Riding with two Garmins

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NorthCascades
NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
This is a very specific question, but I think there might be a few people in here in the same boat.

I have a Fenix watch and an Edge 130. When I ride, I use both in bike mode. Only the watch uploads to the cloud, so I'm not double counting miles or anything. The little 130 that could is a great complement to the watch, I can see what's important without having to roll my wrist. šŸ™‚

Is there a reason to calibrate my power meter from both head units? I don't know what happens at the protocol level when you calibrate, I assume you're just telling the PM "this is zero" but maybe it sends something back that the head unit needs? Don't suppose anybody knows?

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  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    My assumption was the same in that the Garmin merely sends a signal to the PM to calibrate itself and doesn't change anything within the head unit itself.

    Seemed to be borne out with two head units linked to the same PM in the gym.
    Using a Wattbike I mistakenly pressed the calibrate PM option on my Edge 1000 while warming up at c. 100watts. Which meant that when I started my training it had calbrated itself 100w too low (duh!) - same power numbers appeared on both head units so looks like just calbration just affects the data sent.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Thank you @sijomial !! šŸ™‚
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Update on case anyone else has the same question.

    I've been studying using both devices, but only calibrating from the watch. At the end of a ride, up to multiple hours, they agree exactly about average power and total work done. šŸ‘ So it must be ok to calibrate once from one device and monitor with others.

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