Originally Posted by
dr_lha
Funny you should mention that. I bought one of these the other day:
Amazon.com : Magnet-less Speed Sensor : Sports & Outdoors
which can be configured as either a cadence sensor or as a hub based speed sensor, by updating the firmware. The process is a bit non-user friendly, but it does appear to work.
BTW when I bought it it was $35.
Unfortunately, I have one too. I took a flyer on it from Amazon.
It works great by itself and it can be switched from crank to hub if you do it within the first power up from the battery before it powers off (or at some time limit). But if I use a Wahoo RPM for cadence and this for hub speed they both get screwed up. I tried working with the one man band company (which I always try to support) but it took forever to get support and then I just finally gave up. Both thing thing and Wahoo use the same Nordic Semiconductor chip and I think that might be the problem. It's not like I don't understand this stuff since I'm an electrical engineer, it's just that there is a software conflict in there somewhere.
The other thing is that I found the mount to be on the flimsy side. It doesn't take much to tear the rubber and which time it could come off (especially an issue for the crank). The most robust mount is from Wahoo (tie wraps) followed by Garmin. Garmin's crank mount is just too large for my taste.
That said, I think they are on to something just not ready for prime time.
Unfortunately, I suspect they'll wind up road kill to the other bigger players in the market. Between Garmin, the power meter guys and their decreasing costs, and others like Wahoo, it's going to be really hard for a one man band to compete. Too bad. Great idea. but between competition and resources, hard to see how they survive. Maybe he can quickly sell it to someone.
Originally Posted by
John_V
That would be nice since they already have their RPM for cadence. I don't know why they didn't come out with one for speed at the same time?
I don't know either. It's a mystery to me. Seems to me they would have been most of the way there when they got the RPM cadence sensor working. Hub is just rotation in a different axis and then count the revolutions again. Wahoo is a small company too and I suspect that they were pretty buried getting the ELMNT out. That had to be a big effort for them with *lots* of software to do. When I bugged them about it at one time, they sort of hinted that they were working on the speed unit too.
All that said, I absolutely love being able to ditch the magnets for speed and cadence sensing. They have been a hassle ever since I started using some sort of electronic speed sensor decades ago. Seems I can't go a week without bumping the sensor out of alignment with those. Then double the hassle when I ride with my wife where I'm tasked with the tech support on her bike too. I'm thrilled get rid of the magnets. They are gone on all my bikes now... finally.
J.