this but don’t expect an answer based on all the feedback I have read.
is that with LR or SR batteries?
just about to try the SR batteries, hope they’ll make a difference
about time we should be hearing about the new firmware, last update was not 1 week + ago
I have done 12 hours riding and the battery condition is still good. I fitted SR batteries first thing (not the included ones)
I’ve been riding for the last week and a half (only about 15 hours, I suppose) with a low battery warning.
I suspect it’s as dodgy as the rest of the software.
I tried to run on with the LR batteries after the warning, and the device stopped communicating with the head unit after an hour
I ordered 4iiii 105 crank from Evans cycles in U.K yesterday. Expected delivery 1st November.
link to evanscycles.com
I’ve looked up SR44 batteries online and despite their being a key difference so many shops seem to tag the same battery as SR44 / LR44.
Safe to assume if it says it’s “both” then it is in fact just an LR44? Anyone got a decent source for genuine SR44 batteries at a reasonable price?
found the same thing Martin, though dimensional they are interchangeable, they are not the same material and voltage, and hopefully this is going to make the difference to longevity
I got a multi pack (3 * 2packs) of ebay energiser call them EPX76 and Duracell 357/303 also considered Amazon. You can get them cheaper on many battery specialist sites tho there will be a MOQ or value before you hit free shipping.
cheers.
For any primary (non-rechargeable) battery, Digikey is a great source for known-good cells with volume pricing discounts.
link to digikey.ca
They have regional distributors and stock, so for instance in the UK start at link to digikey.co.uk and then search for the appropriate part number.
No affiliation with Digikey or Limits…
Thanks for the links re strava estimated power vs real power. Quite interesting. It all makes sense and I’d come to those conclusions re wind resistance etc.
With regard to the battery life. Although I have get the battery low indication on every ride the battery has not yet given up. We don’t know at what battery level the unit gives you that notification and therefore how long we have left. But if it got to that level very quickly you’d expect the unit to bet empty very quickly too, quicker than the none notified period. I think I’d had about 4 hours of riding max before the low bat notification came on, I’ve had at least that and more since. I am now thinking that this is just another fault / quirk of the unit and maybe the battery level sensor in the unit is faulty. I will rue my words, I have some hill climbs this weekend and I’m sure the unit will be dead 5mib into my warm up. ;-) .
I did the same Martin. On my last ride, even before I left the garage my low battery warning came up, but I thought sod it, I’ll see how far they go and they lasted the full 3 hour ride. However, the data was out, but quite a bit compered to my previous rides. I changed them again, and on Monday, it was back to normal.
On Tuesday, LIMITS dropped me an email and asked about LR44 and SR44 etc. etc., stating that the ones in the box were crap, apologies, but trying new SR versions should work. So, I have some duracell ones winging their way from Amazon. Hopefully, these will make the difference. LIMITS stated that some people have already reported way over 60 hours on SR batteries with no issues, so fingers crossed. LIMITS also asked me to keep them updated on my battery situation once I swap to SR’s.
Lol, I suspect you are right.
My original batteries gave up after a week (around 4 hours) and over the weekend I replaced them with the more commonly available LR44 as a stop gap until SR44’s arrived. Never once got a low battery warning with the LR44 although results were more erratic and it took longer for things to pair. The brand new SR44’s arrived the other day and based just on one test (too small a sample to form a real conclusion) but every time I put the new SR44’s in and paired the unit, the Garmin was giving me a low battery warning, yet that has been my most stable run :-D
In their email LIMITS did also say….”We are also rerunning our battery life tests to ensure the issue is not with the code.”.
So hopefully if there are code issues they will be found and fixed in a future firmware release.
I’ll be interested to see if the SR’s make any difference, hopefully…
Hi All,
Just received mine as a backer (UK). Fitting was fine, if a little convoluted, but okay.
Not much to say on the power levels as such but my first impression is not good. It is made of the cheapest plastic imaginable. You know sometimes you get offers in petrol/gas stations for some gadget, they always seem to be made of that flimsy plastic that, when bent, goes white. You know, the really horrible stuff?
Well it appears the meter’s housing is made of the same type of material. The battery caps, when I first unscrewed them, felt as though they were going to crack, also why are the battery caps set to undo by turning them clockwise, err???
I give the meter probably a few smashes with an inevitable misplaced cleat/shoe and I’d say it would be time to put the poor thing in a grave having had its cheap exoskeleton broken. Time will tell, but the reports on the broken battery caps give a hint. I was, ignorantly, expecting the casing to be aluminium as this area of a bike always gets bashed around.
Charlie
p.s. I have the silver model
Hi Ray,
A quick question regarding the power readings coming from the Limits.
I’m currently using a Cateye Stealth Evo+ head unit. It only offers limited display options for the power data. Basically displays current (instantaneous) power, avg power and max power (both for total ride time). I’m experiencing power readings that are fluctuating widely (even after the firmware update), it could raise/drop by upto 40 watts over a very short period of time (less than 5 seconds) on roads of constant gradient at a constant cadence and speed. In other words I am not giving it the gas and them backing off causing the peaks in power reading.
Do you think changing the record interval for the Cateye Stealth may help this issue? There are three options available for record interval namely; 1 second, 2 seconds and 5 seconds.
