If you designed power meter software what would you want?



jmocallaghan

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Dec 27, 2003
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Ok, this is a good question I think since I've been toying around with writing power meter software because of some issues I have with cycling peaks. If you had a chance to specify what features you'd like to see in a power meter software package, what would you add to cycling peaks or the Polar ProTrainer? What would you do differently?
 
One improvement on WKO+ I'd like to see is a better calendar. Having workouts as just a list is not the best visual approach. If it could sync with Outlook / Google Calendar then that would be cool - view the workout history in Outlook, click on a link and it brings up the wko file.

Another thing would be an easier way to link intervals between different workouts, so that it's easier to graph/compare similar parts of different sessions. Like a graph of best times on a particular hill, or best power values for a particular type of interval. This can be done with Peaks, but only with a 'work around'
 
All points are good I think. I'd like to see something similar like what Polar has done with their Precision Performance. What I mean is ease of use of the Polar's training log. I also like some of their ready made reports.
 
I'd like to have the TSS from the rides without powermeter to be typed into SW as easy as into Excel. I'm commuting normally without PM, and know exactly what is the daily TSS from commuting, but I don't like to type into duration, IF and so on.

Another issue has been the COM port definition, how on earth the program can't find the COM port although it's in the same computer? Anyway, now CP seems to at least remember the port number.
 
Cyclistats combined with WKO+

That would be my ideal.

Cyclistats does all my distance/maintenance/health logging.
 
Sat here looking at my astrale 8 computer. What I'd really like is a PT cpu the size/slickness of the astrale8 cpu.
 
sidewind said:
I'd like to have the TSS from the rides without powermeter to be typed into SW as easy as into Excel. I'm commuting normally without PM, and know exactly what is the daily TSS from commuting, but I don't like to type into duration, IF and so on.

Another issue has been the COM port definition, how on earth the program can't find the COM port although it's in the same computer? Anyway, now CP seems to at least remember the port number.


Just FYI. TSS and IF are a CyclingPeaks exclusive and would have to be licensed.

Hunter
 
I'm not sure if it's been done yet but I would like to see topography and weather conditions like ambient temperature, wind direction/bike direction factors and wind speed factors displayed along with the ussual performance measurements.
 
sidewind said:
I'd like to have the TSS from the rides without powermeter to be typed into SW as easy as into Excel. I'm commuting normally without PM, and know exactly what is the daily TSS from commuting, but I don't like to type into duration, IF and so on.

Another issue has been the COM port definition, how on earth the program can't find the COM port although it's in the same computer? Anyway, now CP seems to at least remember the port number.
you can do this with WKO+ right-click on workout > "Override Workout" type int TSS... done!
 
wiredued said:
I'm not sure if it's been done yet but I would like to see topography and weather conditions like ambient temperature, wind direction/bike direction factors and wind speed factors displayed along with the ussual performance measurements.

Some of wind speed and gradient stuff is covered in the iBike Power meter.
We do gradient for any of the power meters that have an altimeter.
It's really just a matter of turning these channels 'on' in WKO+ to view them(well, not that simple, but still not too hard). Reminder, in order to view all this stuff, the powermeter has to output it. So, a lot of these requests are really requests for features in a Power meter itself. And you have to ask yourself when you make requests, how big of a computer do I really want on my bike? I mean, I am answering this from a $1400 laptop right now and I have a $3400 computer on my bike! Do I really want a 15" LCD on my bike? Uh, no.

Hunter
 
-Altitude with hills showing a label on each hill with max and average gradient
- A Polar and Powertap file merge/overlay
- To get altitude onto powertap input
- I have macros in excel to do this but this is a pain and it would be cool if it could be automated int he software. Also you have to revert back to Polar sample period for this if done in excel before import

- A good cut as new excercise feature.
- A better error correction feature for mass data (graphical)
 
More than anything I would like to track RPE and graph RPE/avg power for each session. Tracking other biometric info would be nice too and then feed it all into a neural net to predict CP n periods into the future.
 
I would like a fast find that would find by average power or normalized power and time range. Say for FTP find any intervals over 8 minutes that average 300 Watts or better.

Also to be able to make crank torque charts from a Power Tap.

Other wise I am pretty happy with WKO+.

Maybe a CTL planner. Something like the PMC in WKO+ but with excel like inputs to place possible future Daily TSS values that include your past history to help map out future training load.

The Calendar could be a little more like Polar but I often left a lot of the Polar stuff blank cause you could not search it any way. But there are ways to chart things like temp and how you were feeling that day that were nice.

jmocallaghan said:
Ok, this is a good question I think since I've been toying around with writing power meter software because of some issues I have with cycling peaks. If you had a chance to specify what features you'd like to see in a power meter software package, what would you add to cycling peaks or the Polar ProTrainer? What would you do differently?
 
in regards to cyclingpeaks, i would like to see an interactive PMC so i can go in and highlight 1 month and see stats on that particular period of time. it be great to see things like weekly and monthly ramp rate, average tsb, atl and so on.

does anybody else think this would be helpful?
 
Yes!

sash said:
in regards to cyclingpeaks, i would like to see an interactive PMC so i can go in and highlight 1 month and see stats on that particular period of time. it be great to see things like weekly and monthly ramp rate, average tsb, atl and so on.

does anybody else think this would be helpful?
 
Hunter w/kg said:
Just FYI. TSS and IF are a CyclingPeaks exclusive and would have to be licensed.
Is it the acronyms that are protected or the actual formulas?

Just curious...I tried to search for them at the USPTO site and couldn't find anything.
http://www.uspto.gov/index.html

Do you happen to know their registration/serial numbers?
 
johnb263 said:
Overlay power data with gps map data ..


This is an idea a lot of people talk about. We've got similiar software in my line of work that deals with vehicles, etc. What grid reference system would you use? Mathematically the best system out there seems to be MGRS.
 

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