reading that was an encouraging.
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My main bike is equipped with FC-R9100-P and I´m really happy with it because it just works without any problems.
Thought about buying the new ultegra powermeter for my winter bike - but after seeing the price tag and reading dcrainmakers first comparison with FC-R9100-P (see below) I directly ordered an second FC-R9100-P because I don´t see why I should pay more for no real advantages:
The differences:
- Changed crank arm materials
- Changed crank arm manufacturing process
- Battery cap is now replaceable
- Battery is on side of spider rather than top
- Battery connector cable changed to match Di2 rear derailleur charger cable (so you only need one cable)
Whatâs stayed the same:
- 300 hour battery life same as before.
- Internal rechargeable battery is identical as before
- Weight remains of the same (though, the new crank arms are about ~60g heavier than before, depending on exact chainrings on them)
- Claimed accuracy of +/- 2% remains
- ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart power broadcasting (total power/power balance/cadence)
- Magnet still required on frame for determining cadence/position of crankarm
- Active temp compensation same as before
- The strain gauges are placed in the same spot as previous as well.
- Still a dual-sided system (both left and right crank arms have sensors on them)
Iâm not sure if you read dcrainmakerâs post thoroughly, but this excerpt should give you pause:
Iâm cautiously optimistic about accuracy potential on the new 2nd gen Shimano power meter. At no point during our conversation did Shimano shy away from the challenges and limitations they had trying to make the 1st gen unit âworkâ on a crank arm that wasnât designed for it.
In short, there are problems not so much with the power meter, but rather in how the drive side of R8000/91000 cranks flex when force is applied is not consistent, which makes crank based PMâs (of any brand) problematic on Shimano cranks.
Iâm not sure that this weakness was known when Ray published his original 9100-P review in 2018, but thanks to the work of @gplama, this issue is known now.
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I think the main difference is that although the claimed accuracy remains 2% the new version might actually achieve it in real life more often.
I have no reason to doubt that you have a good 9100-P - but they certainly arenât all like that.
Yes I read that. I read his old review of FC-R9100-P too.
I tried powermeters from Stages and from Garmin which had so so so many problems and where eating coin cells which where drained because of the hardware issues these powermeters had. Then I changed to the shimano PM (despite of the DCR review) and was just really happy with it. Never had any issues with it and for me it´s perfectly accurate enough.
Is an accuracy gain of +/- 0,5 to 1,0% as important as some hundred euros for me? Nope.
Do the âproblemsâ Ray writes about affect my training success in any way? Nope.
No problem. Just wanted to make sure you were making an informed decision, as Rayâs review and the table of differences wasnât explicit as to the issue (which to be fair was the crank, rather than the PM).
Hereâs to spending the hundred euros on replacing the tires worn out from all the riding you are about to do. 
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YEEHA! Totally agree! Let´s ride!
The initial thing that is depressing is the MSRP thatâs been quoted:
- Ultegra $1,100 / $1,200 USD range
- Dura Ace $1,400 USD range
The question will be: what is the incremental price if added at the time of purchase on a new bike?
Has anyone tested the new powermeters fitted with Stages or 4iii dual-sided strain gauges? Iâm thinking of buying a R9200 crank and sending to Stages to factory install LR and wondering if the accuracy issues have been resolved.
On the previous generation, all right-side power meters, no matter if you are talking about Shimano, Giant, Stages or 4iiii cannot measure power accurately on the right side. The reason was the crank arm design.
Initial testing by @GPLama with Shimanoâs 9200-series power meters suggest that these problems still persist. I would not opt for a Shimano crank-based power meter at this point, unless @dcrainmaker or @GPLama tell me otherwise. Your best bet is to go for Assioma Duos or a Quarq D-series power meter. If you get the right version, you can continue to use Shimano chain rings.
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The first thing I did when the new Shimano range was announced was contact all the manufactures of aftermarket âstick-onâ meters. At the time none of them could source cranks from Shimano.
Seven months later⌠still nothing. Although the cranksets are now floating around.
Iâd be keeping well clear of them until further notice.
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WRAP-UP:
So why bother to write up a post about Shimanoâs continued confusion in this space? Well, to point out that itâs not good enough. In the same way I pointed out last week that Garminâs RCT715 Varia Camera Radar wasnât good enough. When major companies in this space charge you large amounts of money for their products, they should rise to a certain level of acceptability and functionality. Else, you shouldnât buy them.
The Shimano power meter fiasco continues to be one of those examples. We still donât know if the new power meter model is actually accurate yet (signs mostly point to no, but the data is thin). But starting today, Shimano will undoubtedly start advertising these new pedaling metric features. Except, itâs important that people understand what a mess this feature actually is â especially if youâre on a Garmin unit (in this case, through no fault of Garmin, theyâre just the FedEx man here).