I will be testing the limits on an old sony xperia x8 smartphone with IpBike (app) later in the week hopefully. Then I can display 5 second power which will hopefully be a bit more steady reading. Just have to modify a Sram quickview mount adapter so I can mount the phone on a garmin handlebar mount.
Thanks
Stephen Connor
The fluctuations you see are totally normal for power meters, even accurate ones. Typically changing the recording interval doesn’t help that, but just minimizes the recorded data.
Thanks Ray,
I should’ve mentioned I’m a newbie to power meters. Thanks for the info. I thought I may need to invest in a new head unit but no need now.
got mine saturday. Fitted it. went for “bed in” ride around 25 miles. worked fine, powers seemed what i expected.
Went out sunday, started being intermittent about half way round, then stopped altogether.
At home tried connecting. couldn’t. removed and re inserted batteries. No blue “initialising” led.
replaced battery. same result. Unit appears to be dead.
Have emailed asking for a replacement. will let you know how i get along…
I had that, tried a new set of the commonly available LR44’s no success by the time Limits had responded (2 days later I think) it came back to life but was very erratic with those batteries (I was turning a very light 50rpm and it was giving me 800w and when I upped the cadence but not a full out sprint it was near 3,000w A day later a new set of SR44 arrived in the post though and its giving me pretty stable results again :-)
Supplied batteries have now died on me on my 4th ride which has just been over 2 hours actual use.
Utterly ridiculous state of affairs.
Don’t see why they have sent out dud batteries to everybody and they haven’t yet replied to my support email I made to them several days ago.
Well here’s my experience with the supplied batteries
2 rides in total 3 hours and then the low battery warning
I have done a further 2 hour ride today but will replace the batteries before I go out again.
Battery life is dissapointing!
I had exactly the same issue, replaced them LR44 and still the same crap battery life issue. Replaced with SR44 and I’ve now done about 10 hours and no battery warnings. So, replace with decent SR44’s and you’ll be OK.
installed mine on the weekend and first go today.
Suffice to say I’m riding the tour next year.
Started off and was getting 400W (3s ave) riding steady in zone 2. So after 15 mins or so I stopped to recalibrate.
500W after that!!!!
So at 5.5W/kg I reckon I’m onto a winner – don’t even feel fit at the moment, bit of training and Froome will be eating my dust.
First run on my Limits power meter tonight and on the road the power figures are at least 150 watts too high. Stuck it on an indoor turbo trainer and immediately noticed a total disconnect between pedalling and numbers. So I thought I’d try a few stupid things and pedalled left leg only (right unclipped) and the power dropped to 0w; right leg only (left unclipped) and the power shot up to 280-380w – this is VERY odd given that Limits is only on the left hand side of the bike. What on earth is Limits ‘measuring’?
It measures the users patience.
Where is the like button !
Has anyone got Traner Road to see the limits meter?
Mine paired no problem with TR but would drop out sometimes. I talked to the TR team and its common for a wireless router to interfere. Switched the router off and got a very stable run. The TR team gave me tips to move the router to a new channel that wouldn’t interfere but my router is locked by SKY and its easier just to switch it off.
Thanks HLaB, suspect it’s my dongle that’s the issue.
If you want to ping me an email, I think i can help you with SKY router channel changing. I’ve changed my sky router channel in the past, speed testing and seeing to the fastest.
gdmacr@gmail
Does Limits still recommend 30 second averaging?
Well, three weeks since LIMITS promised to give an updated shipping schedule. Nothing has been provided. Also no updated on the battery cap issue and the unreliable data readings. What the heck is going on at LIMITS?
Has anybody got a Limits Power Meter working with Bluetooth and an iPhone 6s?
I got my Limits Power meter recently and installed it. I also managed to update the firmware through the NRF Toolbox – so at least a part of the iPhone “saw” the Limits.
I generally use the Wahoo Fitness app to record my rides (I use their HR monitor, cadence ans speed sensors). I tried to add the Limits sensor to that app but it was not found.
I also tried to connect the unit in the General Bluetooth settings but it does not “see” the Limits either.
Any suggestions?
I emailed the limits support people but have not heard anything back.
It won’t send power data via bluetooth, only ANT+, bluetooth is only for firmware updates if I understand it correctly.
Jdog
According to the Indiegogo crowdfunding site it is supposed to support Bluetooth – see https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/limits-the-world-s-smartest-cycling-power-meter-smart–3#/
However, they seem to have recently taken off all references to Bluetooth on their actual website.
Bluetooth support was the big reason I decided to support this.
Just got this email from Limits
The initial LIMITS product only allow for Bluetooth connection when the blue LED is on to allow for firmware update. We are currently testing the full Bluetooth code and hope to release this in the near future as an update.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Hey Ray – Here is my bottom line: I am beginning to wonder if it will even be worth my time to install the LIMITS that I will supposedly be getting in a couple of weeks. Any new results from your testing?
I haven’t had a chance to dig into it further. With all the trainer related stuff the last few weeks, my focus has basically been on that. :-/
Ray, did you see the LIMITS response to my questions?
If not, here is a recap:
– they are STILL working on the the battery cap issue
– the last update to cure accuracy problems has not worked
– Bluetooth send AND receive still in the works.
Most of these issues have been known for months.
Is it time to give up on them?
Given their history, what is your confidence that they will be able to fix those issues? Would you give them $300 today for a PM?
