Velocomp PowerPod V5 Power Meter

it was a pleasure to purchase from Power Meter City. The company deserves five stars. My order shipped promptly and I received exceptional support from their staff when i had questions about another possible purchase. Perhaps I should have availed myself of their aid surrounding issues with implementing Isaac on an M1 Mac (which is only grudgingly supported by Velocomp).

As noted above, the setup instructions are provided on what are essentially two sides of a post-card. As such, they are decidedly limited. Videos online proved helpful, if not essential.
Interpreting the single flashing LED during setup was a trial for me, but in the long run things progressed without my full understanding….
It can be difficult to mount the Powerpod tightly enough to prevent its movement, which is imperative if one wishes to avoid frequent recalibration rides. Even recharging and syncing with a micro USB cable risks displacing the device enough to require recalibration. The connecting port itself seems a bit flimsy. Be careful.
The Isaac software is not compatible with an M1 Macbook, and the Velocomp website workaround PDF instructions (for installing a Windows 7 emulator) harbor at least one error. Be prepared for a tedious afternoon. If you are lucky.

However, once the setup was completed and I became familiar with the Powerpod it has proven straightforward to use.
It’s a great product if your finances, anatomy, or knees won’t support the purchase of strain-gauge based platforms.

I’d give five stars to the Powerpod V5 if it came with better software and documentation; a bayonet mount, and a better connecting cable.

Do you have to calbrate the powerpod v3. everytime? Is there a way to skip calibration and ride and still get the watts?

It’s a huge pain to set up. Its only indicator of any status is flashing lights that all are in the same spot. So it’ll flash red and green, or yellow, or just green, or just red. And there are things that the manual in the box doesn’t tell you. Like it says to go into pairing with your cadence and speed sensors and what it doesn’t say is that if you’ve got two separate ones it’ll flash red and green instead of just green while it’s connecting to the first sensor and then only green when it’s done. When you do the calibration ride it really just feels like you’re pressing the buttons and hoping it’s going to work right but not knowing for sure.

That being said, I use my bike for commuting sometimes and need the flat platforms so I can use regular shoes, so clipless power meter pedals aren’t an option. And there aren’t crank options for my folding bike. Besides that, the crank type power meters aren’t something that I could switch between bikes like with this.

Once you get it calibrated though, it works pretty well. I have no real reference, but it feels accurate. The best I can say for sure is that my average power over a ride is in the ballpark of my Strava estimated power. But there’s no denying there’s a ton of room to potentially improve ease of use.

First a note about power meter city: this is my first purchase with them and they did everything right. shipping was fast and my entire experience with them was excellent.

About the power meter: Now that I’ve got this unit up and running, I really enjoy it. The instructions that come with the unit are limited to a two sided postcard. There is no troubleshooting guide or anything like that. This is a pretty serious limitation. I went to the velocomp website and got a bit more information, but it still wasn’t great. I recommend you go to YouTube and watch the videos. Once I did that, it was easy to finish the setup and start riding.
This unit has a bit more lag in data reporting that I am used to having, but other than that, it is consistent and seems to be very accurate. I certainly agree with a couple of other critiques that show up in the reviews. First, the micro USB port is pretty frustrating. Plan on multiple tries before getting it to plug in and connect. Second, don’t count on pulling this unit on and off the bike quickly and easily to connect to your computer. The mount is good and sturdy, but a bayonet style mount like Garmin uses would be a huge improvement.
Overall, I’m happy with it and would buy it again.

All what I want to say has been entered by rtj above. Once set up after a few tries and after I understood the use of 0s, 4s, and 12s button pushes, it has been providing what seems like accurate data. Isaac SW also takes a while to understand and use. Better, consistent manuals will significantly help improve the product adoption.

I am an mechanical engineer by profession, so can see how this works and where the holes are, but I can see the problem with crank arm based ones too, and they all require assumptions and calibration and the interpretation of sensors. I have a high end trainer with a dynamometer which, other than a small correction for rolling resistance is the actual standard for power measurement. Over the years I have found that my heart rate corresponds to specific power outputs reliably. I can say that the PowerPod seems to match the trainer throughout the range, and appears to be fairly responsive and accurate, in most conditions. The most obvious exceptions come from riding posture at higher speeds. On the drops, my registered power increases. Standing and sprinting, it decreases. Both effects are due to changes in my aerodynamic drag coefficient which it does not detect. On the other hand, on slow climbs it does not really care about posture because aerodynamics is less important. In most other cases, it seems reliable and accurate.

The device is unique and in some ways better than other power meters because of the data it requires to do its job. It has very accurate data on slopes, elevation(relative). It also has headwinds wind, even gear ratios and shows you when you were applying brakes. Slope and elevation are far higher resolution and much more accurate than I get from my Garmin Edge. All of the extra sensors can tell you a lot about conditions and the resultant speed. It also adds some interesting analysis with it’s PStoke module which can analyze your power as a function of crank position as well as surging and rocking in your stroke. This is a software addon, and I don’t think riding should be that complicated, but most of these things are plusses that you can’t get with other power meters. Plus, it is a fraction of the cost of other solutions and can be moved with relative ease bike to bike if you need to do that sort of thing.

There are some issues.
First, it is a bit complicated to setup. There are data to enter, and the company would do well to get a good technical writer to understand the device and write a good manual. The documentation is sparse, IMO to try and make it seem simple, but left me wondering what was going on because the device was doing things during setup that were left out of the descriptions.

Second, it uses only a single button and some obscure LED flashes as the only form of control and feedback, and unless you hunt through online material, you will not know how to do things, why it is not working, and what just happened when you accidentally held the button for 4 seconds and now it is flashing and showing red LEDs. A manual would help, but I have had it fail to find an ANT sensor and tell me I was doing 0 watts for twenty minutes before it shut off and I could turn it on again, and have had it completely unresponsive on 2 occasions prompting me to search the internet for a way to reset it. An on off button would be welcome.

Third, microUSB connectors are the most fragile and unreliable connectors ever perpetrated on the electronics market. The one on this is worse than most. The metal guide around the connector is not keyed and is sloppy, which means I spend a lot of time wiggling the cable to get it to connect and to stay. The housing slop seems to be larger than the ultrafine conductor on the connector. It is still new, and I expect it to get worse with age, not better.

Bottom Line.
This is a breakthrough in cost for the power meter market. It is small and light and out of the way. It will work with your existing bike. It also appears to be accurate under most conditions, and the unique approach gives data and insights that are not available on other systems. It is easy to install and remove, and you can send it back if you don’t like it. I tend to think that it’s foolish to spend the money on a high-end system without giving this a try first. Still I have got to knock the documentation and the unreliable connector.

I am new to the world of power meters. I purchased the PowerPod as the least cost option hoping it would help improve the quality of my training and eventually help me improve my riding performance. So far, so good! It is a very impressive piece of technology when you consider what this little device is doing. I had no problem pairing it with my Garmin Edge 500, Garmin speed and cadence sensors or my Mio Fuse heart rate monitor. Battery life is quite good, similar to my Garmin. Charging once a week has been working well so far, and I ride over 100 miles a week typically. As far as accuracy, I have no frame of reference as this is my first power meter, but it does appear to be quite consistent.

The PowerPod appears to work flawlessly out of the box but there is a bit of learning curve in learning how to calibrate it and analyze the data it produces, so I am glad that Power Meter City staff are as available and eager to answer questions and address concerns after the sale as before. Overall, I am very happy with my purchase.

Been using for all my rides since I got it and it gives accurate power readings. Really like how it can be used on different bikes so easily. Very good service from their staff as well who helped me with my change in order. Looking forward to ride more often now!