I'm glad you got it to work... I just sent this email to customer support in the hopes that it's something simple. I've had a similar, but far worse set of circumstances. Luckily, I don't live that far from Saris HQ in Verona, WI.
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(Hello, my contact info...)
This is concerning a PowerTap G3 hub. I skipped out on usage of this hub pretty much all last season because I could not get it to work. This is after getting a little bit of usage from it the year before. Typically when I can get it to work, it stops communicating with my Garmin Edge 800 partway through a ride. That year, I had a ride in Wisconsin and I stopped by the HQ in Verona. Someone there took it to the back and brought it back to me telling me that I just needed to remove the battery and let it sit for 5 minutes before reinserting the battery to resolve the problem. During my ride later that same weekend, the Garmin and PowerTap stopped communicating partway through the ride. This spring, I decided to try to get some use out of this expensive piece of equipment. I put in a fresh battery, (Energizer 3v CR2032) and re-attached it, set my Garmin to search for it, and spun the crank to rotate the rear wheel. Nothing. I tried removing the battery, adding it back in, removing it, waiting a few minutes adding it again, and each time it will not pair. So, I did my first few rides this year just like all of last season, without benefit of the hub. Now I'm trying to make it work again. After 2 months the battery is completely dead (tongue test confirmed it had zero charge) so I buy another new battery. Pairing still does not work. I thought that maybe if I did a firmware update on the hub, I can get it to work. Using PowerAgent 7.5.7.34, I removed the battery and then connected the device to the computer. It tells me I'm running version 16.000 and I can update to 16.037. So I run through the update process, connect it back, try to pair, nothing. I reconnect and check, and the firmware is still saying 16.000. I look around online, find a lot of people are having problems with the firmware update process for the PowerTap hub. Still, I follow the advice of someone who says to perform the update , then rather then re-insert the battery, disconnect and reconnect the hub and each time PowerAgent will report that you are running 16.000, but keep updating the firmware until one time it should report the current version is 16.037. So I try that, 6 times in a row, no update. I give up, add the the Powertap back into my system, try to pair again, no luck. So I do a firmware update, then re-insert the battery put it in the wheel and spin it (as if I were going to pair it). I wait for 5 minutes in case the firmware update needs to be applied internally with a combination of 1) the cap connected to the rest of the hub and 2) motion. I still cannot pair, so I remove it again, remove the battery, connect it to my PC again, and the firmware is still reported as 16.000. I've only had about 100 miles of data total from this device, over 3 years in which I put 4000 miles on the bike. Granted, I did not try to pair every time. just made sporadic attempts like this spring and now. But I'm very frustrated that a device that costs more than many people's entry-level bikes boils down to just a pretty hub with a logo. Some background - I work in IT, since 1995. I have updated the firmware of countless devices from cameras to printers to server components, personal PC components, and more, and I've never had these kinds of problems. I don't think I have a hard time understanding the instructions, especially when they are as easy/dumbed down as the Youtube video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrUdy43AnHw or the owner's manual. I'll be in Wisconsin again (Delevan and then Wisc. Rapids) for a ride and for Mother's Day, and I may take Monday off just so I head in to the office in Verona with my device again. I'm just disappointed that if I do that, my long ride on Saturday will have no watt metrics, and I didn't want to start the serious part of my season like this again.