watchOS 10 - how to pair bike sensors - cadence, speed, power It's fairly straightforward to link your bike's sensors to an Apple Watch running watchOS 10. What's new in watchOS 10 is that Apple now supports these connections natively through Bluetooth, eliminating the need for your sports app to establish the connections manually. Once you have paired your sensor with the Watch, you will find that the Apple Workout app automatically connects to these sensors, allowing you to get started right away...don't forget to calibrate your power meter before you ride Control Centre Use the Watch's Control Centre and find the funny concentric circles plus triangle icon. From there it's intuitively easy to click through to a list of nearby sensors and choose the ones you want to connect to. [gallery size="medium" columns="4" ids="82257,82251,82253,82250"] You can connect to multiple power meters, cadence sensors, speed sensors and heart rate sensors although the Watch will only use one of each type. It's also worth noting that one sensor can provide more than one kind of cycling data, for example, a power meter can sometimes provide cadence as well as power. There are also intricacies around different kinds of power meters that can supply left and right-side power separately, together or which might appear as two different power meters. What you see depends on the power meter model you have but the bottom line is that ALL OF THEM should work with Apple. I even connected to the Stryd footpod although I have been told by an app developer that it won't feed into Apple Workout's power data. Configuration & Calibration If you have connected a speed sensor you might need to tell the watch your tyre dimensions and similarly, if you have power meter pedals you might need to tell the Watch your crank lengths. It's always best to check these settings even if, like in my case, I had already correctly set the crank length in the Assioma (power meter) app. [gallery size="medium" columns="5" ids="82254,82249,82248,82256,82255"] Q: Easy huh? A: Nope. Problems I've tested Shimano R9100P, Stages Gen 3 and Assioma Duo, and they are all fine. I'd imagine that Garmin Vector/Rally will be fine too. When you start a ride you are not notified if your sensors have connected. So off you go, cycling on trust. Although if a power number shows then all is good. The workout app so far has always been OK at connecting and recording the data but, for me, I'd just like the reassurance that all is working. Even if you go into the control centre and check your sensors then, in my case, it initially shows none are connected at the start of a ride. So I'm still not entirely sure at what point during the ride might connect. It's probably within 10 seconds...so PROBABLY acceptable but I always check manually before I start to be sure. The next problem is linked to calibration. This usually needs to be done before every ride. I would like to be prompted to remember to calibrate. Speed sensors should auto-calibrate via GPS. I haven't tested this but I suspect that isn't the case here and that they require the manual settings as shown in the images above. Take Out Initially, I had anticipated Apple's bike sensor connections to be a very basic Minimum Viable Product (MVP). However, it turns out that my expectations were unfair. Apple has gone well above and beyond that almost offering a complete solution for all the nuances in the power meters that exist.
