Archon Speed: Wireless Bike Meter Review

Similar to the skipping rope idea I had, I wanted to find a way to get fit and the Bike Meter provided this in a round-about kind of way, more so because it made me get up off my arse and gave me a reason to get out on the bike.

But before I go into the In-use part I’ll just explain a little bit about the design, box content and then move onto the ease of setup.

Box Content & Design

I need to mention that I did do a video of the unboxing and setting up of the Meter which you can see below. It’s not perfect, in that the lighting was a little poor and the sound quality could be better, but it will at least showcase how I believed the Meter should be attached to the bike.

This is something that may be useful in comparison to the supplied user manual which I found to be less intuitive in explaining how the Meter needed to be attached.

A prime example of this is the diagrams supplied in the manual, which showcase that the wheel and crank magnets needed to be <3mm away from the sensor, yet the diagram made the gap look a lot bigger than it should be.

In the end I needed to consult a YouTube promo video from Box.co.uk’s web sale page (the company the product was delivered from) to get a better idea of how it installed and even then it was demonstrating the product on a training bike, which also happened to be the same distracting colour as the Bike Meter.

So I just think the whole manual side of the Archon products, as I had a similar gripe with the Skipping rope manual, could be a tad more informative and use real-world images as opposed to diagrams i.e. stating exactly where and how the product needs to be attached to the bike.

For the most part, alongside the manual in the box you get the small Bike Meter itself which is adorned in white and a stylish lime green rubberised base. The latter is grooved slightly to allow it to grip the chassis of the bike without scratching it. To the back of the Meter you also have a small battery cover that protects the CR2032 battery housed inside.

Additionally you have a sensor that sticks out of the Meter and this is grouped with the two supplied magnets, one that attaches to your Bike’s crank (in English this is the arm part of the pedal) while the other magnet attaches to your wheel spoke.

Alongside this you have a rubber band which is used during setup for attaching the Meter to the bike before the two supplied cable ties are put in place to secure it.

Setup

I explained above that I did find consulting the manual was less helpful than I would have expected, but eventually after turning to the YouTube video I worked out the best way to position the Meter and attach this to my bike.

The key aspect is to use the supplied rubber band first as thanks to the two notches that are placed on each side of the Meter you can attach the Meter temporally to the bike frame (on the opposite side of the chain). The image below will indicate where this was placed as a picture speaks louder than words.

With this in place you can then attach the cable ties loosely and place one of the magnets (which is pretty strong) to the crank so that it is roughly <3mm away from the main Meter housing. I found rotating the crank - with the Meter in place – afterwards will allow you to determine that the magnet on the crank shaft does not catch the Meter as you peddle.

You then unscrew the spoke magnet and loosely attach this to the wheel spoke. Finally you use a small Philips screw driver to loosen the sensor arm of the Meter so the spoke magnet is less than 3mm from the sensor unit. Again rotating the wheel is vital so that it freely passes without catching the senor arm.

Here is where you have more confusion though, because the manual showcases the spoke magnet being attached in a different way to the promo video. I.e. the Magnet is facing the sensor arm, where in the manual it shows it facing away. I opted for the manual option otherwise the magnet kept catching the sensor arm.

This re-iterates my problem with the setup of the device in that it really needs clear pictures as to the exact way you have to set-up the Meter.

To cut a long story short I was able to get the Meter in place and tighten the two cable ties. I left the rubber band in place as this still allowed movement of the Meter (with a bit of force) which is paramount if it accidentally gets knocked during your bike ride; something I had to do on the odd occasion.

Smartphone Setup

I already had the Archon App installed because I was using it to test the Wireless Skipping Rope, but for newcomers you will need to create an account during setup as the data collected is synced to the server. You will also need to use the App to pair the Meter with the Smartphone via Bluetooth.

From experience with the aforementioned Skipping rope you simply need to turn on the Bluetooth function from your Smartphone and then head to the App’s Settings > Device page. From here it will explain how to pair.

In this case you pick up the back wheel and rotate the pedals; this will enable the Bluetooth receiver on the Meter. From here you can return to the App to finish the pairing process.

I then found you had to set-up a few more parameters, such as the Wheel Size (in mm) and the bike Weight (KG). It’s definitely worth getting this inputted correctly as I found that it can affect the accuracy of the Meter otherwise.

Getting Ready

The next point of call is to place your Smartphone in a bike cradle mount...if you have one of course.

While these can be expensive I ended up making one out of a donated car cradle mount, some insulation tape and a few cable ties. Finishing off with a £3 sports armband that I cut down in size to fit in the cradle mount to give my Phone a Water Proof shield. Let’s just say it worked a treat!

Then you need to head back to the main interface, select the Home button and a small bike icon will appear on the Home screen that can be selected to start the monitoring.

Interface

You will find that the main Bike interface comprises of several sections. The top part initially allows you to see the RPM that you generate while peddling (cadence part) and the other shows the speed.

However my gripe here is that the speed is in KPH and there is no way to change this to MPH in the current App build.

You also have an outside temperature and chance of rain icons. Again this system is there to give you an idea of what the conditions are like before you bike. Sadly the system is not that accurate and I’ll explain more about this later.

Directly below you have symbols to indicate your Bluetooth, Satellite, Direction of travel and Battery status.

Sadly the accuracy of the Battery part is way-out! I’m not sure if this is supposed to be linked to the main battery meter or its showing an indication of how much battery life the App is using, but either way it’s not that accurate. For example the App was showing the battery at 96% where my main battery was at 46%.

