Any idea of which is a more accurate power value? Zwifts ZPower or Kinetic’s InRide?
From what I have gathered, both are making estimates of power output based on known trainer characteristics and how fast the wheel is spinning.
To be honest, I can’t figure out how Kinetic’s InRide is identifying cadence without a sensor … all it knows is how fast the rear wheel is spinning. It doesn’t know what gear I’m in or how hard I’m working.
Short answer is neither…
Virtual power is mostly about precision not accuracy. Meaning it will help you know if you are getting faster than you were 6mths ago. Not you are faster than your mate on another virtual power system or powermeter.
As for cadence my understanding is that cadence is estimated by observing the natural oscillation of power, or in this case speed. Think of it this way. With each down stroke you are causing a micro acceleration to the speed of the wheel which then slows until the next down stroke. I could be way off on this as its just a guess in how the tech works.
Haven’t tried ZPower but I used InRide on a KK with Pro Flywheel for a couple of years. Simultaneously tracked cadence with a Garmin Edge 500 and Garmin Speed/Cadence sensor.
The InRide cadence was typically lower than that reported by the Garmin – often much lower (5-10 rpm). Since the Garmin was measuring actual, physical rpm, I concluded that InRide was not reliable for measuring cadence.
As an aside, I found InRide to be generally unreliable. Many days it just wouldn’t connect and often when it did connect it would give me wildly incorrect power numbers. The KK trainer was excellent as a dumb trainer but it was awful for any “smart” applications.
For what it’s worth, I just received my inride back from kinetic after sending it in for their free upgrade from vers 1.0 to 2.0. This essentially makes my kinetic rock n roll same as their new rock n roll smart. It’s early, but I ran it through a workout session yesterday and it seemed to work just fine. Note though that I use my wahoo blue sc for the cadence and inride for the power.
It will be interesting to see how it goes. The wahoo unit was working fine with virtual power but I thought the inride might be more accurate - since its developed for the trainer. Curious to see what others think.
Bob,
I’m defiitely intersted to hear about any early feedback you have about using the power from the InRide 2.0 vs the Wahoo Blue SC as that is what I am currently using. Do you find the InRide to be more accurate for you? Has the cadence feedback improved?
I’m taking a bit of a hybrid approach. Inride power seems to be consistent - but I don’t have any other power meter to compare the inride and the wahoo to so I’m not sure if one is any more accurate than the other. However, I’m using the wahoo sc for cadence because whenever I try the inride cadence the numbers seem to jump all over the place. In contrast, the wahoo cadence is very consistent, as is to be expected with a sensor right on the crank.
i do wish Zwift would allow us to set default devices for pairing, or at least remember the last used devices. As it stands right now every time I start up Zwift it pairs the inride for both power and cadence and I have to un-pair cadence from inride and re-pair it to the wahoo.