The vision of Team ZWATT is to make bike power meters available to the many people who want to optimise their training based on watt data. Due to the high costs of early power meters, only the elite trained using power meters, but with the ZPIDER and ZIMANOX we want to make power meters affordable for the many.
ZPIDER now in normal production
We’ve been working for 3 years, and in third quarter 2016 we were funded by more than 600 backers. We have now shipped ZPIDER to all backers, except the few who opted for the new sizes introduced recently.
The ZIMANOX have also been shipped to the first 46 backers, and remaining backers can expect theirs in late July and August. Join now and you can get your ZIMANOX around the same time. ZPIDERS are no longer available here on Indiegogo, but can be bought at shop.teamzwatt.com.
We started developing the technology to make it really easy for brands to integrate power sensors into their crank sets. Be it as an arm-based sensor like the ZIMANOX or a spider-based sensor like the ZPIDER. The core electronics and software algorithms are available and well understood through co-development with leading brands.
When you buy a ZPIDER or a ZIMANOX biker power meter, you also join the worlds largest test team, dedicated to continuously improve the technology. During the development process we learned a few important lessons:
- Testing by pro riders may be extreme in power and intensity, but it’s not as diverse as the riders actually buying the products
- The difference between power meter algorithms surface when they are put in real life situations
That is why the results generated by the pro riders testing our technology for the brands, is not nearly good enough for us, and we decided to establish Team ZWATT to change this by crowd sourcing the data collection to help take power meter technology to the next level.
- Better algorithms
- Better price
- Better products that works better for your style of riding
These power meter models are being built specifically for Team ZWATT to gather data on the different models and to fit a wide variety of users and bikes.
Team ZWATT and maintenance fee
In order to keep the initial investment low and at the same time secure an incentive to keep sharing training data with us, we’ve split the price in two. A low price for the hardware and a small monthly fee to cover the future development.
We are aware that not all bikes and riders are built equally, so apologies in advance if the offered models does not fit your needs today. In order to keep prices reasonable for the smaller quantities, we start out with a limited number of options – and expect to create more options as volumes pick up.
This campaign is not the last you see of us however, so if you have other needs or wishes, get on the Team ZWATT mailing list and be alerted when we add new models (sign up here: www.teamzwatt.com)- or rally together about 500 friends that want the same thing and we are all ears :)
Bike Radar: “While this is the first time we've seen power meters crowdsourcing their development data from the public, it fits nicely into a general trend of power meters getting more and more affordable…” and “We’ll be getting one in to try as soon as we can.”
DC Rainmaker: ”...as with any Kickstarter project, there are risks. But, I think they’re in a million times better spot than most tech projects I see."
Both ZIMANOX and ZPIDER are based on the same firmware and electronics, why both share the specs as shown below.
BLE is also called Bluetooth 4.0, Bluetooth Low Energy or Bluetooth Smart. The power meters are compatible with most bike computers, smartphones, laptops and tablets running standard apps for bike power (including Strava, Zwift and other popular apps).
Accuracy
This is a whole book in itself :) Let's just say accuracy is comparable to other solutions. And is even going to improve in specific areas as we get more test data from you and the other testers.
For a simple independent check of the technology, go see how we stack up against PowerTap P1 and G3 when Ray Maker of DC Rainmaker Blog tested the technology recently.
FirmwareSecure update using the smartphone app. No cable required. This enables us to continuously improve your power meter even after installation on your bike … like it is known from e.g. Tesla cars.
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The ZIMANOX and ZPIDER models come with a USB charging device which attaches to the power meter using a magnet.
The ZIMANOX and ZPIDER models come with a USB charging device which attaches to the power meter using a magnet. The ZPINDLE MTB model has a cap you remove to access a micro-USB charging port.
The magnet charging device is our favorite part. Everybody told us to just use a coin cell battery, but that felt so wrong to us (something about being Danish is likely to make you very environmentally aware).
We wanted a waterproof solution, so having the connector be waterproof just made sense. See how nicely the charger hooks onto the arm with magnet here:
Red light means charging – green is fully charged (or not yet connected, but ready).
We want some of your data - remember? - this is the whole point!
This means we expect you to track and upload to our cloud server at least one 30 min ride per month using our smartphone app. The app will be available for Android and iOS.
You are more than welcome to track more rides and we will let you know when we are looking for specific types of information (like high cadence/low torque, cobble stones, climbing etc.).
There is a comment function when you upload data, so you can make notes about specific conditions or observations.
If you have a Shimano crankset on your road bike today, this may be the simplest option for you. Simply unscrew two hex screws on the left crank arm and pop the arm off. Replace with the ZIMANOX arm and off you go.
