Power issues: Kurt Kinetic vs Elite Rampa

[APR_59]

Hi. My wife and I were keen to keep up our cycling over lockdown and into the winter so we both bought indoor trainers. I got mine in April and bought an Elite Rampa. This does power, cadence and is controllable. I have settled on using FulGaz but mainly Zwift. Around Autumn time, my wife also got an indoor trainer and we found a Kurt Kinetic T-6500 Rock and Roll trainer. Up till now, she has only used it on FulGaz. Apart from the fact that the trainer sways to be more realistic (not convinced of this personally as one gets a bit of Mal de mer) it is also controllable and does power. Ominously the latest firmware removed cadence as it was too inaccurate apparently!

My wife has just discovered the delights of Zwift and we have tried using it on Zwift having set her up with an account. however the power seems all over the place. Coming up the underground on the London route is at 1mph. I've tried it as well by swapping bikes around and playing around with the trainer difficulty settings on Zwift which I had left at the default, and I get the same thing. Coming up a slope on the KK trainer is painful, compared to the Rampa. I even tried it on a flat section on FulGaz and I am getting the same thing - the power readings and hence avatar speed fluctuates on the KK in a way that it doesn't on the Elite. Also, the overall average power on the KK is significantly lower by 25% to nearly 40% and much more confined to zones Z1 -2 whereas the Rampa on the same course gives readings well into Z4, Z5 and Z6.

I've attached some Strava screen shots: test 2 and 7 are ones on the Astoria course on Zwift and tests 3 and 9 are from a very flat FulGaz ride. The ones without the cadence are from the KK trainer.

Is there a setting I am missing ? Has anyone else hit problems with KK trainers? Would using a separate cadence sensor and / or power meter help resolve this? If so, can you connect such gadgets via bluetooth and will the trainer still be controllable? Or is this evidence of a faulty unit or a faulty product? Any advice gratefully received!