I’m not giving up on them yet, it seems like stages et al had similar reported problems except they (Stages) are better in customer relations. I did find Limits did respond to my initial issues however, just not too quickly and eventually replaced my unit. (They actually did that reasonably fast when they decided that was the way to go). My first unit showed a lot of the problems folk talk about, on hindsight I think it was the quality of the batteries. My second unit though has been pretty stable but its only been used indoors so far where temperatures are constant. I’ll see how it holds up in coping with outdoor temperature changes next year; apparently a lot of PM’s struggle with this and at the price I wouldn’t be surprised if LIMITS struggle too.
No, sorry, I haven’t followed the LIMITS stuff as much on Facebook lately. I suspect they’re at the limit of where they can fix things on accuracy. I tend to see that most power meter companies that have issues (accuracy/HW/etc…) usually flat-line around the 3-5 month marker. After that, things are what they are. At least, assuming no major influx of fresh talent with new engineering ideas. By that point, most companies have exhausted all options.
The cap issue is probably easy to fix (well, I know it is from my Eurobike discussions), but takes away time/efforts elsewhere for them.
And BT is probably behind dealing with other things. I get the feeling they outsource a lot of aspects, so if outsourced to a non-sports tech company, this would be pretty complex to implement (as even the majors have struggled here).
A deeper LIMITS review is on my radar over the winter, but given I see nothing at this point that shows any meaningful improvement in accuracy (let alone reliability), it’s taken a bit of a back seat. I’ll basically be collecting LIMITS data aside other power meter testing I’m doing, and then pushing out a review in between those other ones.
I removed mine from the bike I was using on the home trainer, I found
a) the variation was too much compared to just using the trainer power curve, it was justing about with a tolerance of 10-20 watts when i was riding in a steady state.
b) the Q factor wasn’t working for me, my cleats are towards the inside of the shoes, so I was going to need a second pair of shoes for running limits (which I do have now), this I could live with as it was alway part of the plan
I contacted them last month and and this month re: the firmware update.
Last month they said they were testing a beta in test and had 10 backers also involved in this process
This month they said the code didn’t yield the desired improvements and have a new version under test
After months of some terrible and also hilarious updates, newso, and commentary on this whole debacle, I’ve come to the following conclusion:
You probably shouldn’t EVER buy a power meter unless…
1. The company has spent the last five years developing it, or
2. The company name starts with “S”
What I find amazing, is that some people are still buying the powermeter from the Indiegogo site. Don’t people read the comments.
Is nobody doing any accuracy testing anymore?
Any news on upcoming firmware updates and/or IOS and Android apps?
I was informed this week by Limits logistics that the EU backers would finally receive their product from next week.
I really hope the Limits-community has not given up on a reliable working end-product!
Ray said he might be able to provide some more testing later this winter. If you go over to LIMITS Indiegogo site, they claim they are working with several firmware v2.4 Beta testers. BUT and its a big but, they have repeatedly promised to provide updates based on that testing. It has yet to materialize. They said this three months ago, “We will update you early next week on the outcome of the testing.” No update appears on their site. Then 15 days ago they said this, “we’re working through the various points since the product launched. We’ve engaged with 10 backers to support beta testing of v2.4 firmware but this did not provide the improvement we expected so further tuning of the hysteresis is in progress. We are reviewing changes to the battery end caps this week as well as a protective cover. We have a Bluetooth version under test. We will post a update on these points when we have significant enough data to say they resolve our backers concerns.” No updates since that post either. BOTTOM LINE: no one, including LIMITS, knows if this thing will ever be accurate and useful. Ray noted in an email that LIMITS may have reached the point where improvement is unlikely. My LIMITS will arrive this week and I am not even sure that I will install it!!
What motivation is there for Limits to improve [it]? They already have everyone’s money and there is already a ton of negative reviews out there that they have to fight against with a PR person / department that is less communicative that a petulant teenager.
When your unit arrives is put it up for sale on ebay and try and get some money back; then go buy a Stages, 4iiii, Pioneer, or (like me) wait for Shimano’s meter to be released this spring.
Yet another unbelievable (yet totally believable) update from LIMITS. Now they have annouced they are closing the indiegogo campaign and are to start officially selling the product through retailers.
Forgetting for a minute, that the meters are not worth the materials the are made out of, what about backers who have not recieved their meters yet? And what about replies to the many unanswered questions asked by backers who have revieved their meters?
When the campaign closes, it presumably also closes the only channel backers have to attempt to get any response from LIMITS, and LIMITS can simply forget the many backers who will not/never received the product they backed, or have to have a public forum where people who have received their units can voice their opinions.
The campaign may be closing, but they have not fulfilled all backers “perks”. How do indiegogo feel about this?
My guess is they ran out of money (again), and now needed a capital boost from retailers and that supplying new retailers will have higher priority that sending backers their units and getting the meters to a usable state (if that is even possible).
Soon it will be officially be the “Worlds Worst Power Meter”.
“Limits” is a very appropriate name. Here are my top ten reasons the name fits this vending machine quality piece of junk:
1) Limited production meant its delivery was more than a year late.
2) Limited updates about why it was taking so long
3) Your patience will be tested to the Limits trying to install
4) Limited times it calibrates correctly
5) Limited (Actually no) power readings
6) Limited life span of the crappy plastic battery caps (Mine fell off three times riding in my driveway)
7) Limited time to ride because you”ll be trying to fix your broken power meter
8) Limited life expectancy because the battery caps will allow water to get in
9) Limited funds because you paid $279 for something that isn’t worth 2 cents
And my number ten reason Limits is the perfect name for this piece of crap…
10) Limited (and I mean NO) return correspondence from the customer service department!
