Favero Assioma Duo power meter review

The Favero Assioma Duo power meter pedals provide accurate power measurement, are quick and easy to swap between bikes, and rely on rechargeable batteries so you won’t be adding to landfills with excessive waste materials.

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As someone who moves from bike to bike frequently, the ability to easily move power measurement with me is invaluable. I’ve used the Powertap P1 pedals for a short time; my go-to choice for power measurement had been Garmin Vector 3 — until I started using the Assiomas, which don’t throw any errors or have signal dropouts. Since I’ve been a Look pedal user for decades, the KEO style cleat is ideal, but  Shimano pedal users are out of luck here.

Assioma Duo build and details

The Assioma Duo pedal body has a slightly smaller appearance than the Garmins, and they are a lot less chunky than the PowerTaps. While I am pretty good about not having my inside pedal down while cornering, I’m still mindful of how much wiggle room I have with the Italian-made pedals when cornering.

The Assioma Duo pedal body is rather svelte. The rechargeable batteries and transmitter electronics are housed in a donut-shaped enclosure at the crank-end of the pedal spindle. This ring is not intrusive while pedaling or clipping in and out of the pedals. And this design did not affect the pedals’ Q-factor.

The Assioma pedals weigh in at 152g each. For comparison, the Garmin Vector 3 comes in at 164g per pedal.

Installing and maintaining the Assioma Duo

Installing the pedals was super easy—only an 8mm hex wrench is needed. No pedal wrench or torque wrench is necessary. Once installed, using the Favero app, I was able to zero-offset the pedals, put them into travel mode (so the sensors do not continuously try to send a signal when it’s not needed), set crank arm length, and view battery status. This app also sends data to a Favero database when the pedals are paired with a mobile device, to allow for remote troubleshooting. Pairing the pedals to a bike computer through ANT+ or BTLE was easy and straightforward.

Before every ride, I either used the Assioma app or a bike computer (Wahoo Elemnt Roam, Garmin Fenix 6, or Garmin Edge 520+) to calibrate the pedals. I found this process to be more efficient with my bike computer than the Assioma app.

When the pedals are awakened before a ride, several status LEDs illuminate on the spindles, and stay flashing to let you know they are awake and ready to send data.

It’s simple to use the Assiomas for each ride:

1. Spin the crank to wake the pedals
2. Confirm connection to a receiving device
3. Calibrate the pedals
4. Ride
5. View data

Accuracy

The data provided by the Favero Assioma is accurate to within a few watts. While accuracy is important, so is consistency, and that’s where the Favero Assioma Duo shows its strength. Once installed and calibrated, I never experienced any dropouts, excessive battery warnings, or any data which seemed questionable. I’ve not had this error-free experience with any other power meter or smart trainer I’ve tested.

Using a Wahoo Kickr as a standard for comparison, the Assiomas usually tracked within 3 watts of the Kickr. When doing surges and sprints in Zwift, or through planned workouts with accelerations, the Assioma pedals would read higher than the Kickr by about 10 percent at peak power output, but I suspect this is because of how the Kickr interprets this type of rider input, as I’ve experienced this type of variance when using other power meters on the Kickr. When doing steady-state efforts — like simulated time trials or 20-minute efforts — the Favero Assioma pedals provided consistent, accurate and reliable data, very much in line with what I’d expect to see.

One of the useful features of a power meter that measures left and right power independently is the data from each pedal, which can be used to inform the user of imbalances in the pedal stroke. Using either Garmin Connect or the Wahoo Elemnt app, I was able to view data measured by the Assioma Duo pedals which indicated my pedaling imbalances. This data reinforced what I already knew: When I fatigue, I get sloppy and undisciplined with my pedaling—and I like having actionable data to indicate where I can improve.

Customer Service

For the first few times using the Favero Assioma Duo pedals while on a trainer while the weather was not hospitable for outdoor cycling, I had no issues with the data being reported. But on my first two rides outdoors I noticed that my power was way off. I contacted the Favero customer support and they were immediately responsive. Using the Favero app, I connected to the pedals via Bluetooth to perform diagnostics and send the data to somewhere in the cloud where the Favero technical support could view it.

After some back and forth via email, a new spindle was shipped directly from the Favero facility in Italy to my door. I swapped out the faulty spindle for the replacement — following most of the instructions provided in a Youtube video — and on my next ride, I had good power data again. Just make sure that you install the dust cap on the side of the pedal body to take up side-to-side play on the spindle. It not only protects the pedal from water, dust and dirt, it also takes up any side-to-side play on the spindle.

Maintenance

The Assioma power meter’s rechargeable batteries are certainly more environmentally-friendly than other power meters that rely on disposable batteries. While Favero claims upwards of 50 hours of use between charges, and I was able to get about 48 hours of use before charging—but I may be on the conservative/cautious side when it comes to not wanting battery death during a ride. The task of remembering to check the battery status, and then recharge the batteries is needed more frequently than Di2 (which I charge so infrequently, I forget at least once a year). The charging cables attach to the transmitter/battery casing via a magnetic clip; there’s no physical port on the pedal for dirt and grime to collect.

My only gripe about the battery management is the sleep function. If you put the power meter into travel mode to save the batteries from staying awake while in transport, the charging cables are required to wake the pedals from this deep sleep. It would be a nice update to the user experience if the pedals could be awakened without the cables—allowing one to leave the cables at home if traveling for relatively short periods of time.

Verdict

While having to replace the pedal spindle — which contains the power measuring strain gauges — during testing was not optimal, my experience with the Favero Assioma Duo power meter was overwhelmingly positive. I really like not having to worry about swapping and disposing of batteries. And moving the Assioma pedals between bikes using just a standard 8mm hex wrench takes nearly no time at all.