I just got a Karoo 2, and have been trying to use the EBC app on it. I thought I’d start this thread so we could specifically discuss how EBC works on Karoo 2, and perhaps how it should work. Hopefully we can share tips and best practices, et cetera…
I’ve got a couple of questions to begin with:
Is it possible to run to EBC and Karoo 2 activities at the same time? I tried this yesterday and EBC was working, but it seemed like Karoo 2 didn’t have access to the sensors once they were in use by EBC
Has anyone had luck with the Varia radar? I connected it to EBC and see a very narrow bar on the left hand side, but the bar does absolutely nothing as far as I can tell. One reason I started recording a simultaneously recording on Karoo 2 was so that I could get Varia notifications. This is still not desirable because I want to see where the vehicles are too.
I’m getting a weird bug with speed. I’m not sure what it is, but it happens with both a speed sensor on my outdoor bike, and with my Kickr on my indoor setup. The speed will regularly fluctuate between what I think is the right speed (i.e. ~30kph) and something totally unrealistic (~120kph). When I look at the sensor screen when on the Kickr It shows two highlighted icons: speed from trainer, and speed from power. When I try to de-select speed from power it won’t work… Not sure what’s going on there.
Not necessarily Xert/Karoo related–What is the more efficient protocol for sensors from the perspective of headunit battery life, BT or ANT+?
Wishlist:
I’ve already got a couple of things that I hope to see in the future:
Xert metrics are available as data fields on Karoo 2 display. I’d like to have them also available as trend lines (i.e. MPA history)
I’d also like to have a difficulty field
If there is a Varia sound implemented it doesn’t come through BT headphones…although I was having general struggles with Varia…
Listening to the latest podcast it seems like Xert people (specifically @xertedbrain) want to make a full featured bike computer. If that is the case here are some things that are clearly standing out right now:
Maps. Navigation. Replanning… et cetera
Uploading to multiple sources (Strava, RidewithGPS, et cetera)
Battery life! One reason I own a dedicated bike computer is because phones don’t really have a great track record with battery life. Battery life needs to be a high priority in any work you do. (Things like an option for a dark background for OLED screens, Karoo has a dark background and I love it even though I’m pretty sure it’s not OLED and so doesn’t benefit from the power savings). I would hope to get at least 12 hours from a bike computer; that way I don’t have to charge it after every ride, and can even do an epic ride without having to worry about bringing an extra battery.
Better trainer controls (and really controls in general). The manual controls for trainer are clunky. Pressing the +/- buttons to increase 5 W at a time isn’t great. I would really like integration with the hardware buttons on Karoo, or at least have larger buttons (this also applies to increasing/decreasing intensity during a workout). I prefer Wahoo’s approach where you can select the 1s, 10s, or 100s digit and increase that. I get that Xert is about complex workouts, but ERG mode is sometimes dead simple for an active recovery ride, or warm-up/cool-down, or even testing out your hardware (how I discovered the annoyance today )
This is a list of basic functions that I expect. I’m sure more of these will come to mind over time. I haven’t even started dreaming of next-gen bike computer stuff yet. I want something that works first, and then add-on. Perhaps that means spending time on tighter integration with Karoo in the short-term?
As I continue to experiment I’ll put down some more thoughts here. I’m excited about what EBC-Karoo 2 can offer! Hopefully we can work in that direction.
Haven’t experimented outdoors yet and don’t have a Karoo 2 but I think Speed from Power is the automatic setting for indoor activity and Speed from GPS is automatic for outdoor rides unless you can alternately select a sensor for that.
I too have the problem of Xert EBC app using Speed from Power on indoor mode which has incorrect speed. I have a Wahoo Speed & Cadence sensor which works perfectly fine in the old Android Mobile app but EBC auto-selected “Speed from Power” despite my sensor being detected an added. I can’t seem to turn off the Speed from Power so my Distance and Speed data is all wrong and therefore invalidates my ride data.
I do hope this can be fixed since I was hoping to use Xert EBC as my ride computer.
BTW I don’t have an external power meter so power data is coming from the indoor trainer.
If you tap on the Speed sensor entry does it show both Speed from Power and the Wahoo sensor listed? If so, tap the Wahoo entry to remove it.
There is a similar issue outdoors where Speed from GPS is automatic and can’t be disabled so you need to unpair the speed sensor if listed.
Perhaps a future fix will allow you to disable automatic Speed from GPS (Outdoor( and Speed from Power (Indoor) but I’m leaning toward removing my speed sensor.
The calculated speeds have proven adequate enough for me.
Thanks for your responses guys. And sorry for hijacking the thread I didn’t mean to do that.
