Mission Control App - Turbo Vado Solution Now Available

[rochrunner]

For what it's worth, the label on the battery on my 2020 Vado 4.0 says that it is rated 14Ah/36V/504Wh.

 

[TS25]

@Stefan Mikes
Venus of Willendorf? Is that the girl you've been taking out for dinner one time to often?

Ask Kamil Stoch about Willingen. He's been on the podium 3x during the last years.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Adam Małysz used to jump there, too

 

[rochrunner]

I'm still not getting good conditions to do more riding on my Vado 4.0, but from my experience so far I've decided that although I might use BLEvo to monitor a ride because of its detailed data collection, I'm not going to use it to set the power parameters.

From the start, I've had trouble figuring out exactly what it's doing at times since it didn't seem to retain settings and other anomalies. But the other day when I tried applying settings that I had saved as one of the "presets", I saw a popup message saying something about the legality of "changing the speed limit", which is not what I was trying to do at all (although I don't think it actually did anything). But when I disconnected BLEvo and brought up Mission Control, it showed that my power parameters had really been whacked. The assist levels looked OK, but the Peak Power settings were showing Eco set to 8, Sport also wrong, and Turbo at 0! I then used MC to set the correct levels and all looks good as far as I can tell.

Right from the start I've seen issues with BLEvo such as not showing my serial number and showing my battery as 450Wh instead of 504. Thinking about it, BLEvo has features that are dependent on specific versions of the bike's firmware for the Levo series of eMTBs. The app knows nothing about Vados and there's probably no telling how it operates when it sees something that doesn't fit into its design (maybe it should just refuse to connect?). I've tried asking the author some questions, but in fairness his English is not that great and he has misunderstood my questions most of the time. Besides, he never claimed it would work for a Vado.

So unless and until there's a version of BLEvo that specifically calls out Vado compatibility, I think I'm going to stay away from it. MC is just as good for my purposes and is a lot safer!

 

[Kam1936]

I'm still not getting good conditions to do more riding on my Vado 4.0, but from my experience so far I've decided that although I might use BLEvo to monitor a ride because of its detailed data collection, I'm not going to use it to set the power parameters.

From the start, I've had trouble figuring out exactly what it's doing at times since it didn't seem to retain settings and other anomalies. But the other day when I tried applying settings that I had saved as one of the "presets", I saw a popup message saying something about the legality of "changing the speed limit", which is not what I was trying to do at all (although I don't think it actually did anything). But when I disconnected BLEvo and brought up Mission Control, it showed that my power parameters had really been whacked. The assist levels looked OK, but the Peak Power settings were showing Eco set to 8, Sport also wrong, and Turbo at 0! I then used MC to set the correct levels and all looks good as far as I can tell.

Right from the start I've seen issues with BLEvo such as not showing my serial number and showing my battery as 450Wh instead of 504. Thinking about it, BLEvo has features that are dependent on specific versions of the bike's firmware for the Levo series of eMTBs. The app knows nothing about Vados and there's probably no telling how it operates when it sees something that doesn't fit into its design (maybe it should just refuse to connect?). I've tried asking the author some questions, but in fairness his English is not that great and he has misunderstood my questions most of the time. Besides, he never claimed it would work for a Vado.

So unless and until there's a version of BLEvo that specifically calls out Vado compatibility, I think I'm going to stay away from it. MC is just as good for my purposes and is a lot safer!

That's strange. The app apparently knows nothing about your Vado but that's not true for mine. I never had any of those experiences that you've mentioned. I did change wheel size to match MC. Because 90 was to high. I checked stats after adjustment. 15 mile ride showed it was only off .1 from TCD-w display. 14.99 Vs 15. Same with average and max speed. The only thing I noticed on this ride when I paused my ride to rest and was moving around with my phone in my pocket, about 7 minutes, it inputted that in the stats. So, my average speed of the over all ride was off by .8. Instead of average speed of 15 mph that display showed in total 30 mile ride. My average time in BLEvo was 14.2. Moving time was off by 7 minutes.
I love the numerous stats, adjusting in 1% increments instead of 5 and most of all I like the voice feature that speaks stats while you ride. Changes of assist, battery level, elevation and distance traveled every 5 miles.
I don't regret my purchase. I refunded first time because of incompatibility with BLOK but working great with TCD-w. I also see my less then 5% increments verified in MC. Maybe Turbo Vado 5.0 is comparable to Levo setup but 4.0 is not. Maybe it's Android Q. I'm definitely not upgrading from Pie because of all the reported issues with MC. If it ain't broke...

