Tech help: Power pedals, mobile vs desktop, ANT+ vs BLE

Equipment
1

Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give.

My setup:
Powertap P1 pedals (version 1, bought in March 2016)
TR running on android app (original Google Pixel, several years old)
Wahoo KICKR 2018
ANT+ receiver on the floor tucked under the trainer, long cord running up the wall to plug into phone

I’ve been using this setup for several years and IN GENERAL it has worked well. However, it seems to go through periods of badness that I cannot figure out. The main issue is that the ANT+ signal from my pedals keeps dropping out. After several months of flawless performance, it just started again this week (no electronic changes in the house recently, no new devices). Tuesday it would start and stop and start and stop. I finally had to finish the ride on BLE with ANT+ turned off. I even installed new batteries in the middle of the ride. Wednesday worked fine. Thursday worked fine. Today completely haywire. I again had to finish on BLE.

The problem I have with BLE is that my pedals to not transmit L/R power on it, only R. So if it says I’m pushing 200 watts it’s probably actually ~195. I know that in the long run this isn’t that important, but it’s important to me. Today I did the bulk of my ride at 104% to try to approximately compensate. Obviously that’s not an ideal situation.

As I said, this seems to happen in waves. Bad for a few weeks then good for a few months. I haven’t been able to figure it out in three years on TR. I’m also overly concerned with my workout stats and things like this REALLY bug me (I know that’s not a great situation, but I also know myself pretty well).

Questions:

  1. What kind of performance changes/improvements could I expect moving from mobile to the desktop app (2018 MacBook Pro)? I’ve never used desktop for TR. Have others solved problems like this by moving to desktop?

  2. Do any of the newer pedals broadcast L/R power on both BLE and ANT+? New powertap/vector/Duo? I tried to get that info but didn’t see it on a quick search.

  3. Is it likely that my pedals are just wearing out? I hate to throw them away, but they do have a lot of miles on them (a lot) and I understand these things have a certain live span.

Thanks very much.

2

Maybe it’s not your pedals, but your phone? Can you record your ride on a garmin or similar at the same time to see if ant+ drops out there too?

3

Yeah, thanks for the reply. I actually spent probably a year starting my garmin (920 XT watch) on every TR ride. But when things started acting up, it was on both TR and the watch. The watch would just come in and out and in and out. Sometimes TR (on the phone) would be fine, but sometimes it would drop as well. I finally just stopped using the watch, thinking that it was somehow interfering with the signal (from what little I know about ANT+ signals, I understand that is unlikely/impossible).

I have never noticed issues using my watch outdoors, either using the same power pedals, or a different PM on a different bike.

Yesterday I did a successful ride on the Mac app. No idea if it would have been successful on the android app or not, hard to prove a negative.