Since Ray for very legitimate reasons has stopped testing Limits for the time being, I’ve set up a page to collect some more test data. I’ve received my unit two days ago and can only compare it to a Stac Zero and by no means as professional as Ray, but it’s maybe better than nothing. All the data I collect also goes directly to Limits. I had been in contact with them on Tuesday and they wanted to include the data in their beta testing. For the time being, I’m on the publicly available firmware v2.1, however.
link to sites.google.com
My limits experience: link to youtu.be
:(
Since I’ve never believed a single word of any of their updates, I have no reason to believe the last update, or that they actually have a supplier lined up to sell these through retail outlets.
I am more inclined to think that final update was just a deceiptful way to worm out of the indiegogo campaign and the need to post any more updates, or replies to the backers queries about their non-delivered products, or address any of the problems with the PM’s themselves.
Even at the end of the campaign, they could not be honest and admit the project was a failure which has now closed. Gordon Drummond is a shameful person indeed.
Let’s call a spade a spade here. As power meters go Limits in in chocolate teapot territory.
I have done a number of checks on mine also available my experience was not good: link to youtube.com
I am talking with a number of people owning those PMs and we seem to have the same or slightly different problems.
What suprises me is that the rides of Ray were not so abysmally off like ours. So are we missing something on the installation? I trully followed them up to the letter with calibrated torque wrenches etc.
Best,
The Mig
I suspect it’s because I went/go to a heck of a lot of trouble on the installation/calibration pieces for perfection and ensuring I’m waiting for temp adjustements/etc each time. More than the average bear in some cases.
I could be wrong but I’m finding results are heavily linked to pedalling style. The smoother that is, the better the results but any erraticness, it drops out and gives bad results. Its forced me to develop a smoother and rounded pedaling style. By that logic Ray you must already have a good smooth pedaling style :-)
I have followed the YouTuve lead of a couple of people here and uploaded an exoress installation guide to help everyone optimise the results they can get with the Limits using the latest firmware.
The guide is here:
link to youtube.com
Hi,
I’ve suffered the poor battery life, and the broken battery cap, and sent a unit back to be replaced. Not fitted the new one yet.
The one good thing I did do, was to buy a 9mm allen key it makes the fitting and removal process so much easier.
Let’s hope they sort the problems out asap.
My first unit failed after its first soaking and they replaced it reasonably fast. The first unit was pretty bad for battery life but touch wood this new unit seems relatively better (up to 2 months battery life) and seems to fluctuate less but I’ve only used it indoors so far and concentrated on my pedalling techniques :-/
been using mine on the turbo for 3+ months, seems quite stable, not sure about the level if it’s reading high or low, nothing to compare with but consistent and therefore usable
decided to move it on tho, got some funds coming, going double sided :-)
Hi Graham, not being able to compare is not deterministic of how it works, we can check some of your power data if you can link some strava activities and give you an indication.
Best,
The Mig
Well…. here is my 2cents.
It had a few problems like battery, firmware, cap etc. And still having problem connect to my 920xt.
But! After spending 1 week iron things out, including new 377 battery, the power meter actually work quite well. More stable than my powertap G3. Let’s say for less than $300, it earned my approval.
Sorry it is 357 battery NOT 377….
I finding similar (except I’m using a 1000 and it connects well) and its quite sensitive to pedaling style (any eraticness and it drops out) but that actually helped me I think become a better pedaler :-)
Hi guys,
Interesting info but you know as PMs tend to be more complicated/fluctuating due to many factors, the saying “we trust in God, all the rest bring data” is very applicable here.
Having said that as an owner I have been checking LIMITS with the company vs other PMs/smart trainers.
You can see the data here: link to docs.google.com
(Unit ID:12425). The Cadence and HR are pretty spot on (and was used for verifying the timestamps), however Power is out by ~125% in comparison. There are basically two issues identified with the datasets we recorded. First there are “jumps” in the measurements due the zero crossing hysteresis, an issue that a new firmware is being prepared. For the “low power” readings this is in progress, it could be a faulty unit, or a gauging issue at the percentage error, can’t tell 100% now as it is still under investigation.
What is positive from this situation is that the company has a technical team able to do these discussions and the knowledge they build from v1 of this PM will be used for a better one later one for sure. The question is, will we have a good enough PM to use now and trust until v2 is out? This kind of situation also happened with Stages – you can see many forum posts with unhappy v1 users – it is just that Stages has a better customer service and sorted things fast(er) I believe.
Best,
The Mig
Yikes, those are some of the worst graphs I’ve ever seen.
And just to be clear – this was nothing like Stages (accuracy-wise). They had a few very minor outlier issues that would occur in very specific (and somewhat rare) scenarios. They fixed them in about 60 days.