 

[Kam1936]

These settings work best for me. I can get 70 + miles on a charge consistently with a decent average rate of speed 13 to 14 MPH. Eco at 12% feels like I'm riding a regular bike. When I get tired or run into a hill I use trail at 25% just to get me over and then I'm back to Eco or riding unassisted. Turbo at 60% is plenty of power to ride at speeds upward of 20-28 mph. Depending on how hard I want to work. I use turbo on the last stretch riding home. The Old road is dangerous moving slow without a bike lane. Overall, I'm very happy with the range I'm getting . At 27 charging cycles with 1562 miles, my battery is still showing 100% healthy. So far the Triggers haven't let me down. No punctures or flats. I hope to get 4000 miles out of these tires before exchanging them for new ones.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I'm intimidated with the BLEvo, Kam. First of all, BLEvo cannot understand my Vado is a 45 km/h speed-pedelec. If the app damages my vital settings of the Vado, I'd have to explain myself to the Specialized LBS and -- as I and them hate each other -- they might invalidate my warranty. So I stay with the MC that does everything I need it to do.

 

[Art Deco]

Yes indeed...had mine upgraded last week on my Como 3.0!!

Just bought a pair of como 3s and was/still am afraid to mess with the phone app. Are you able to track miles on your ride with it now?

 

[rochrunner]

I'm intimidated with the BLEvo, Kam. First of all, BLEvo cannot understand my Vado is a 45 km/h speed-pedelec. If the app damages my vital settings of the Vado, I'd have to explain myself to the Specialized LBS and -- as I and them hate each other -- they might invalidate my warranty. So I stay with the MC that does everything I need it to do.

I'm in your camp, Stefan. Mainly, I think that Kam's firmware version is closer to a Levo than the lower Vado models. The Levo's firmware as supported by BLEvo is 7.something whereas my Vado 4.0 is 9.32, which makes it sound like it's not even on the same software development branch. In any case, BLEvo can't correctly read or set my power parameters and I've found some other issues with even using it to gather ride statistics. For example:

• BLEvo uses the percentage of battery usage as the basis for most calculations, so the fact that it thinks my battery is 450Wh instead of 500 throws this off. If it sees that I used 10% of the battery, it takes this a 45Wh usage where it's actually 50Wh and thus gives wrong readouts for things like Wh/mile etc.
• Even though BLEvo seems to know what mode I'm in, for some reason it doesn't see when I'm in the OFF setting. I rode 25 miles yesterday and it said I only had it off for .25mi, where I actually rode several miles that way. It did seem to catch my transitions between Eco and Sport (what Levos call "Trail"), but a number of calculations are off due to not counting the Off time.

So I'll continue to use MC for the motor settings and record my rides using my Garmin as always (MC's ride monitoring stats are pretty basic and not that much use to me).

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Just bought a pair of como 3s and was/still am afraid to mess with the phone app. Are you able to track miles on your ride with it now?

I have to repeat myself: The MC is just fine nowadays.

 

[Kam1936]

I'm intimidated with the BLEvo, Kam. First of all, BLEvo cannot understand my Vado is a 45 km/h speed-pedelec. If the app damages my vital settings of the Vado, I'd have to explain myself to the Specialized LBS and -- as I and them hate each other -- they might invalidate my warranty. So I stay with the MC that does everything I need it to do.

