Kinetic Inride Sensor....Yikes!

[Danimal123]

Just got a new KK Road Machine to replace my 6 yr old model that wore out (receipt was lost). The machine itself is great, but the Inride Sensor is either a piece of garbage or I’m doing something really wrong.

TR and the KK app do not pick up the sensor unless I open the housing, take out and reinstall the battery and replace the cover. Then, both apps “see” the sensor for 30 seconds to maybe 3 minutes before it drops again. At that point I have to repeat the process.

Very disappointed. I sent a message to KK support, we will see what they say, but am I doing something wrong? Anybody else have problems w/ these units? I want it to work as I’m a diehard KK fan, but this looks to be a dealbreaker.

Thanks,
Dan

[Bthoffma]

I have owned 3 different InRide sensors and they all gave me trouble eventually. There seems to be a design flaw in how the battery sits against the contacts. Sometimes you can fuss and shim and prod and get a better connection but I found it never really resolved. Get a cheap power meter or switch to virtual power. The InRide is not worth the hassle.

[hubcyclist]

Don’t have anything constructive to offer, just echoing that my inride (it was for my wife to use, I have a Hammer) has apparently ceased working completely despite very minimal usage and doing the proper battery swapping procedure. So we’re just doing the virtual power thing with a speed/cadence sensor, but from all I see the inride is kind of garbage

[Danimal123]

Thanks! I suppose I’ll go back to Virtual Power…that’s what I’ve done for six years, so it’s no biggie. It’s just disappointing to pay for something that I’m not going to use. It’s also disappointing to see something that’s so error-prone come with KK’s name on it; they’ve always been synonymous with quality to me.

[jjmc]

I’ve had issues with them. First I had a massive change in power (down) for apparently no reason. Shortly thereafter I just decided I wanted a PM anyways.

Later my PM broke, and I switched to an updated version I had gotten for free from KK when they updated it. It was over predicting by a lot.

I’ve also had problems getting them to sync properly. They are good for getting started, but not a good long term solution.

[jamesdanielosborne]

I had the same problems, especially if I tried to calibrate within TR via ANT+. If I calibrated outside of TR it would be okay. Eventually the inRide was misreading power by such a huge margin that I bought a crank arm power meter.

[craigmanning]

Which one is it? Black or green?

[Danimal123]

Green

[craigmanning]

My first V3 (green) did the same thing you describe. I returned it through amazon for another and the second has worked fine as long as I change the battery before it gets below 20%, when you change the battery you have to flip it upside down and try and get TR to recognize it (it wont) then flip it over and it should recognize it. Funny thing is, I dont have any problems with it on Zwift.

[mcneese.chad]

Recognizing that the Inride sensor is just a simple magnetic triggered counter, that reports “virtual power” based on the known input from the revolutions/minute of the magnet mounted in the trainer roller, I have a crazy idea.

What if you took a normal speed sensor, (wheel magnet based version), mounted it to the spot where the Inride normally goes, so it picks up the magnet in the trainer roller than a wheel?

• You would need to alter the “tire circumference size” in the TR app, to correlate the size between the actual tire and the roller. That is needed in order to use the TR version of the Road Machine power curve, and report a more “accurate” virtual power.
• That math should be relatively simple, but I am skipping if for now before I see if I have anything worth testing.

My main goal being to replace the flaky Kinetic sensor with something more reliable.

• In comparison to the default TR virtual power that is rear wheel based, you’d get the increased frequency of input when the magnet passes the sensor.
• Because of the roller’s small diameter, it will spin several revolutions around vs the single revolution of the rear tire.
• That ratio is what we need to use to “fix” the size in the app to report proper TR based virtual power.

So it’s a way to effectively use the same TR Kinetic Road Machine power curve, but getting way more signals of “speed” for every wheel revolution. It will report changes in speed faster, and you could use a simple speed sensor that is more reliable than the flaky Kinetic one.

Thoughts?

[Danimal123]

Funny you bring this up…I was thinking about doing exactly this, but I don’t have a magnetic sensor that’s ANT+ or Bluetooth (my years of virtual power were all using a Garmin speed sensor on my axle).

I think it’s a great idea, but I’m going to wait until I hear from KK as the thought of buying something else to fix something that’s brand new doesn’t exactly thrill me.

I’ll keep everyone posted. Thanks for the input!

[mcneese.chad]

Totally, follow up with KK. Sadly, they just seem to have real difficulty with reliability of electronic gear. The Road Machine is amazing and I love mine. The idea of Inride is great, but their implementation just falls short.

If you head down the sensor road, I would be happy try and test in tandem with you, to see if we can figure it out. I can compare to any of my 3 power meters along the way too, and see if we can nail the hack.

[adrian_r]

Have had my green inride sensor for 2 seasons now. Not a single hickup!
I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed

[whojammyflip]

I have two of these (work away from home when there is no virus and take one with me). Both of my units are working fine, with the second now out on loan to a mate who is keeping fit during the “virus era”. I also have a couple of sets of rollers, Kreitler and Sportcrafter Overdrive, which I use with a Rotor Inpower chainset. The Kurt InRide matches the InPower.

My suggestion would be to rule out the data transfer is being at fault here, between the InRide sensor and your dongle/phone. To debug this, try removing the InRide sensor from your device, and start again. I seem to remember that you should not add it via BT on the phone settings for instance, but just use Kurt’s software.

In my experience when I have had the InRide no longer work with the device, the reason has been that there has been bluetooth (BT) interference. I cannot do things like run music from my phone to an amplifier with a Logitech adapter on it, or run music from my phone into my BT headphones. Its already trying to deal with the fast readings coming out of the rear roller and a HRM belt.

Regarding trying create a home made sensor, something to bear in mind is that the rear rollers doing something like 7000 RPM (20mph -> wheel going round 4x per second, roller is 1 inch diameter -> 26 * 4.4 * 2 * 60 = 7000). A normal speedo won’t be working within its design spec.

[ifyoucantakeit]

I’m in my third winter with an InRide 3.0 and so far, no issues! Numbers may be off, but as long as they are consistent (and in theory they should once one calibrates), I don’t care.
I use it with an Ipad and bluetooth. Both Trainerroad or the Kinetic Fit app have been working fine so far.

[craigmanning]

I guess I jinxed myself…my inride wont play nice with TR anymore however still works perfectly in zwift. I tried to do a spindown in TR and it failed and froze the windows app…upon rebooting it wont recognize it even after flip flopping the battery…looks like I will be using virtualpower.

[mcneese.chad]

Lame

Why does technology have to be so flaky sometimes?

[craigmanning]

Right? I might just have to go back to my Spinervals DVD set and trusty old RPE…they always work!

[gsp64]

I got the KK with Inride…all I can say is it was useless. They could not figure out why it wouldn’t work, only saying it doesn’t work well with Android. I understand they aren’t a software company, but it seemed to them that is was my problem, not theirs. Service was atrocious. Sent it back. Sadly, their fluid trainers are terrific and I really wanted to get it going, but after four weeks of not being able to use it, I bailed on it.

[mcneese.chad]

Their fluid trainer with a power meter is about the best you can get with a “dumb” trainer setup. The feel is so good and the no-leak design means buy it once for a lifetime of use.