Hi all, having some trouble with power and cadence readings, and I’m not sure if it’s the usb ant dongle, the pc, usb cable… Or systm. The problem is that it drops out power and cadence readings (but not hr). The longer the ride the worse it gets, so by 2-3 hours I need to keep a constant eye on the readouts instead of the content.
Sometimes the dropout is only a few seconds, other times it’s minutes before it comes back.
I haven’t yet worked out a reliable series of incantations that gets it back.
On my list of things to try next is…
Switch power meter & cadence from assioma to bkool. I am pretty sure bkool has the same issue but it’s been years since I used bkool power meter - too unreliable. But I’ll test to make sure I’ve got another data point to work with…
Can’t use bt power because it doesn’t pick up two sided power correctly, and I’ve found bt very unreliable in general whereas ant generally very good.
Try switching at the point it fails…
Use a different computer
Anyway just putting it out here in case others have similar issues - and if so… What’s worked (Or not)?
What’s the physical arrangement between your computer, ANT+ dongle, and sensors? I have my Windows notebook on a trainer desk right in front of my bike/trainer and have the ANT+ dongle on a 75cm USB cable dangling down from the desk. This gets it away from the RF din from the computer and has worked reliably for me.
One thing puzzling in your situation is that it seems to get worse over time. That seems more like a software problem than a hardware problem.
I would be looking at an extension cable and for any sources of interference. ANT+ can be interesting to say the least. One thing i would immediately look at is moving Wi-Fi on your computer to the 5GHz band if legal and possible.
It’s a dedicated pc, but the usb cable for ant is long (can’t remember how long would have to measure it but at least 3m). Wifi is mostly 5g, bt is a long way away so I don’t think it’s 2.4g interference because that would also take out hr. The hr sensor is also furthest from the ant dongle (It’s on the floor). I do wonder if the trainer heating up might be causing Rf noise, I might test putting the ant dongle over the handle bars and see if it’s any different. If it’s not a problem generally experienced though… Then the problem is most likely in my setup. Time to get testing!
Hi all, I can report great success with Bluetooth… Some time ago I replaced the inbuilt bt with a usb bt4… Then the bt4 with a bt5… Which is what I tried connecting the assioma to last week. No dropouts at all. I haven’t tried the other components via bt.
I did try moving the ant cable to a different position (on the handle bars instead of on the floor under the crank). but haven’t actually been able to test impact because the bt worked and I haven’t revisited. In my spare time… Promise!