I’m going with a faulty unit, its a massive difference you have there and doesn’t even reflect your Elite Drivo increases in power. I’ve not ran Limits along side virtual power for a while (I cancelled my TR subscription). Limits for me was nearly 30% greater on average but it does reflect increases in effort where it was down 7% on the max compared to Virtual. I’m unsure how good virtual power is though, could be wrong but I think the resistance profile of the fluid trainer would be affected by temperature so virtual would underestimate things until the turbo warmed up :-/
Limits: link to connect.garmin.com
Elite: link to connect.garmin.com
FWIW these are my last two sessions and LIMITs seems quite stable on the first more comfortable Tuesday session but drops out a bit on the more stressful Thursday (VO2 max session) where I changed position more :-/
Tues: link to connect.garmin.com
Thu: link to connect.garmin.com
Also reckon you’ve got a bad one Might, mine. Broadly, mine matched virtual power until 220 watts, them started to lag, to the extent that once VP was circa 300, limits was only 270ish.
Yours isn’t even hitting that range.
I’m out now, bizarrely with £65 profit
gla
Also reckon you’ve got a bad one Mig, mine. Broadly, mine matched virtual power until 220 watts, them started to lag, to the extent that once VP was circa 300, limits was only 270ish.
Yours isn’t even hitting that range.
I’m out now, bizarrely with £65 profit
gla
Indeed guys I think I have a problematic one.
I have been speaking with the support of LIMITS and I will send back so they can examine it also under warranty.
Cheers,
The Mig
Limits suggested new batteries. Here’s the results: link to youtube.com
Interesting that change in your riding position affects results. My own unit gives quite ridiculous results – +100% most of the time – but when I stand on the pedals, measurements seem more sensible.
Could it be pedalling style? Ant+ interference from DI2, HRM? Or a manufacturing fault…???
To see my impressive FTP=517 ride, look here:
link to connect.garmin.com
Never heard of interference between ANT+ accessory types (from WiFi sure, but not between them).
Honestly – the explanation is simple: It’s just not a full developed power meter. Like any power meter, there are tons of things that must be worked through in engineering that take years. Years didn’t occur here, and the resultant is a product that doesn’t work in even the most ideal scenarios.
First outdoor ride, and the plastic Limits has broken!!! No answers from Limits, of course
Another photo
I think we have found the reasons of the low/abnormal power readings and I believe it was installation.
I noticed in my bePROs on a recent trip that one of the pedals drifted away significantly after the first ride from the alignment mark and the power started behaving like LIMITS. (for those that don’t know my story I had a very low reading and reading a lot of zeros or had cutoffs).
After torquing the LIMITS between in my case putting @44NM between LIMITS and crank and @25NM between KEO pedal and LIMITS it seems to have stabilised it. Mind you that first torque level is above the 40NM max in the manual. Calibration value 165 a few times, the 520 reads my power “correctly” based on my reactions.
I am very conservatively positive, however I will do a video soon with new readouts to put it in the test as I have 2 other power meters to test with the Drivo and the bePROs.
So I’ve had my Limits for about 6 months so far and my impressions are not great. I’ll leave the question over the accuracy of the power data to Ray and others for me as a casual cyclist it appealed to me as a entry method into using power data in my rides.
Well to be honest if I had bought it in a shop I’d want my money back! The battery life is really bad, so much so that even being careful in replacing the batteries both sets of caps that cover the batteries have split. They are clearly not fit for purpose and I fail to see how these have gone through any real testing. I have emailed limits about replacements and heard nothing. Not great after sales support.
Has anyone found battery caps elsewhere that are better?
Will I persevere with it? well maybe if I can get some battery caps and a back up stash of spare batteries.
There is a demand for a reasonable priced power meter for the causal rider who does not want to spend upwards of £300 on a power meter. I’m sure prices will continue to drop and we’ll soon see a decent budget solution.
This article needs a date stamp (as all texts do in serious journalism and writing), even if it can be inferred by the dates in the comments.
Is the ~2 cm change in Q factor not an issue at all? I’m happy with my Stages so I’ve no reason to install the Limits I funded and really no motivation given true comments here and the Q-factor change freaks me out!
Its never been a problem for me. In the 7 months I’ve used it.
Hi, I’m in Australia and have yet to receive my product after waiting for 2 years. I was patient and used to look forward to the regular comedy excuses every 2 weeks or so. They’ve now stopped and given the last update was in March I’ve now got to concede that I’ve been scammed. Does anyone else have any idea how you can get any sort of recourse/ refund.
To be honest Tim you’ve been no less conned than if you had it turn up. It’s next to useless.
how did you calibrate/set crank length. limits website says on head unit. i have garmin 800, i cant find where, regards rob
Does anyone have recent experience with Limits support? I havent received a reply to 2 emails for 4 weeks.
No response to FB message either.
If there wasnt a KS update i would think they are dead..
Are you really surprised by their lack of response given all the comments comments above & their history so far??
Actually yes – since people reported getting at least some feedback.
I would not be surprised by slow resolution/replacement delivery, but i am surprised they are not even able to send email “we read your email and we will have a solution next year” or whatever.. .. *Sigh*
The response I received when I had problems with cracking battery caps wasn’t fast but they did respond in about a week. I found the unit quite good indoors over winter (although heavily dependent on pedaling style, any jerkiness it’d drop out). Out doors now its summer that dropping out was more of an issue to me when pacing TT’s (particularly on descents) so I bit the bullet and bought the Be Pro S.
Yes I received and email and some battery caps a week or so ago no problem.
Apart from the lack of usable product, and actually we really don’t know what % of backers ever received anything. Maybe 100? out of 2000? There’s no way to really know the truth about that.
