Better off from my experience, the machines react quicker vs a action-reaction-action link of events.
Test with your trainer power, train with your trainer power; don’t moan if it’s -/+ 5w different then what you do outside.
Powermatch is (was) good for budget trainers with power estimates that where pretty off
Hi all,
I just wanted to check my understanding of how this works on my ride today.
Due to recent issues i’ve been having with powermatch i decided to do intervals with consistent power using powermatch and over and unders without. Today was my first over and unders.
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For the first interval i set my power meter to use cadence only. My understand is this then uses the trainer virtual power?
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For the following intervals i then turned the power meter back to normal but turned off powermatch. I then covered the displayed wattage so it wouldn’t put me off or distract me. My understanding is this will then record the actual wattage from my powermeter but continue to be controlled by the trainer virtual power? If this is the case this would then show me the difference between my trainer and power meter?
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From the ride data below it appears my trainer underestimates the power? This would make sense as my last test 4 weeks ago was using the trainer with no power meter. Since adding the power meter and power match rides have felt easier and this was the first over and unders to feel like over and unders.
Thanks in advance for helping me with this
Jack
Virtual Power is used to estimate power from a standard trainer, but since you have a smart trainer, it doesn’t apply here. In this case, we take the power readings directly from your trainer’s onboard power measurement device.
Yes - this will show the power from your PM, be controlled by your trainer, and will show you the difference between the two.
Yep. According to the data, your power meter reads higher than your trainer. Be sure that the trainer is calibrated and your power meter has been recently zeroed if you want to accurately compare the two 
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Cheers!
2 Likes
Thanks, appreciate your help!
Adding myself to this thread to get scooped up in the Beta when it’s released.
There is a difference in slope on my PM vs the trainer that causes deep valleys after VO2Max intervals that is slow to get out of. I end up with about 1 min of almost no trainer resistance after high effort intervals. I can turn off Powermatch, but then I get higher work intervals (no thanks!).
Started TrainerRoad today.
I have to say I an not a particular fan of erg mode.
I have a set of Elite Arion Digital B+ rollers which are quite hard to calibrate.
However, I used them on Zwift coupled with a Powertap G3 wheel and things work quite smoothly when I select the rollers as Ant FE-C device and Powertap as the powermeter. This happened both in erg and resistance.
But today’s experience in TraineRoad with the very same setup and powermatch set as auto was very erratic.
I was using Beech and the rollers resistance was all over the place for quite a long time in the beginning of each interval before settling a bit allowing me to stay within fairly acceptable power levels.
Is there something I could do to make it work better? I also have a dumb trainer that I intend to use for high intensity efforts but I was assigning the rollers for easier and less demanding workouts like Baxter.
Was your cadence smooth/constant? If your cadence is all over the place, the resistance will be as well. While familiar with rollers, I’ve never tried the new smart rollers much less ERG mode on them, but I imagine that rollers would be even more sensitive in ERG mode.
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This is great… if you know the exact offset of your power meter and trainer. And that offset is usually different at different power levels, so this simplistic complaint minimizes what could be a quite complex comparison between trainer power and power meter power. I run a Kickr Core and Vector3 pedals, and the offset varies. Powermatch works very well for me. I hope TR continues improving the experience for other.
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FYI: I saw this standup in Slack yesterday. Still no ETA, but it’s getting closer.
6 Likes
yay 
As @Nate_Pearson has said, we’ve been working on a new version of PowerMatch, which we’re calling Experimental PowerMatch or ePM for now. It is currently only available on our desktop application (Mac/Windows). It’s gone through internal testing and now it’s ready for a broader group of users to try it out. That’s where you come in!
If you would like to help us improve Experimental PowerMatch by being one of its very early testers, then please take these steps:
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Make sure you have installed the latest version of the TrainerRoad Desktop App.
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Answer 6 quick questions: https://forms.gle/JnJq5ky7ah9M6f6Z7
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Wait <1 business day* for us to add you to Experimental PowerMatch. To know if you have been granted access to the feature, go to where you would typically modify PowerMatch settings (Device Settings > Smart Trainer). There you should see a new toggle below the existing PowerMatch settings called PowerMatch Test. To turn it on, simply click the toggle. (See image below.)
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For your next “difficult” ride, please give Experimental PowerMatch a try. If you find that it is preventing you from completing your workout the way you’d like, feel free to switch back to your typical settings mid-ride. Please do not change any of the Experimental PowerMatch advanced settings. Try this approach on as many workouts as you can, for at least 3 rides.
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After each ride, please complete this 3-question ride report: https://forms.gle/tbbgYn6QoN2r66Q16
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We may follow-up with you regarding some advanced settings to modify prior to your next ride. If you do not hear from us, assume that you should maintain your current settings.
*Those of you who have matching TrainerRoad and forum usernames will have already been granted access to ePM by the time you read this.
Thank you and we look forward to getting your feedback!
8 Likes
If I was already added to the test should I still answer the 6 questions? (also have talked to support about this)
Should I try power match on all my rides? (i.e. just turn it on and leave it unless it causes problems or TR tell me to do something) I know for the easy rides power match is less important so feedback like that rde report wouldn’t really help you tweak it, plus the lack of jumps in wattage on the z2 rides makes the impact less too, but should we disable it for those?
If I’m using the beta to get the kickr to work properly over ant+ should I also be trying the new power match at the same time or do you want me to limit the number of variables tested? (2020.23.0.110)
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@alhan thanks! My Kickr direct-drive has worked well with PowerMatch using Stages PM. Does ePM make changes for all trainers?
Was told by support that they stil want the initial questionnaire answered (the 6 questions) and:
We would like you to fill out a [Ride Report [click]]for every high-variability ride. If you do a low-variability ride though, you’ll only want to fill out a Ride Report if something goes wrong.
The beta or the stable release are fine to use the new power match in.
@bbarrera, seeing how they want to know your trainer and power meter my guess is they are trying to figure out the settings for each different combination. (But then they already know what ower meter and trainer you have paired so don’t need to ask)
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We’d still like to validate that this new version is at least on par with the current PowerMatch for anyone who is not experiencing issues with PowerMatch. The new version is a significant rebuild and does affect all trainer / power meter combinations.
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@enki42 Rather than creating individual rules for every possible trainer + power meter combination, ePM was built to adapt to the offset we detect between the two devices. What we are hoping to do here is to validate that it works as intended across a broad range of combinations and when ridden by non-TrainerRoad employees. There are a few advanced settings we can play with as well to tune ePM to work better for specific combos and we may end up establishing presets based on what devices an athlete pairs.
I had thought that this is what standard powermatch does - is that not correct?
That is correct. What is different with this version is that we’ve made it respond quicker to changes in that offset and be better at correctly measuring the offset to begin with.
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Didn’t the previous also assume a constant offset no matter what the power level and now that isn’t assumed to be true?