Hi, I’ve been experiencing this for a while and was wondering if anyone new how to fix it. On any watt bike I warm up at 200-250 watts for 5 minutes without much trouble at all, but on my kicker snap, I struggle holding 230 watts for 5 minutes. When I try hold this on wahoo my heart rate sores to 95% and on a watt bike I barely sweat. I have tried spin downs and the advanced calibration but that hasn’t helped. I know I could just do an FTP year with this low reading and deal with the low readings but I would much prefer if I could see what I am actually putting in.
How confident are you that the watt bikes are calibrated? When you say “any” it sounds like you’re using a few of them. Which suggests they are in a gym somewhere? If so, do they calibrate them? Do you before each ride?
Other than that, the best way to test this is using a bike with a calibrated power meter on it. Or another rider who might concur that the wattage seems low if they test it (caveat here though, I have a LH crank power meter that read higher than my kickr snap when I displayed both but I just think that showed a pedalling imbalance because I can get the figures to match as well as easily doing some big pushes with my left leg to create fake higher power readings)
Then there’s the solutions - you could try what some people with power meters do, trying to loosen and tighten tyre tension after calibration until the wattage matches their power meter (although same caveat as above, if it’s a LH power meter you might be making it wrong) you could use a power meter to connect to zwift. You could try getting wahoo to send you a replacement. Or you could get another trainer.
Most of these options are going to cost money though.
This trainer is going to put out the power figures that it does so if you keep using it you kind of have to ride based on its power figures.
Lastly, do you have a big fan? Because struggling to ride at a wattage you find easy to ride somewhere else could be as simple as the somewhere else being a bigger, cooler room, or outdoors. Indoors can really stymie your performance especially at the point when you start sweating buckets.
How old is the Snap? If it’s the first generation like what I had then you could be out of luck with power accuracy. Mine was way off from what my power meter said. Exchanged it and the replacement was just as bad. Ended up getting a refund and buying a Hammer. I gather later models were more reliable / accurate. Like you I did countless advanced spindowns / regular spindowns. Wahoo support when they could be bothered replying to my support tickets weren’t interested and said the problem was my power meter. Total bullshit and I now have a second power meter and this is almost watt for watt with my power meter that I was using with the Snap.