What actually truth there is can be found here:
link to beta.companieshouse.gov.uk
There you can see the companies filings, “accounts”, shareholder lists etc. They file their accounts as a “dormant company”. No financial transactions pass through their company, no assets, no capital, no profits/loss. The $500,000+ that they received from Indiegogo backers is completely unaccounted for.
It’s beyond a “bad deal”, Surely this activity is illegal.
Doing some digging the company that is trading is actually “Battery@ Limited”. Its accounts can be found here: link to beta.companieshouse.gov.uk
In essence, the company is insolvent and could be wound-up at any time…
Interesting, thanks for digging.
Bit more, according to Companies House, Kenneth Norton is involved with a few companies.
link to beta.companieshouse.gov.uk
Batteries@ is one of them. (Or “CHE_EVC.LTD” as it was known until March 2017).
At companycheck.co.uk, you can see an easy summary of all the companies for the last 6 years:
link to companycheck.co.uk
And specifically for Battteries@/CHE_EVC:
link to companycheck.co.uk
Maybe the money obtained through indiegogo and wherever else they obtained any (gov grants etc) went into this company and not Limits Technology Limited.
But in the end, that company is worth minus 0.75million pounds. So yep, doomed you would assume.
God knows who else they owe money to as well as the backers, but I guess the backers who have received nothing (or are hopelessly awaiting refunds or useless replacement parts) don’t count in their official liabilities, so that’s 0.75 million + all backers owed to!
Way to blow almost £1.5M Kenneth. Bet it was a good party.
Er no they don’t OWE any of the backers anything. Zero. As a backer you have no equity in the company. If you feel ripped off perhaps you should have read the TOS on the Kickstarter page before you agreed to help “FUND” the development of this project.
For Kickstarter read Indiegogo..
I’m sorry, but their indiegogo campaign referred to “orders” and “sales” for an existing prototype that just needed funding to go into production.
The reality was they had a peice of plastic with no-innards and took 500K in money from people who thought they had working prototype.
A quote from Nov 10, 2015, when then reached the end of the first funding target, and opened another one to obtain more money from unsuspecting customers…
“We have reached 1912 ORDERS which makes us overwhelmed by the phenomenal response we have received by cyclists at all levels and validation that LIMITS is recognized as a truly unique power meter.
We are getting close to the end of the second wave of LIMITS Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign
However, as we believe in transparency and this has been one of key values driving this crowdfunding project, we need to announce to you that this number has brought us close to the end of the second wave of LIMITS Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.
So, we’d like to offer you the last chance to BUY LIMITS from $279 and receive in January…”
Note the words, “orders”, and “buy” (which I have capitalized in my quote for clarity)
Good luck with the law suit.. if you really believe you have a leg to stand on why not call your bank and start a charge back on the card you used. Your contention seems to be you paid for something and it was not delivered.. right ??
Or wait a minute did you help fund a project which just did not result in success.. Seems to me that a lot of people here have fundamentally mis understood how these campaigns work.
If LIMITS had been honest in their campaign, I’m sure a lot of people would have been quite happy to “fund” a project that might never have worked.
The fact that LIMITS promised they had working prototypes ready to go into production, with claims of proven accuracy etc etc, and referred to their “product” as “orders” and “sales” is what pissed everyone off.
No backer really expects anything back from them, they’re just all extremely pissed off at being lied to.
Further, if you are lied to by someone in order for them to obtain your money. Then that is fraud.
Their indiegogo campaign was legally fraudulent, and to the sum of 0.5Million dollars.
But defend them all you wish.
Just in case you believe they were not fraudulent, here its the definition:
“fraud: noun
wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.
“he was convicted of fraud”
synonyms: fraudulence, sharp practice, cheating, swindling, trickery, artifice, deceit, deception, double-dealing, duplicity, treachery, chicanery, skulduggery, imposture,
embezzlement;
More: a person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities.”
I think the last paragraph describes LIMITS 100%.
Clearly this is Fraud. What I would like to know is how Indiegogo can continue to support a clearly Fraudulent operation. There are always going to be scam artists, but Indiegogo have been less that pro active and deserve scorn too .
Here’s what I received from their ironically named “Customer Happiness team” registering my complaint early June
“Thank you for contacting Indiegogo’s Customer Happiness team!
We’ve received your message and will review it shortly. A member of our team will respond as soon as possible!
Please note, we’ve recently received an increased number of requests, and as a result, it may take us a little longer than normal to respond. We apologize in advance for the inconvenience.
Thank you for being a valued member of our community!”
Still haven’t heard……Will I be supporting anything on them again. Not likely. I’ve had a good experience on Kickstarter though for the Geo Orbital. It’s certainly a model of how to run a campain.
I see a lot of comments about fraud and there being no product to sell.
I can confirm that I received my Limits power meter (I have it for several months). It seems to work consistently but I cannot vouch for its accuracy as I have no way of comparing it with any other power meter.
I find it very helpful for pacing on climbs.
This is a classic case of buyer beware. I was shocked that people continued to purchase the product after all of rays posts. Even if you did receive the product, you would just get an expensive paper weight. Everyone who purchased the product fell for their marketing, from the very beginning Ray was sceptical, said the timelines were tight and he had multiple red flags about it.