We have the ZIMANOX available in 3 lengths: 170mm, 172.5mm (most popular) or 175mm.
The arm and color is designed to look best with the 105/Ultegra/Dura Ace models from Shimano, but will work equally well with other models from Shimano.
This type of power meter measures the bending and twisting of the crank arm, which is used to calculate power delivered by the left leg only. On the head unit/bike computer/app you see twice that value as a fairly accurate measurement of your total power output. This works remarkably well for most riders as the body is very symmetrical.
Changing from a standard Shimano arm to the ZIMANOX.
The ultimate in power meters is the spider based solution. This is installed as a disc (the "spider") between the spindle and the chain rings. This is where the power transitions to the chain and a great to spot to measure the total power from both legs.
This is a full 172.5mm FSA Gossamer crankset (BB386 EVO, compatible with BB86/30, PF30, BSA30, etc.) in a special version designed specifically for spider based power meters. The ZPIDER matches dual chain rings (4 bolt/110mm BCD compatible with Shimano).
The power meter is integrated in the spider. This can be installed on most newer road bikes, but you may have to switch the bottom bracket if you don't have 30mm bearings already. We have that and chain rings available for you when we deliver.
All the extras you need are available - as explained below under "ADD-ONS".
The standard Gossamer crankset - without power meter function - retails for around DKK 1500 (approx $220 | €200), so please keep this in mind when you look at the price. You get a complete new crankset with the power meter here.
You have to use our app for iOS/Android at least once per month to collect data from a minimum 30 min ride and upload this to the cloud.
The rest of the time you are free to use Strava or whatever your favorite app is :) The firmware in the power meter works with all standard apps and BLE bike computers we have tested.
We leave the ANT+ protocol running simultaneously. So you can use your bike computer and smartphone at the same time if you want. We routinely test with Garmin, Sigma and Cateye bike computers. At the last two Eurobike shows in Germany, we took a round to verify that our power pops up on all the other bike computers we could find.
We already have a fairly complete Android app available on Google Play. We will start to port that to iOS asap.
Firmware Upgrade
Secure wireless firmware upgrade is part of the app, and you can easily see if there are new versions of firmware available for your type of device.
Other apps
One of the great things about power meters is that the standards are fairly well defined now, so most apps and bike computers should work right away. We have tested with a bunch of head units/bike computers:
And we have tested a bunch of apps including Strava (one of our favorites) and the totally addictive training "game" Zwift (hooked up to a laptop and an advanced indoor trainer is just awesome). Here is some of the apps we have tested:
There is already lots of test data available from the last 3 years. Over the last 6 months we have been sharing some test rides on YouTube, Facebook and Strava.
Here is an example of how the ZPINDLE technology compares to the well known Garmin Vector power meter pedals (We have already gone through 2 sets of pedals, 3 sets of pods on the Vectors. We know that product inside out, how to handle it and make its data to come out OK – and we also know things it will not do well).
This is an example of a nice loop (about 22km) going north out of Copenhagen. If you want a test drive, feel free to drop by when we host our "Come-and-Try" events (visit Team ZWATT on Facebook for details). Take a test ride and see for yourself how it works :)
Cadence comparison
Power comparison
The data we collect
We also look one step deeper into the data. The typical power meter only gives you a data point once or 4 times per second. With the data logger in the app we collect 64 data points per second – this is a lot of data which will show more about how you pedal and what type of surface you ride.
Scientific use
If you want access to the data we collect from your power meter for scientific research purposes, get in contact and we can establish a data link to you for a reasonable fee.
We can work with you to extract the data you need.
In exchange for the low price, you have to pay a monthly maintenance fee. We continue to develop and improve your power meter firmware and the app, so you can view the monthly fee like any other software license… or your Netflix subscription… or gym membership. Same thing.
We continue working for you and you pay a small amount for that as long as you think you are getting something valuable in return.
Our challenge to you is to get on the bike and provide us with at least one 30 min ride tracked with our app every month. That is the valuable test data we are after, which will help us improve the technology in your power meter.
Decide the future
In addition, the maintenance fee will give you voting rights in the closed forum for Team ZWATT members. This is where we decide the future direction. You and we have lots of ideas for features to add across firmware, app and cloud service. Things like:
- Better support for oval chain rings
- Other arm lengths
- Max torque display
- Pedaling style assist
- Surface roughness logging
- Air time and landing impact logging
- etc. etc.
As voting member you can add feature requests to the list and vote for which ones gets implemented first.
