fitting a cadence sensor to a paddle

Hi ... a repeat of a reply I wrote below because it fits your topic

The Fenix 3 stroke cadence works well when you wear the watch on your wrist.

Trouble is, I like to fit the watch to my foot strap so I can see the speed/distance/time/HR. Also, when you wear the watch on your wrist I find the speed is a little eratic, especially when going into the current or slower, I suspect it picks up the relative speed of your arm moving (ski speed + arm speed some times, ski speed - rm speed at other times).

So - I bought a bike cadence sensor, the magnet free Garmin one meant to go on the crank arm. First attempt I fitted it to mid-point of the paddle thinking it would detect eccentric movement of the paddle, but no measurements.

Next I fitted it closer to the end, between my hand and the blade - bingo!! Worked a treat when paddling with good technique (paddle near to vertical at the catch) - not so great with a lazy stroke or low arms.

The best all round solution was to just fit the sensor to my wrist/arm. I wear a wrist remote control for my Virb camera, so the dance sensor is now fitted to the wrist strap.

Cheers
Shane

Great, you did try exactly what I was looking to do. The cheap garmin sensor works well enough when paddling correctly is sounds. I don't really have much use for analyzing my lazy paddling anyway. I am putting it on my birthday list.

Shane,

So are you using this under the "Bike" activity? I can see my cadence that way, using a Vaaka cadence sensor, with the watch mounted on my footstrap.

That said, on my Fenix 3, there is a new "SUP" activity with some nice paddling-related data fields (distance per stroke, etc), but I don't see a way for the app to use the cadence sensor for the stroke rate, rather than expecting the watch to be worn on the wrist and the cadence calculated from the internal sensors in the watch. I want to have the watch on the footstrap and for the stroke rate to come from the cadence sensor, AND for this rate to be used for the distance per stroke and other measurements that use cadence. Any ideas?

I was hoping this would be easy, now I'm wondering if I need to play with the Connect IQ software development kit and learn how to develop new Data Fields and publish them. Apparently the people who make the Vaaka cadence sensor have done this for Suunto but not for Garmin (yet).

Greg

Hi Greg

I've been experimenting a little more with the bike cadence sensor, and unfortunately yes its only effective in "bike" mode which means you don't get the right calorie burn rate per kilometre, and other secondary features. So depends what you are after.

Garmin is one of the most used watches in the paddling community, so I hope they develop a paddle mount snesor that integrates with the paddle and SUP modes.

The other option is the Motionize set up, looks really nice but unfortunately is kayak specific whereas the watches are multi-function.

Might need to keep on tinkering I suspect.

I am curious to know more about your home made cadence setup. Tried using the Garmin accelerometer type, but it did not work at all. I guess it must have a circular motion for it to register one rotation, not just alternating angle for he sensor.

I picked up a cheap sensor on eBay and zip tied to my paddle (middle next to my leash). Search for "Smart Wireless Bluetooth ANT Cycling Bike Bicycle Speed Cadence Sensor". It ran $12 and has worked fine for 4 sessions now. I wouldn't submerge it, my it hasn't seemed bothered by the moisture from rowing.

I am using a Garmin 310XT with my Kayak under Bikes. I do have to manually edit it over to Paddling as an activity in Garmin Connect, but the cadence shows as Strokes per Minute.

Vaaka created a data field for distance per stroke (DPS) for the Garmin Fenix, for use with their paddle cadence sensor. Hurray! This allows you to see cadence AND/OR distance per stroke in real time on your display, that is great for stroke work.
I still have to use "bike mode" as the activity.

Greg

Great tip on the cheap cadence sensor. It took some experimentation to find a good placement and orientation but it's working well enough now - occasional glitches but good enough for averages and instantaneous readings with a skeptical eye.

Mine has holding steady pretty decently. I think this link will work to one of my Strava logs?

www.strava.com/activities/1767045174/analysis

I use Garmin Connect as my primary and it is linked over to Strava. I also have been importing my sessions to rowsandall.com, but wow that site is data overload to me as a newbie.

gstamer wrote: Vaaka created a data field for distance per stroke (DPS) for the Garmin Fenix, for use with their paddle cadence sensor. Hurray! This allows you to see cadence AND/OR distance per stroke in real time on your display, that is great for stroke work.
I still have to use "bike mode" as the activity.

Greg

That would be nice. SPM, HR and Speed is how I setup the data fields on my 310XT.

I did setup a "post-row" spreadsheet to calculate average stroke length, but an Excel file posting isn't allowed here. A screen capture is attached, but it is just the average for the session.

I don't why I hadn't tried this before, (maybe because I don't own a Vaaka?) but I tried to upload a TCX session to their free Analytics. FYI, keep the session indexed as Cycling or it won't pickup SPM. I had edited mine in Garmin Connect to Paddling which shows SPM instead of RPM, but Vaaka doesn't like that and expects the TCX field as RPM from Cycling.

Vaaka's app calculated my Average Stroke Distance as 2.04m, but I calculated it as 1.91m. Maybe they are discarding some of the outliers, but that is almost a 7% difference.

www.strava.com/activities/1767045174

from my Excel spreadsheet:
8/12/2018
51 spm
52.67 minutes
3.19 mi
16.51 min / mi
842 strokes / mi
6.3 ft / stroke (or 1.91 m/stroke)
3.6 mph
3.2 knots

Note: Garmin has the distance at 3.19mi and Strava rounds down to 3.18mi. That rounding is 1.91 vs 1.90, even worse for Vaaka's 2.04. 1m = 3.2808333ft right?

Just curious.

I'm using a Vaaka with Garmin 920xt paddling a surfski.  I like to count cadence using both sides, but I only seem to be getting half the value - So if I'm doing 80 SPM the Vaaka/Garmin is displaying 40.  Is there a way to setup the Garmin or the Vaaka to count both sides?

Vaaka cadence sensor counts double strokes per minute, so as far as I know you just have to do the math. 
The Vaaka app for Fenix, etc, gives real-time DPS ( double strokes per second ).