Arofly: The World’s Smallest Power Meter for Biking

TBS Group Corporation’s Arofly is touted as “the world’s smallest and affordable power meter,” which is about the size of a bottle cap and is designed to gather metric data on all things biking. The device is affixed to the rear wheel valve stem of your bicycle and uses its internal sensors to measure pressure differentials to determine the amount of power you are exerting, relying on the bike computer for everything else.

TBS calls their system Exclusive Dynamic Pressure Variation Technology:

“By measuring torque and angular velocity, the Strain Gauge is able to calculate power. Such measurement devices usually used by most cycling power meters in the market, such as Chainring, Crank, Pedal, and Hub, must attach to the transmission system to detect the position of the force point.”

The Arofly Power Meter works in tandem with TBS’s Cadence sensor, which transmits its real-time data via the company’s Bluetooth/ANT+-enabled Link transmitter, and passes the data on to either a third party bike computer or the Arofly GPS cycling platform. From there, you can monitor power, cadence, speed, L/R pedal ratio, altitude, and heart rate. You can also get data on tire pressure, trip distances, ground gradients, and calories burned.

TBS is currently crowdfunding their latest version of the Arofly on Kickstarter, with pledges starting at $179, which gets you the Power Meter, Cadence Meter, and Link Transmitter, while a kit that includes the Arofly GPS Computer will set you back $239 and up.