Yes, but I can see why. This or a shoe insert is in theory the perfect place for a power meter. Then the power meter manufacturer no longer gets to decide on your cleats, your pedals, your crank. Every time Ray reviews a DFPM the comments quickly turn to “will it work with this crank, will it work with these pedals” and the answer is usually “no”. So I can see the attraction in spite of the risk. It’s a shame LIMITS didn’t have the wherewithal to make this work, and it’d be nice if someone with the resources and actual engineering talent could give something like this a try. A truly portable DFPM that didn’t restrict component choices would be a great thing to have.
I too received mine OK and they sent me a replacement when it failed. I found it heavily dependent on pedaling style (If it wasn’t perfectly smooth it’d drop out if you were perfectly smooth when compared to VP and my current BeProS I think it would overread) but hey ho for me it was a step in the right direction in the development of a cheaper and non cleat/crank based unit.
Ray,
A Spanish bike news web just announced a week ago that LIMITS will be distributed in the Spain, Portugal and Andorra market by Alpcross at 299,9 EUR. Is it possible that they solve the issues or is it just a very irresponsible commercial strategy?
Regards, Paco
It’s practically theft is what it is.
That’s scary. Here is a website that discusses it
link to translate.google.ca
That news story is from Jan 2017, around that time Limits did post in their indeogogo updates that they were withdrawing the Indiegogo campaign due to establishing commercial contract.
Also, the claims made are just a repeat of original Limits anyway, its unlikely they’ve made any improvements to get them anything like close to those claims.
So, it is probably old/dead news and based on recent developments (or lack of!) there’s a high chance that this deal never materialized.
Still not a good read for “backers” (customers) who still haven’t received their “perk” (orders), fwiw.
Hi (ANT+ Drop)
I currently have a Garmin Edge 1000 and I have not been able to pair it correctly with my Limits Powermeter.
The issue is that I get the Garmin Edge 1000 to connect and recognize the Limits Powermeter, but when I go to calibration I give Error 0 and the Edge 1000 of the Powermeter is disconnected.
It is important to note that the Limits potentiometer turns on the blue LED indicator light on the connection, once it is switched it changes to red and it is just at that point where it does not calibrate and gives the error (Error 0), then the potentiometer of the unit Edge 1000.
This issue does not happen with the Garmin Forerruner 920TX, the Limits potentiometer connects, then accepts calibration and confirms that it is ok with the green light blinking and it goes out. After this operation is connected and allows to calibrate as many times as necessary.
Information Edge 1000
Unit ID: 3932497443
Sofware Version 14.30
IC: 1792A-02276
FCC ID: IPH-02276
Information Limits Powermeter
ID: 636665
No. md: 1
No. fab: 103
Serial No .: 1594751153
Sofware Version: 2.10
Bateries its OK SR44
I Aprreciated your support!
Regards,
Luis Fernando
Hola amigo. Ese problema se da con las ultimas versiones de los software de garmin. Yo tengo el edge 520 y con el software 12,4 y 12,5 da ese problema. Se reinicia una vez que se vincula. Cambia a un software del 2016 o principios de 2017 y podras calibrar sin problemas. Yo les envié un video a los chicos de limits, y para variar no responden
link to youtube.com
yo ahora tengo problemas de medición desde esos loop infinitos, solo entrega la cadencia correctamente. La potencia marca unas 8 veces superior, luego pasa a 0W y la cadencia correcta. Pedaleo con el pie derecho y marca 500W sin siquiera tocar el pedal
THIS JUST IN….
It’s Been A While
Dear Backers,
It’s been a far longer and considerably more difficult journey than any of us anticipated but we’re still here. We’ve been working on the GenII LIMITS ensuring the feedback from the field is incorporated in this next generation of the LIMITS Power Meter.
We believe we have highlighted and addressed the key feedback and are now working our way through the design verification test suite ensuring that all the changes and updates do indeed address your feedback. In parallel we are lining up a build with our manufacturer but to reach our price point we need to manufacture 3,000pcs so before committing to the build we must be 100% sure the product is fit for purpose before exiting the qualification phase and entering the manufacturing phase, we trust that neither of these are too far away now.
We can but apologise for those of you still waiting on your LIMITS and promise you will be the first in line from the next build for a GenII LIMITS.
Our continued thanks for your support and long-standing patience.
Team LIMITS
I received it too.
I’m still waiting…zzz.
So did I. Makes me think that they and Indiegogo are trying to skim more money in a new fraud campaign. Surely there’s not 3000 more suckers out there. Surely not.
I wonder if those of us (including me) who will supposedly get a GenII because we didn’t get a gen1 are included in that 3000?
Since August 2016, the power meter has never been received. Who can tell me where to go on this issue?
Not sure who is still holding out for the Limits Gen2. One of my friends has been told he will get his in a few weeks, well that was a few weeks ago… I am still using my Gen1 Limits all be it with the latest beta firmware which I have been using for I guess nearly a year. I must just be lucky mine tracks within 2-4% of my TACX trainer every time and I have not had any real odd things happen out on the road. Battery caps are shocking limits have supplied me with quite a few even though I put them on by hand and battery life with the beta firmware is better I guess they go for about 80 hours. Here come the interesting bit. Changed to a new Edge 520 from my old Edge 500 recently, at this point the Limits stopped working. There seamed to be pairing issues, calibration issues and the RED LED would come on during these processes. I was running the latest version of firmware on the Edge 520. Out of interest I re installed Limits firmware, no improvement, took Limits off the bike re-installed it, no improvement, checked my old edge 500 worked GREAT!!! that worked. I then downgraded my firmware on my new edge 520 to a 11.10 and guess what worked first time, paired, calibrated tested against my TACX no problem. Just a bit of advise if you see the RED LED of doom during pairing or calibration most likely this is Edge firmware.
