How accurate are power meters in apps?

[electric sheep]

An idle thought really but I've noticed a disparity between my two e-bikes with built in power meters in the app.

I have a Trek Domane+ from 2020 with the Fazua Ride 50 motor. I can peak at about 1000 watts (for a few seconds only, I'm not Chris Hoy!). However on my Trek Fuel ex-e my max so far is around 600 watts. Okay I know one is a skinny tyred road machine and the other less so, however I thought my max watts would be fairly consistent.

I wonder how and where the readings are taken from, maybe that explains the difference.

Anyone have any thoughts or experience on this?

Cheers,
Gary

 

[RustyIron]

Anyone have any thoughts or experience on this?

I'd think that the disparity could be attributable to something as simple as sampling rate. Obviously you'll be looking more powerful when sampled every 0.2 seconds than when sampled every 10 seconds.

 

[electric sheep]

An excellent point Rusty, I hadn't thought of sampling rates. There was I thinking I was just a bit too lazy with the emtb.

 

[thongraegu]

I think they are only relative measurements, cant compare between bikes, my max power on my analog bike with power meter is way higher than my max power my bosch bike says but bosch says my average pedaling power is way higher than my actual measured pedaling power from my road bike so I think e-bike numbers are just all over the place.