XSS Buckets Garmin Datafield available

Used this for the first time today and thought it was great for helping get the right mix in, focus and specificity always got me close but there is bandwidth in the focus number and the % for specificity that means you might be going hard when actually the blue is what’s needed.

The beep when you hit the ticks was a nice unexpected addition as is the arrows for ! Vs tick (I assume that’s what they are)

A few things I noticed and with the caveat that I’m using an Edge530. I have it set as the buckets field for a whole screen with the extra slider for focus (I think) included.

  • there’s almost too much info on the screen to be able to absorb while you’re on a road pushing 32 kph but at the same time I’m missing data I’d want. I’m going to experiment with setting it up as 2 or 3 fields on a screen to see if I can optimise but this is first thought.

  • data I’d want is the Power/MPA field as it’s much easier to read, my current gear (di2), cadence, maybe HR, maybe focus/difficulty field as easier to read

  • Data that was less useful polarity and focus as sliders. The colour coding is familiar and collapses this info into one number that is large and easier to see on the old fields. The rolling numbers at the bottom, target power was useful, but I’m not sure what I am meant to action with recovery days for example. I’d almost want total xss rolling through here as the buckets let you eyeball it and then you can watch out for it if you want the total for some reason

  • power was good but very hard to see, the colour and bar with the target arrow did give a ‘glance’ factor but it was a bit small. same. What The bars on the power line mean wasn’t clear but I imagine that’s just me not reading the instructions :sweat_smile:

Well aware you can’t please everyone but this was my experience doing High Intensity on a smaller screen with a relatively windy route.

I also noticed the focus and specificity were different in buckets to the older Xert fields on other screens. I assume this relates to implanting the updated algorithm; imagine at some point it will get applied to the other fields.

Edit: to be fair also some of this is lack of familiarity/ me leaving bars on; once I work out which row of the bars is which, the optimal layout, and have it in memory it will become easier but I still think the power is a bit small

Do you really need to have the bucket widget on your main riding screen?
I rather look at MPA/power, workout target, remaining time, HR. The bucket screen I check once in a while by swiping right to check wherer I am heading.

2 Likes

Same here. I normally look at my lap screen where I show MPA, power, lap power, HR, time in lap an so one. And then I just check in on the totals for the ride once in a while.

It would be easy (I think) just to display the power figure in colour (blue, orange, and red) also in the XSS bucket data field as it is shown in the MPA/power field

1 Like

started my ride this morning and didn’t feel up for it.

but I had buckets to fill!!!

crushed my workout where I otherwise might have limped along.

what a crazy value Xert is. people pay a trainer $60-$85 for one workout session.

5 Likes

Can anyone explain to me what the arrows/triangles on the left side of each bucket are for? One is red, one is green, meaning?

Am I suppose to fill the bucket or just go to one of the red/green arrows? I filled them today.

Did my first bucket ride today and it’s exactly what I’ve been wanting.

My only question is what the buckets were based on. I had my recommended numbers and picked a workout that roughly matched. However, I’d be fine just going off of XATA and free riding everything.

I added power and HR below my buckets but maybe that limited what info i was seeing in the buckets widget on my 830?

I also tried to use the Xert power where it turns the color of the intensity you’re riding, but doing that the yellow was filling painfully slow. I kicked it back up to higher power and filled the yellow bucket much faster.

Should I do it the slow way?

2 Likes

one arrow is the minimum needed to turn the bucket “orange”. The other arrow is the minimum to turn the bucket “green”. One you hit the minimum for green it gives you a beep and a message. You can keep going to the target. If you go over too much, it turns “orange”, and if you go way over it turns “red”.

1 Like

I filled the red and yellow buckets today, just missed filling the blue. None turned orange, and I went over on the red by about 30%.

I need to make the bucket widget full screen so I can see if I’m missing information. Right now I have it limited to 1/3 of my screen with power and HR below.

1 Like

Fair point. But if it’s available it would be good to use it in real time with minimal hunting through screens. And if it’s intended for outdoors use the absorbing data quickly is useful.

Also relates to topic for another thread- what fields are people running on their computers and why those ones? What time interval for power averaging too.

2 Likes

Could be worth starting a new forum thread on this topic - I’d be curious to see what others are using as well. :smiley:

I’m also interested to know the interval for power averaging. I normally look at 3s average power. The bucket field seems longer - 5s or maybe more.

Like a lot of Xert stuff seems like they put too much info in here. Would prefer less info that is easier to see at a glance.

While riding my MTB I mainly pay attention to avg power, 3s power, avg HR, and current HR. I’ll have a target climbing power / max HR and then a target avg power. I use the bucket target to help guide those goals. In general, it seems like Xert under values my MTB rides compared to RPE. Garmin and Strava both better match RPE.

On road / gravel rides I have a little more time to absorb more data but still try to have a climbing or interval power target and then an average power target. It feels like Xert was developed for road riding as the load and division into buckets matches RPE.

I am struggling to get the data field to show the correct targets. When I start up after a clean boot of the Garmin it shows 73 / 5 / 2 XSS target as configured. It then blinks red for some time, and if I am lucky a new target is shown as 83 / 0 / 0 XSS. This is however not the correct target for the day, it should be 170 / 9.8 / 0.2 XSS as shown in my calendar. (Both the Garmin and Xert Online is set to the UTC+0200 timezone.)

I am using the 6.9 version of the data field, which I believe is the latest one.

One suggestion – can you add some more information on the screen to inform about the updating of the signature and targets? I would like to see why it fails.

Also, it some times takes for ages to do the update, but very hard to understand why. Is the Garmin communicating with the Internet through the wifi connection or through bluetooth to the phone? If the latter, do I have to do something special to help e.g. Garmin Connect provide the internet connection?



I want to give an update on the issue above.

If you have a workout in your calendar, the data field will use that as a target even if it is for a different date.

In my case, my first planned workout was an event two weeks from now, and the data field used that as a target instead of the AI Forecast target for the day.

Thanks. Should be sorted @hpbieker

Thanks, it works as expected now!

I still think it can be improved how it handles multiple rides in a day. My target for today is 180 XSS, and I completed 65 XSS earlier today. If I start a second it will still use 180 XSS as the target for the ride, instead of 115 XSS (the remaining XSS). I understand this is not exactly straight forward when you have three different XSS types (low, high, and peak) where you might end up with an infeasible combination of remaining XSS (0 low XSS, some high or peak XSS). If I look at the Training tab it looks like you propose additional training based on the remaining XSS and a similar logic could be used in this data field?

1 Like

Any plans to put XSS Buckets on the Hammerhead?

I’ve been loving the datafield, but ran into a hiccup this morning. When it updated my signature and the workout numbers for the day, I think it might have reset my TP or imported it incorrectly so the reported XSS was way too high: about 115 in the first 22 minutes.

Here’s a screenshot from early in the ride:


I forgot to take a screenshot of the XSS field I’m using on another screen, but that was still accurate. The final XSS on the XSS Buckets was app was close to 600, while the XSS datafield correctly reported the final 118ish XSS.

This is why I switched back to Garmin. My wahoo was never gonna integrate with Xert and you will most like see a slow drip down from Garmin to the Karoo…still can’t fault my 1030 Plus

I loaded the Buckets datafield onto my Garmin Explore 2. It looks great, but unfortunately it keeps telling me that it can’t retrieve my credentials. I did set my credentials when I downloaded the field from Connect IQ, but something is not right. Do I need to have something running on my phone for it to work? Should I just reinstall the datafield?

Also, I do not see the power line on top - just XSS, Focus and Specf. Has it been removed?