Originally Posted by
patentcad
I have two Joule GPS units, using them on multiple bikes, works fine. Some quriks, but I'd guess they all have that, particularly when you try to get them to consistently communicate with power meters. Cheap unit, tells me what I need to know.
The interesting thing is that most people who have Stages Power Meters run then with Edge 500s or 510s. I am the only one I know of who has had problems to this extent. I think I am majorly taxing the capabilities of these units- I ride a lot of miles with 3 connected devices and sometimes am on the bike for freakishly long periods of time in the presence of a lot of other bikes transmitting various signals. Quite honestly, my impression is that the Edge 510 is barely capable of doing what its advertised to do- connect to multiple ANT+ devices, connect with Bluetooth devices, and do this flawlessly for the duration of your ride. Then I ask it to do all of those things (well not connect to a BT device but just function in the presence of the BT signal from the Stages) for an extended period of time and it just can't. I think the basic software/technology is shaky. Every few weeks Garmin seems to be releasing a new software patch (theres a new one now, just updated my software 3 weeks ago maybe, you can never go too long with Garmin saying you have the latest version of the software). Not a fundamentally stable system IMO.
Also its hard for me to know when someone says "my XYZ brand unit works just fine," if XYZ unit will work just fine for me. The unfortunate reality is that I'm probably going to only find this out by ponying up and buying something else. Because of this, I guess I should probably try to keep cost to a minimum. But that Pioneer is tempting.