Recurring Issues / What am I doing wrong

[tosterbe]

Hi All-

I am having recurring problems getting the iBike to see my sensors. I am hoping that this is a user induced/caused problem.

The lack of sensor visibility tends to occur in waves. For example, four days this week, I was unable to get the unit to see any sensors. Last week, I didn't have any problems. Sometimes the problem won't occur for many, many rides.

I am beginning to suspect that I may have a flaky mount. Here is the test that I did. Let me know your thoughts and ideas as I really want to solve this problem.
Both sensors are on the NDS stay.

1) I rotated the read wheel to activate the sensor. I was able to hear the 'click'
2) I rotated the crank to activate the sensor. I was able to hear the 'click'
3) I attached the ibike to the mount and hit the center button. The battery was reported as good. I let the unit complete a wind calibration.
4) The ibike didn't report that any sensors were found and eventually shutdown
5) I pressed the center button, and then went into setup mode. I reactivated the sensors (step 1 and 2) and set SCAN=yes.
6) The ibike didn't find any sensors.

I removed the ibike from the mount and removed the battery. I installed the same battery in a different mount and repeated the same process above. This time after I performed the setup/SCAN=yes, both sensors were found.

This would lead me to think that I have a suspect mount. However, I moved the batter back to the initial mount and the ibike sees the sensors.

I am trying to recall anything that I may have done that deviates from the recommended startup process and the only thing that I can think of is that I have cancelled the wind cal. Any chance this is related to my problem?

I would just use the non suspect mount but it is a high angle mount that is no where near level on my current bike.

-Todd

[Velocomp]

What is your firmware version? The latest version is 424...

[tosterbe]

Hi John-

I am on 4.2.4

The problem happened again on Sunday. The bike had moved from the work stand since my previous post. I spun the wheek and cranks and then pressed the center button, got a 'battery good' message and let the auto wind calc complete. I was wearing the HR strap and the ID was not in the profile of the iBike. I went into setup mode, went to scan, and the HR strap was detected.

After this was done, I took the bike from the stand and went to perform a tilt cal. I got a tilt good message and then I headed out. After the tilt calc, I lost all sensors. I never got a WLS fail message. I tried to scan several times with no luck. I removed the ibike from the mount hoping to see a WLS fail message but I never got a WLS fail message within the 3+ minutes I watched the iBike.

This evening, I removed batteries from the mount and the computer (marking them) and measured the voltage. Both were are 2.8v A new battery measured just under 3v. I placed new batteries in the mount and the computer and I was unable to detect the sensors on the initial start up or when performing a scan. When in the setup/scan as the '0' was flashing, after approximately 4 seconds, I would receive a WLS Fail message. I took the old batteries and placed them in the computer and the second mount and went into setup/scan. SPD and CAD found messages were displayed. I took a pencil eraser and cleaned the contacts of the mount attached to the bike and then moved the computer to this mount. I didn't see a WLS fail message. I performed an additional setup/scan and both CAD and SPD sensors were detected.

I let the ibike sit for an hour and then pressed the center button w/o first activating the CAD/SPD sensors. The unit didn't report a battery check but went right to the auto wind cal. After the wind cal was completed, I then pedaled and the ibike found both speed and cadence sensors. The HR sensor wasn't detected. I did a 10 minute ride on the trainer and the unit worked flawlessly. After 10 minutes, I entered setup mode and went to the scan. I wanted to see if the unit would find all three sensors. Sure enough, it did. I completed another 20 minutes with all sensors working w/o issue.

I am not sure where this leaves me. Could this be as simple as dirty contacts? Are there known conditions that could cause the wireless to not function yet a WLS FAIL message not be displayed?

Thanks,


Todd

[bex]

I notice this goes back to December but no resolution has been posted.
I am having similar issues but with both my Ipro and my wifes Iaero.
She got on the trainer yesterday and hit the button, did the wind calibration, batt good then nothing. Never picked up the sensors.
Likewise me a few days ago, same thing. I thought it was me, having messed around with the profile so I just did a new scan. All OK.
Now I am not so sure.
I have the latest firmware.

Any suggestions?

[Velocomp]

When the WLS FAIL message appears in less than 8 seconds, it means that the wireless mount is not communicating with the iBike.

Make sure the contacts are clean, both on the mount and on your iBike.

[bex]

I dont get the wls fail message.
I just dont get the pick up of HR/SPD/CAD and need to re-scan

[Velocomp]

Do a hard reset of your iBike with the battery.

[bex]

I did that already and my apologies for not mentioning it.
I also just noticed the tilt was way off.
I (just) re did the tilt and re-scanned, found the sensors, no issue there.

[filarl]

Hi - I don't see a resolution above and I'm getting this issue too. I changed ALL the batteries. I'm not getting a fail message, it's just reading 0 speed. I hear the clicking so the sensor is sensing the magnet. Also I JUST downloaded the latest firmware this afternoon before trying again and putting all fresh batteries in. HELP!!!

Thanks
Linda

[bex]

I think I resolved this.
I think its something to do with what is stored in the original profile and what is currently being read. We have two wireless units, two sets of sensors and two HRM straps.
I think at some time I switched the sensors/HRM strap. So the profiles are set up on the wrong sensors.
Anyway, I re scanned and then put it back onto the IB software and updated the profile with the new Id's.
No more issues since then.

