Avio PowerSense Powermeter - owner first impression

Any owners care to give feedback? Avio have a Black Friday offer at £149 including fitting on your own crank.

I’m on holidays so hoping that I have enough clearance for it!

https://www.avio.mobi/product-category/cycling/

It appears the unit itself is more, however the the install is quoted at that price. I would check DCRainmaker or @GPLama for their reviews of this Pm. I’ve never heard of the company but I that doesn’t mean anything really.

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Yeah, it’s quite a deal as It’s the PM plus fitting. All I need to do is send them the crank,

I’ve taken the plunge at that price as they are a new UK start up by the looks of things.

DCR appears to have test units but to early for a full review

They are an Oxford based startup - they have experience of using strain gauges for power measurement in the rowing world. They have been testing their units for a while now (I’ve been following their facebook feed), and if they are reasonably accurate £149 is an absolute bargain. I have to say I’ve not actually seen or used one, so don’t take this as a recommendation, just further info…

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Don’t hold your breath for mine. I’m not exactly feeling enough love to give them a day or two of my time given I’m just some random also-ran hack getting tagged in their DCR post :slight_smile: They’d want to have something special for an ANT+ / single sided power meter.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqIPBzuhlhk/

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Who even listens to “other reviewers” anyway? :stuck_out_tongue:

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@GPLama Maybe you could have a quiet word with the main man and see what he thinks? :wink:

Joking aside, it just shows how careful companies need to be with their social media marketing, although I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate and they’ll be keen to get feedback from you

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I secured one of these in 2017 when the original release was scheduled, unfortunately back then their strain gauge supplier just disappeared & stopped responding. So regrettably I requested a refund rather than being out of pocket for a product I may never have received.

They are a pleasant and approachable company and if I hadn’t already secured a back-up PM I would probably be considering this again.

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Well, here’s my crank all safely arrived at Avio HQ ready for the first stage of the process!

It’s going to be used for outdoor training to compliment my indoor TR sessions, and for pacing on ultra distance rides - 300 to 400k stuff :slight_smile:

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Not to mention they can’t even spell your name right. :roll_eyes::joy:

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Well, they seem to have a digital marketing guy working there so hopefully he’ll pick up on this and send @GPLama a bit of love.

Eagerly awaiting the return of my crank next week. Seems like they do a proper professional job with the factory fit including laser etching of the crank before fitting the PM which makes it even more of a bargain. :slight_smile:

So, to great excitement it arrived today, in a very snazzy box. On first inspection it looks like a very neat and professional job, and pretty stealthy

So I popped the battery in and turned on my two garmin devices, an edge 810 and 1000. I run both on my Audax bike as it’s always handy to have a back up when riding long distance self supported. To cut a long story short it paired to both devices as quick as I could bring up the pairing pages!

And most importantly, it showed up in the trainerroad app :slight_smile:

Two minutes with my torque wrench and I had the crank fitted, looks pretty neat.

All ready for the first test on Saturday, 200km of irish roads and weather!

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Very happy with the performance of this PM. It was easy to connect, calibrate and it gave me constant data throughout an 8 hour ride in shocking weather. The lack of Bluetooth would be my only minor gripe.

Looking forward to the big boys running some comparison tests on it.

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got a code through with mine
PowerSenseFFS149
they said its good for ten days after my pm was delivered and can use it with friends.
Black friday price was 149 so its the same as that. chris.

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I’ve fitted mine but it seems I’ve miscalibrated it. My 6 & 4kg weights actually weigh 6.4 and 4.07kg :sob: Also, stupidly, I couldn’t figure out why calibrating it at ride start with my Elemnt didn’t work until I re-read the manual and saw that the crank needed to be at 6 o’clock.

Better try again with the water bag instead. It’s a big shame that the calibration app is Android only. If that info was on the website I missed it. Had to borrow a phone to do the calibration.

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The manual really needs some work. :frowning:

Anyway, here is a very short DCR analyzer of the PowerSense (on Elemnt) vs. Powertap P1 (on TR - hence “Black Giant -5”) that I did last night: DC Rainmaker Analyzer

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Agree on the manual, I’m very glad I had mine done in the factory.

@rjessop they look pretty close overall, there’s a big difference on the L/R field though? What inference should be taken from that seeing as its a LHS only pm?

Would the avio powermeter fit on a bike with bottom bracket brakes?

I think the short answer is “ignore it”. My PowerTap P1 pedals are connected to TR on my phone via Bluetooth and I never see any left/right split difference in the rides synced from TR to Strava so I assume that something like this is the case:

  1. Connecting to both pedals independently via bluetooth is not possible so no LR split is available
  2. Split data is available but TR doesn’t currently use it (and might not ever do so), so for consistency it puts out left and right as the same value

Single-sided power meters just take the value and double it, assuming that your pedalling balance is 50/50, to give overall power data. So I think what we’re seeing here is just two platforms presenting data differently.

What I could do is pair my P1s to my Garmin, my Avio to my Elemnt and my Kickr to TrainerRoad and present some really confusing data :laughing: Maybe I’ll do that tonight…

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It’d be difficult to give a definitive answer but I think “probably not”. They do have a FAQ on clearance available here: https://www.avio.mobi/a-little-clearance/

I have a BMC TimeMachine (I call it my “race weapon” with a massive spoonful of aspiration/delusion) that has brakes on the chainstays and on that particular bike it’s a definite “no” :sweat_smile: but of course your bike will be different!