Perhaps Shimano will fix it, but probably not. But we shouldnât reward companies with money for doing things poorly. Not Shimano, not Garmin, not GoPro, Wahoo, Apple, Samsung, or anyone else. No products are perfect, but this
There are good reasons to buy Shimanoâs drivetrains and bike parts. Iâm using the R9200 (sans-power) on a different bike and itâs great. But buying the power meter variant? Iâd be saving your money and spending it elsewhere. Except for IQ2, donât spend it there.
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I disagree with saying that Garmin is just the FedEx guy here. Iâm not saying Garmin is responsible for supporting Shimano but Garmin doesnât really allow better integration then what Shimano is doing. They canât just add extra data to the ant+ broadcast as that breaks the ant+ certification requirements, they canât send data to the Garmin for what a sensor should be reporting as Garmin doesnât allow that functionality.
Connect IQ is pretty limited in this way. This is also frustrating when trying to share an ant+ sensor with more then one data field as you canât. You can only share native supported sensors.
Granted Shimano should probably have broadcast as two seperate device profiles, the private and the standard power profile. But does the existing chip sets allow this? Shimano doesnât have that much power to control that
There should also be questioning into if Shimano tried to get this into the power standard (a new Data Page Number?) The current cycling dynamics just give start and end normal/peak crank position, PCO, and standing/sitting. The pioneer/shimano data is 12 vectors (power and angle its applied at) that are measured at different points around the crank. If shimano tried doing this but garmin who controls ant+ blocked itâŚ.
They could have used ANT Private network (like they do for DI2, rather than moving to the the ANT+ standard like SRAM and Campag), Garmin may be the âguardians of the standardâ, but when they brought pedalling dynamics out, they did it in ANT Private network (where you can put anything) and then moved it to the strandard, the other shifter companies have submitted and moved to the ANT+ standrd, but DI2 has stayed on ANT Private, this just seems like a kid in the playground who doesnât want to play with others
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di2âs private ant came out in 2013, the ant+ shifting standard came out in the end of 2016. Since everything already supported the shimano specific protocol there was no need for them to change, it wouldnât help anyone. Sure the data is probably very similar between the two.
Garmin was able to bring out pedaling dynamics and make it clean for end users cause they control the head unit. Garmin didnât want to support the pioneer data, wahoo did. Did Pioneer submit their data metrics to be part of the standard? Did shimano? Does anyone know?
Apart from Hammerhead, if Shimano where were using the standard, they would be able to just display the data
Thats what ANT Private is for, DI2 does that and has ant+ certification (sort of and pushing the boundaries)
Yes, they could have. And yes, itâs trivial. And yes, they have the control to do it. Countless other devices multi-cast themselves under different profiles, such as trainers with ANT+ FE-C, Power profile, Speed profiles, even Speed+ Cadence profiles. HR straps that broadcast under both HR & RD profiles, on and on. Footpods that even do the same.
Thereâs numerous other ways to skin this cat. Also, yes, they can broadcast the added data in private ANT channels next to the certified power channels. Thereâs nothing that breaks certification there, and in fact, thatâs what most companies do. Thatâs how Garmin gets extra diag info back to Edge units, among others.
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The two Shimano moves reinforces my outside perception that the bike tech world is really stagnating. Maybe its due to the last two+ years of C19, but why is anyone using private ANT+ today functionality that has a standard? If the standard has issues, fix the standard. I really wish Garmin & Wahoo would tell companies that once a standard is out, they have a XX month grace period to move to the standard, after which the Garmin / Wahoo head units will stop supporting the private implementation.
Today it is HH that Shimano cut-off, whoâs to say it wonât be Wahoo tomorrow?
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What standard would shimano transmit its data with? There is nothing wrong with the existing standard just they want to transmit very different data as I explained earlier. Take for example a self driving car you could use a video camera as input or you could use lidar data as input. You canât just use some generic input and expect it to work for both, the data sets are very different.
I wasnât sure if there was a hardware limit for multiple broadcast channels using different keys. (private key and public ant) Notice all your examples would use the same key for multiple channels. This would be one channel set to ant+ key broadcasting ant+ power profile and another private channel set to their private key broadcasting their private/proprietary profile. None of the news articles talking about this problem said that was what they should have done and since that would be the best solution plus I think the only solutionâŚ
Broadcasting additional pages inside the ant+ channel breaks the standard so isnât really an answer. Use the existing standard is also not an answer as ANT+ Cycling Dynamics are very very different from what they are broadcasting. So not sure there are other ways to skin the cat
That seemed to be a very stupid move on their part