Hey. I'm curious what is your firmware for battery, motor and display now. As I mentioned before I have good results with BLEvo and Android 9. On the other hand, MC is a little challenging. Going to my destination everything was fine. I could see my stats recording fine. Coming back the screen kept timing out with the app. So, I don't know what that is. I had to restart the phone and app to keep the screen on engaged with the app. Numerous times app said GPS was off when it was on. I used MC today on my 40 mile ride. It only worked going to my destination.

 

[Sierratim]

Hey. I'm curious what is your firmware for battery, motor and display now. As I mentioned before I have good results with BLEvo and Android 9. On the other hand, MC is a little challenging. Going to my destination everything was fine. I could see my stats recording fine. Coming back the screen kept timing out with the app. So, I don't know what that is. I had to restart the phone and app to keep the screen on engaged with the app. Numerous times app said GPS was off when it was on. I used MC today on my 40 mile ride. It only worked going to my destination.

My MC app did the same, at first. Then I found under 'Settings' the 'Display Always Active' slider. I moved it to 'ON' and now the display doesn't sleep when the app is open. I'm running ver 2.2.1 of MC. Much handier...

 

[Kam1936]

See attachment. I have no idea when this happened in the last 3 weeks. Back to the lbs to get it replaced. I just paid supposedly to have all my bearings and bolts adjusted so I don't know why it disengaged. The rack I believe 22kg. I carry approximately 15kg in my panniers split. Just below 30 pounds total. Over 1600 miles now. I'm not moving like a speed demon either or going off curbs or anything. I guess this is something I can't fix on my own. Geez.

 

[Sierratim]

See attachment. I have no idea when this happened in the last 3 weeks. Back to the lbs to get it replaced. I just paid supposedly to have all my bearings and bolts adjusted so I don't know why it disengaged. The rack I believe 22kg. I carry approximately 15kg in my panniers split. Just below 30 pounds total. Over 1600 miles now. I'm not moving like a speed demon either or going off curbs or anything. I guess this is something I can't fix on my own. Geez.

Looks like the securing bolt vibrated loose. Your LBS should have checked, but apparently these bolts bolts don't come with any thread lock. I'd suggest adding a drop of blue (removeable) thread lock when you get this fixed.

 

[Kam1936]

My MC app did the same, at first. Then I found under 'Settings' the 'Display Always Active' slider. I moved it to 'ON' and now the display doesn't sleep when the app is open. I'm running ver 2.2.1 of MC. Much handier...

It was already on. I just checked. I'm going to look into the version. I believe I have the latest. Thx.

 

[Kam1936]

It was already on. I just checked. I'm going to look into the version. I believe I have the latest. Thx.

The update seems to have affected Android 9 on my end at least. It was working fine for me before the update. I wonder if there is a way to go back to older version. All is not well with MC.. Ratings got worse.

 

[Sierratim]

The update seems to have affected Android 9 on my end at least. It was working fine for me before the update. I wonder if there is a way to go back to older version. All is not well with MC.. Ratings got worse.

Shamefully my phone is an Android 7.0 so maybe that's why the MC app hasn't been a problem. The phone reports no new updates available. Sounds like a good thing....

 

[Kam1936]

Shamefully my phone is an Android 7.0 so maybe that's why the MC app hasn't been a problem. The phone reports no new updates available. Sounds like a good thing....

Dang! Nougat is good for something still. The developer of MC needs to make the app compatible for all android versions. I should of held on to my old LG. G5 running Oreo.

 

[rochrunner]

Dang! Nougat is good for something still. The developer of MC needs to make the app compatible for all android versions. I should of held on to my old LG. G5 running Oreo.

FWIW, my Pixel 3a phone runs Android 10 and MC works just fine on it.

As someone who has developed an Android app starting with V2.3 of the system, I've never had a problem with upgrades in recent years and in fact have not even built a new version since about Android 8. There are occasionally system features that become "deprecated", but they give you a lot of warning before they finally remove them and are very good at providing back compatibility. YMMV.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

To be honest, I experience connection problems between the MC and my Vado now.