By the way I do think I am lucky with mine, Limits need to pull their finger out assuming they are still going..
Hi Jason,
Any chance you would have a link to the beta software?
Cheers,
Stephen
I have limits production firmware 2.4.zip there is no download link available.
Sorry I can email it assuming you have an email address you are able to give me..
@Jason – if you don’t mind, can you message me on facebook @ link to facebook.com
I would like to give my email to you over messenger to possible get the limits 2.4 firmware.
Thanks for your help!!
@Jason – would you mind messaging me on facebook so I can give you my email address for the 2.4 firmware?
here is the link: facebookcom/jeramy.carney
Be sure to add the dot between facebook and come.
Thanks
@Jason I would be very grateful if you could forward the link to me:
allan dot muir at btclick dot com
Many thanks
Allan
@jason please send me the 2.4 firmware at -> themig321 at gmail.com and I will put up a download link to Google Drive for anyone that visits here. Thanks in advance.
Hi. Any chance to get the firmware? Thanks in advance
HI Jason,
My apologies, I’ve just seen this now. If you still have v2.4 software I can message you my email on faceboook
Does anyone still need the 2.4 firmware, I’ve got it. Not sure it changes much
Hi Russell, I would like a copy – despite having removed the Limits; just to see if it does improve anything for me…
Many Thanks
Allan
allan.muir at btclick.com
Hi Russel, can you please mail it at -> themig321 @ gmail.com
I still have a unit that I will upgrade to see if something changes. Many thanks.
Theo
Hi Russell, please could you email me the firmware 2.4? Many thanks!
jamieradford at Gmail com
Anyone notice their Facebook page suddenly came to life again today? Here was a post they recently made:
We’ve been busy, despite being quiet! ?
We’re really excited to say this is the first in a series of posts, to tell you what we’ve been up to and update you on what’s happening with LIMITS Power Meters and with Limits Technology too.
Firstly, to make things easier for everyone who already have a LIMITS Power Meter, we’ve just set up a User Group where you can share tips, ask questions and get answers. Please head over to join. It’s an open group!
We’re also running a survey to get your views on the 1st Generation power meter. Please keep an eye out for an email from us, as we’d really appreciate your opinion. We’re also going to include a nice extra something in the email for you, so keep your eyes peeled. ?
Secondly, we’ve already been in touch with the small minority of original backers who haven’t gotten their power meter yet. If you’ve not seen an email yet, please direct message us and we’ll sort it out.
Now…we’re really proud to announce that we’ve completed the development on our 2nd Generation LIMITS Power Meter. We’ve taken all the feedback and lessons from our 1st Generation Power Meter (yes, there were a lot them!) to build one that’s more robust, more accurate and more consistent.
And is fully compatible with every bike.
And it’s easy to install.
And is affordable for everyone.
And our comparison data with the (extremely expensive) market leaders is great. Really great! We’ll share them with you in upcoming posts!
We think it’s going to rock the market! (obviously ?)
Watch this space folks!
Hi Ryan,
I have seen that limits powermeter is back. link to limitspowermeters.com
Do you know if they are delivering their power meters with indicate on the web? I am interested in them but I do not see anyone on the web that indicates that they are serving the products.
Thank you
I bought a Limits power meter and have just got back from my first meaningful ride with it set up on my bike. I make no claims to have tested it in a scientific or rigorous way. I just fitted it as per the instructions and rode my bike.
The first ride was a leg loosener on the turbo. I couldn’t get any power figures regardless of repeated calibrations, moving the Garmin around etc. Then suddenly bingo, power figures appeared. I have no idea what I did differently but there was a reading showing what seemed like sensible wattage numbers.
Thinking I’d cracked it I rode my bike outside. I did about 33 miles with a few decent climbs. I calibrated the power meter after ten minutes as per the advice. For some of the ride it produced what appeared to be sensible cadence figures. There were periods of drop out and it stopped producing any towards the end (see below for perhaps why). It only produced power information for about twenty five minutes. The figures were higher than I would expect to see from my 4iiii Precision Power Meter. I recalibrated it more than half a dozen times while out. It became quite irritating but I really wanted it to work.
When I got home and got off the bike I noticed that at some point during the ride one of the fiddley battery caps and the enclosed battery had disappeared. The roads in North Yorkshire are pretty atrocious but having fitted the caps as per the instructions they should not just shake loose and fall out. Regardless, this does not explain why it produced some figures for a bit and none which I thought were accurate.
As mentioned, I really wanted this to work but if you want a power meter, my suggestion would be to save up and get one that works.
@John Sewell – Did you buy the new version from the Limits website recently? If so, that’s a really disappoining review. The battery caps were an acknowledged weak point of the original design that was supposed to have been rectified with the new design.
Jamie, yes, brand new from the website. The customer service is very helpful and I cannot fault their support. However, it was a simple decision to return the unit because ultimately it didn’t work as it was supposed to do.
Hi, I have just realized limits has a new product, the limits bia. Have you heard about it? Will you give it a try?
link to bikeradar.com