The fee
The 50% discounted monthly fee is DKK 33.17 (approx $4.95 | €4.46).
If you don't upload at least one 30 min ride for that month, we can't give you the 50% discount for that month, so the fee doubles.
2 year maximum
The maintenance fee goes to zero after you paid 24 months of fees. And you can still use and get updates for your power meter.
Taking a break
If you want, you can take a break from paying the maintenance fee. We will however charge an extra month fee for re-activation, so it may not always be worth it.
If you decide to not pay the maintenance fee, your power meter will continue to output cadence. Power output will however be disabled after a few rides.
Theft protection
If someone steals the power meter (which is something that happens - especially with arm-based that are so easy to remove), they won't have much fun out of it. After a few rides, the power will not show any more. If someone tries to register it again - we will tell you.
No monthly fee
If you prefer to avoid having a monthly fee, you can at any point just pay the remaining fees up to the 24 month maximum in one go.
A little about us:
We started 3 years ago on an effort to develop a low-cost high-quality bike power meter based on a patented optical sensor technology from Danish Technical University with a senior and very experienced team.
Unfortunately this sensor technology turned out not to be sufficiently mature yet, so we cut the ties to the university and switched to proven strain gauge sensors instead. SENSITIVUS gauge was founded to design advanced bike sensor development for brands.
The first B2B sales to leading brands showed that the technology was solid and good. The journey for any mechanical business today involves a transformation into an electro-mechanical or mechatronic type business. That is where the future of mechanics is. This is however harder than most companies realize (we come from the electronics side of things and have seen this over and over).
This has delayed the end user product introduction more than our entrepreneurial spirits can bear. The co-development projects with leading brands also taught us that the typical bike industry test process with a group of pro riders is fundamentally flawed for products involving advanced algorithms.
We just had to fix that and formed Team ZWATT.
Now, help us go all the way right here on Indiegogo!
Electronics
The electronics have been iterated several times to implement small improvements. Everything seems stable and solid, yet pretty cost effective. Variations for different customer projects and prototypes have been manufactured in smaller batches.
Two larger batches have been manufactured at a great manufacturer in Latvia, where the price is competitive, quality is good and we seem to get good attention (probably due to some previous projects there – one of the advantages of being a bit seasoned).
Update Mar '17: Electronics for ZIMANOX and ZPIDER have gone through pilot builds with no significant issues.
Firmware
We are on the 3rd major rewrite of the entire firmware base. Each time brought significant improvements. The central power and cadence algorithms have been iterated after real world testing numerous times and they are definitely beating some other power meters on several accounts.
Mechanical
On the ZIMANOX arm, the design is created with the help of STRONGLIGHT in France. They have verified the strength on a fatigue tester to the ISO standards. A few prototypes have been manufactured and tested on the bikes complete with all electronics.
Our ZPIDER design is a bit behind the schedule and will be the last to complete. A mechanical prototype has been created – this is actually the 2nd generation prototype (the first worked to our full satisfaction, but for a different crank set). FSA provides the well known and tested Gossamer crank set, so the only custom part is the 4 bolt spider.
For the ZPINDLE power meter, a road version of the spindle is already in pre-production for a leading brand. The factories used for critical processes in Taiwan and China are in place and several rounds of samples have been checked.
App
A functional version of the Android app is already on Google Play. You can toy around with that to get an idea. This app will see a major improvement as part of the project as well as a porting to iOS.
Update Mar '17: The Android version is released.
Server side / backend
We have the basic data collection mechanism running on the cloud service today and plan to add the billing and streamline this as part of the project.
Update Mar '17: The data upload to cloud and maintenance fee services are running in production now.
Road testing
Most of the testing so far has been on variations of the ZPINDLE power meter. This has been tested over more than 2 years in various configurations with different types of crank sets mostly on MTB where the challenges are tougher than on road. As part of B2B customer tests, several crank set manufacturers engineering groups have tested various solutions as well.
Lab testing
Over on Kickstarter they asked us to provide sort of a proof that the technology works - which is fair. Actually we are glad they did. That is one of the things that sets Kickstarter apart from Indiegogo. And since we did those videos already, here it goes in one long rough, unrehearsed, unedited smartphone first take:
And here is another no-edit, hand-held, smartphone video showing the calibration procedure. This is required after installation and when you make mechanical changes to the crank.
We have also hosted a number of low-key come-and-try events in Copenhagen over the summer where you could test drive it for yourself. More are being planned - check Facebook for details.