Mind you this could be an issue with iOS 10. As I mentioned in my Skipping rope review I have a feeling that the App is not optimised for this new release. For a start re-inputting the Bike options will crash the App.

Anyway I digress slightly, beneath the Battery status you will find your journey time, calories burned and your distance travelled (again in Km and not miles). Finally your elevation is displayed which is in metres above sea level for your current location, if my memory serves.

Finally below this you have a small embedded Google Map of your journey, which can be expanded full screen to remove the Speed and RPM dials. Personally this is the best option for basic orientation.

In-Use

On the whole, apart from the ability in not having any customisation over the metric system, the interface is not bad to use.

Of course the proof is in the pudding when it comes to accuracy. For testing I did three main runs, one on the road and two off-road in a park environment, so I could see how stable the Meter would be going over the odd bump.

The experience was positive at first, but there was always a nagging doubt in my mind if the Meter was setup correctly and working as it should be.

I found going to the local park was easier to do than on the road for the first few tests because the screen can be a distraction and I found myself constantly looking at the RPM/Speed dials and the smaller mini map.

It seemed to register the RPM OK, but there was a slight lag in terms of registering the speed. I think this was more down to the graphic on the App’s needle and my level of fitness i.e. not being able to generate enough rotation to get much speed. Either way I just wished it was in MPH, as I was constantly having to convert the Speed in my head as to what I’m currently used to.

After time I was starting to get better at not looking at the interface and simply doing the odd glance to see how many calories were burnt and how long I had been biking for. Additionally the mini map - when expanded - did provide me with a useful means of navigating back to my starting point, even though the directional pointer on my iPhone 5s was a tad small.

Weather not accurate

I nearly forgot to mention about the problem with the chance of rain and weather icons that you can see via the Apps Interface. On the first run it was not working at all, so I could not get any idea of accuracy at this point. On subsequent runs it was telling me that it was a Sunny day but there was a 68% chance of rain, yet I was actually biking for several hours in pouring rain! A nice idea, but sadly it did not work for me.

But what I did like about the Bike Meter was that if you came to a stop it would, after a fashion, pause the App for you and then re-start once you set off again. This would be like stopping at a set of lights for example.

My problem was that during the hour or so of my first run I did stop for longer periods. While you can manually pause the App at this point, the Bike Meter seems to disable the Bluetooth connection after a while to conserve the battery life.

I found this out when I tried to resume after the stop and it came up with a connection error. I then I had to get off the bike to rotate the wheel manually to turn the Bluetooth back on again.

Second Run Issues

I also found on my second run that when I returned to the park environment at some point later in the journey I must have caught the sensor when I got off the bike and laid it on the floor, because the speed stopped registering completely after this.

Going downhill and idling i.e. not peddling also caused the Pause/Resume function to kick in. This could be related to the above issue though or perhaps a bug with the lack of iOS 10 support.

At this point I had to get off the bike and check all the magnets and Bike Meter. In fairness it had been knocked slightly and putting the sensor back did not make much difference as I think it ruined the data too much.

Final run

The final run was done on the roads and the speed was being recorded again, so it seems my initial impressions were correct.

In some ways I think the device is designed for road or training use more than anything else as it seemed to perform better when you were continuously peddling. I think the stopping and starting process does have an effect on the device in my opinion.

History

After the biking you can see Historical information via the App, which shows a graph at the top of the screen along with tabs that provides your elevation, speed and cadence (RPM) data.

You also get beneath this your average speed, rpm, journey time and elevation in text format. Additionally you can see your route once more on Google Maps. This seemed to be tracked accurately.

However I have no idea of how accurate the data is overall given my findings during testing. The problem as well is that the App does not provide any means to utilise this data outside the App, other than to share the graphs with Facebook friends or I think you can tap into a Far-east social blog.

It’s a pity you can’t export this data as a .csv or a .gpx file in terms of your route taken. Which firmly places the product in a casual consumer market in my book, rather than a full-blown training product.

Battery Life

Another drawback of the product is that it can drain the battery life of your Smartphone by a big margin. I started at 100% and after a few hours I was down to 45%. The actual battery inside the Bike Meter has 500 hours capacity so no issues there. At least the data usage was low. Registering something like <1MB of data in this time.

Summary

For me the App and accompanying manual (for setup purposes) is what lets the product down.

The App certainly needs updating to fully support iOS 10 as there were various crashes that were not in place post-iOS 10.

More importantly I think the manual needs more accurate illustrations of how the Bike is setup and what the App options do.

On a positive note I liked the overall presentation of the App and the ability to use the Map view to orientate back to my starting point. The historical data may have some use to, for a fitness option; it just lacks the ability to export the data properly.

Price wise, £29.99 may not seem that pricey in comparison to other similar wireless solutions but it also brings its own drawbacks. For example more drain on your phone’s own battery and then you need to consider that a phone mount is required to view your smartphone’s screen while biking.

Another offset to this is the larger screen can then be a distraction and there are bike monitors out there which provide cadence, speed, distance travelled and a minimal distracting display at a fraction of the cost.

In some ways I feel the Archon solution is better suited for fixed training bikes, rather than road cycling or off-road, as the stop-start nature could perhaps be causing issues.

However who knows, the iOS 10 compatibility problem may be the cause, so my advice would be to wait until the App is updated before making a final decision.