[tosterbe]

Hi All, I wanted to share that this problem persists on a sporadic basis sometime with wrinkles. For example, today's ride was problematic.

I installed a new battery last week due to reported low voltage. This AM I let the Auto wind complete and all three sensors were found. About 15 minutes later at a long light, both speed and cad fail messages were displayed. Normally, these self resolve in a few seconds however, this time I didn't see a speed found cad found message yet the HR was being reported/displayed. After about 5 minutes, I did a rescan while riding and received a WLS FAIL message in about 5 seconds.

This is where I get frustrated. If all of the sensors are speaking ANT there is NO WAY that a WLS FAIL condition should occur. I can't believe that this can be attributed to a flaky mount given the circumstances. Coming from a technology background this looks like a software problem to me. What baffles me is that others seem to have this problem and the same solutions are presented time after time. I just don't see the iBike team working to resolution on this issue.

When this think works it works well, when it doesn't.... you get the picture.

Honestly, I've been a believer in this product for a long time but alas I am now at a point where I am likely to be throwing in the towel. My teammates and friends don't have these issues with various computers from CycleOps, Garming, Polar, etc. Yes, there is both a variance of cost and features. When I look at what I've spent for Gen I, Gen III as well as mounts/sensors for two bikes and attempt to factor in the cost of my frustration it is very hard to justify sticking with the iBike.

John, is there anything else that can be done to resolve this situation or am I stuck in a corner-case situation with no potential resolution?


-Todd

[Velocomp]

The problem may be something completely different.

It's not clear which batteries you are replacing but, from the sounds of it, it seems likely that it is the iBike and wireless mount battery (they should be replaced in pairs when the Low Batt message appears).

However, you also say that, when this problem happens, you obtain HR but not speed and cadence signals. This means the iBike and mount are working and that the problem is with the speed/cadence sensor.

I have seen this issue too (very occasionally). The culprit? My speed/cadence battery is getting low, causing it to operate intermittently. If the speed/cadence sensor is operating intermittently the symptoms you describe will happen. Furthermore, if you try to do a Scan, you'll get a WLS FAIL, because the first sensor the system finds is the speed sensor.

The batteries in the wireless sensors last about one year. Please replace the batteries in all of your sensors. Depending on when you purchased your sensors you may need to do a hard reset of them when replacing the batteries. Then, see if the issue persists.

I know all this can be frustrating. The ANT+ system can have as many as 5 batteries in it (speed, cadence, HR, iBike, wireless mount), all of which must be working properly for the system to work. We are able to warn the user when the iBike/wireless batteries are low. However, the designers of ANT did not think about providing diagnostic data that would make it easy for users to know if a sensor battery is low; low battery voltage problems cannot be corrected with software changes.

Until ANT changes its system, the WLS FAIL message is the only feedback we can provide to users to warn them that something is amiss.

[tosterbe]

John,

Thanks for the reply. First, I should have been a bit more clear in my most recent post. The batteries that I am changing are the mount and the iBike. I last changed the sensor batteries in the Spring.

I recall from other posts that the timing of the WLS FAIL message can indicate a bad mount. If memory serves the bad mount message appears in ~4 seconds. This was the case yesterday in that the WLS FAIL message occurred at ~4 seconds (certainly less than 10 secs).

Yesterday was the first time that I've experienced the condition in which the HR functions and other sensors are reported as 'FAIL' and not 'FOUND' (when stopped at a traffic light) and not found and then the rescan reports WLS FAIL.

I find it interesting that you note a WLS FAIL will be triggered during a scan if the speed sensor is not found. I have noticed many times that the ibike will report that it has found the cadence sensors before the HR or speed sensors. Presumably, there are different bits of code in play here. At a high-level under the hood discussion point, is not the only difference between using the scan function and when the ibike finds previously pared sensors the fact that the ibike will record the ID of the sensor? If so, why the dependency on finding the speed sensor first? Is this an ibike specific function because w/o speed there can be power computation?

I understand that there is no provision within the ANT+ specs for diagnostic data. Is it fair to say that to address problems such as this that are/may be battery related, the rechargeable mount would improve the end-user experience?

Totally unrelated but I'll ask it here anyway... is there a product roadmap for the ibike gen III. How likely is it that there will be new firmware with additional features or will the majority of product development be focused on the iphone-centric devices?

[Velocomp]

A simple "Scan" starts an extremely complex sequence of firmware events.

You're correct that the Scan feature seeks, then records, the ID of each sensor. The importance of the speed sensor is that, if it is not found, then the iBike won't work at all. Hence the WLS FAIL message if the speed sensor Scan doesn't work. It isn't important which sensor is found first; rather, that all sensors that are accessible are eventually found, particularly the speed sensor.

Again, if the sensor batteries are weak, even the rechargeable mount won't do anything helpful; you'll still get WLS FAIL messages if a scan is attempted.

As a policy we don't talk about product roadmaps; as a policy we do repeat our position that we love all our products and try to treat them accordingly.