Regulatory and formal testing
As for any other product with electronics and radios, regulatory testing can prove to be a problem. We have mitigated most of that risk by utilizing a pre-certified radio module. Only limited testing is thus required to get the regulatory approvals (FCC and CE markings) in most of the world. This is still a significant cost however, which requires a certain volume to justify. One version of the technology passed this testing in first go, so we are quite confident here. We also passed the technical part of the ANT+ certification test in first go.
Manufacturing test and calibration
We have a dual in-circuit tester (bed-of-nails) for the electronics in the ZPINDLE. Similar solutions will be created for the other circuit boards to streamline test and calibration at the PCB level.
For test and calibration of the individual cranks, we can use our CalStand developed for the ZPINDLE type technology.
The same machine is also being used for the ZIMANOX model. A small adaptation is required for the ZPIDER, which will come as part of the project.
March '17 update: First ship
The first 3 ZPIDER PM's shipped on Mar 23rd. We do not yet have the production running at full capacity, but working on that every day. Actually production for both ZPIDER and ZIMANOX started a while ago. Here is a photo of the alu part in the ZPIDER being machined:
Here is a photo of the glue process where the rechargeable battery and the charging port is being glued into the plastic lid of the ZPIDER:
A batch of the small magnetic charging pod is being inspected for quality here:
The ZIMANOX plastic lid is getting the charging port put in on this photo:
Here a bunch of ZIMANOX arms are getting strain gauges glued in:
The electronics is being assembled here in this super clean factory. This is also where final assembly and test is happening:
This should give you an idea of the state of things. Stuff is coming through the production processes.
March 30 update
Today further 17 ZPIDERs have been shipped, and the first ZIMANOX units have been shipped from China and will be assembled, calibrated and shipped to backers as soon as we receive them.
June 7 update
This Friday we shipped the first 14 ZIMANOX power meters to our first backers, so now both ZPIDER and ZIMANOX are released for production and has started shipping.
Video documenting that the ZPIDER is working and sending watt and cadence data to a bike computer (it's unedited intendedly to prove that we didn't cheat, sorry for messy pictures).
Important aspects of the concept are patent pending. This seems to be important in the bike industry and we will not be left out :)
For the ZPIDER you may want some additional items: Chain rings and maybe also bottom bracket parts to match your frame.
We’ve explained this and have a list of relevant accessories on our own website, www.teamzwatt.com, where you can also purchase the items, you may need. These are, however, standard parts that you may also shop locally where you live.
If you buy accessories for your ZPIDER through our webshop, please mention your Indiegogo purchase in comments, and we’ll ship together at no extra shipping costs for you.
This project has been self funded with only one smaller public funding grant. The original plan was to only sell the technology B2B, but we learned the hard way that this method is dangerous for a start-up when the (few) customers are moving slower than anticipated.
We decided to take action to get the technology out to much more riders and change the way of testing to match the type of products. In this way we can help our B2B customers get better testing of the technology and we become less dependent. So this is where you and Indiegogo comes in.
To fund the manufacturing of all the power meters, we need more money than we have. So we turn to you and ask for pre-payments to fund tooling, manufacturing and materials.
We believe the backer community will be a great help in deciding the future direction and in shaping the features in both firmware and app. Help us test and improve the power meter technology of tomorrow.
Please back us today, and help spread the word:
Risks and Challenges
Indiegogo projects are a risky undertaking and the reality is that they have the potential to encounter problems in the phases after funding.
We are extremely happy about the vote of confidence and trust our backers put in us and in our project. Experience has shown us two things: That issues _will_ arise… But also that we always find a way. As a backer you will be kept in the loop.
In the last 3 years, we have been working hard on the technology, the designs and several variations (also variations we will spare you from!). We have been testing and making adjustments in order to have an end result that is the best possible compromise.
We have been in the electronics industry since before CAD tools became standard and the combined experience of the team with both product development and manufacturing is solid.
Manufacturing:
The manufacturing partners are all in place, but as with any outsourcing things may go wrong or take longer than agreed. We will tend to make the safe decision over the fast decision, keeping in mind that everything needs to move fast.
Software:
The firmware and app (Android) is already shipped to major brands for their testing. Software development sometimes takes longer than expected, and we will need to source porting to iOS which is obviously a risk. We are ready to add additional resources should the need arise.
Hardware:
One version of the hardware (for spindle based) has already shipped in manufacturing quantities, but electronic components are notorious for unpredictable lead times. This can happen to any project including this. We will work hard to avoid problems and have material procured as early as possible.
Even though we are thinking ahead and preparing for the worst, some things may escape our control. We want to rely on our backers for support and patience if we run into difficulties, and we promise we will not stop until the project is completed!