Yes I see both sensors and yes I can turn the Wahoo off but it is overridden so won’t make any difference. It is the “Speed from Power” or “Speed from GPS” that I want to turn off.
I guess my point was that I have the same issue as [brettisraelsen] reported.
My thoughts are that if Xert Power calc or the GPS can’t provide an accurate Speed number then don’t provide one at all, IE allow us to turn it off and use our Speed sensor. Not everyone has an accurate Power Meter. According to Xert I traveled 279km on my 90min indoor ride with with an XEP of 113W. With the Android Mobile app for similar ride it was 32km using my Speed onboard sensor. Although still technically inaccurate as I am stationary was at-least somewhat representative of a real ride distance. 279kms in 90mins is not possible.
It would be nice to either turn off the Xert derived Speed number or provide a way to calibrate it.
Especially with outdoor rides, why would I rely on an inaccurate GPS number where it can jump about when I have a Speed sensor onboard which should be more accurate and won’t jump about.
Anyway my 2c. At present I won’t be using the EBC app which is such a shame.
Sorry you’re having some issues with Xert’s Speed from Power. These sorts of technical issues are helpful to bring up with us directly so we can investigate and make changes/improvements. Send a note to us so we can document and track it.
One of the issues with using speed sensors is that every manufacturer does things a bit differently (they either send the wheel RPM and require the app to calculate speed from the rotational velocity while others send the speed directly, bypassing the first step) & usually requires some form of calibration. Our intention with speed from power is to bypass any need to calibrate and allow users to simply pair their PM and go. Obviously we may need to take a look at your data and make some adjustments
Yesterday I was surprised.
The “EBC XERT” application installed directly from “App Market Karoo2” after registering the activity from its level, on the “xertonline” page in the activity details there is no button to generate a report on this activity.
It is known from external platforms (eg Strava, TP, BigRing etc.), until there is a breakthrough, it is not possible to generate a report.
But that the original application “EBC XERT” is not there - it is strange.
Maybe it is because of the programmers carelessness and it can be fixed?
Hi! Is it really neccesary to contact you directly with this request (to allow the “speed from power” to be de-selected)? It was working perfectly in the Xert Mobile app. I just switched to EBC this week and would really like to use my Garmin speed sensor again!
Hi @steinarne. We are looking to add speed sensor support. We get a many support requests due to trainers that don’t emit proper speed data so we removed this ability in the initial release of EBC. You should always use Speed from Power indoors anyways and Speed from GPS is adequate for a vast majority of users outdoors. Support for speed sensors is coming but will need some additional capabilities in order to avoid the error prone trainer data.
I use ANT+ for all my ride recording sensors, for two reasons:
ANT+ might be a little more battery-efficient.
I can do Power Meter Calibrations and software updates via the side-loaded apps (4iiii, Power2Max, etc), without having to worry about “releasing” the BT connection in the side-loaded app so that the Karoo recording app can connect to the sensor.
Is there any way to toggle between Xert EBC and routing on the Karoo2? I like the EBC UI, but occasionally I need to access the maps onboard the Karoo2.
Long hold right button. Click left. Brings up the Karoo main screen. Click right to start/return to your Karoo recording or click left and tap the icon to go back to Xert EBC.
Ok, I’ll just have to wait then. It’s a pity because the Xert Mobile work just fine with the Garmin speed sensor (it shows the same speed as my old Fortius trainer software). But the “speed from power” is way too high, perhaps because it is calculated based on 0% gradient? BTW: I had to switch to EBC because on Xert Mobile it is not possible to switch off gps recording under options…
EBC uses Speed from GPS for outdoor rides and Speed from Power for indoor workouts.
Are you asking for a speed sensor option for both indoor and outdoor rides?
I just got my K2 and installed EBC on it. It seems I can’t get my Wahoo Tickr (or any other sensors) to connect with Ant+ reliably.
If the sensor is active in the k2 sensor menu it doesn’t connect to EBC at all. Switching of the sensors for the K2 using the menu bar usually makes EBC connect to the sensor. However if I go back to the activity the data field for HR will show just the value that it happened to be on before i closed the sensor menu. Then going back to the sensor menu in EBC usually shows that it’s trying to reconnect to the sensor, which won’t work.
Switching the sensors on and off again on the K2 menu will make the sensor re-connect to EBC, but only for a short time.
My other sensors (power, cadence) show the same behaviour.
Connecting through BT seemed to be more stable, which would be fine for outdoor rides, but for indoor rides I need BT to connect to Zwift…
This looks very similar to some issues that I had with the Xert mobile app on my Android phone before it got fixed.
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