Carbon Drive

It seems like a decent app until you actually try to use it. It would not pick up most of my plucks, even when I tried using a smooth allen key to protect my finger and plucked hard enough to make the whole bike vibrate. I took in a bedroom to avoid even refrigerator compressor noise. Also tried with two different phone models. It would capture about one in six tries and the results were usually around 26 or in the high 70s.

Completely useless app. Frequencies are all over the place using the exact same position and finger and strength. Closing and opening the app and changing literally nothing about the bike and you can count on getting wildly different results. I wouldn't rely on this app to tune anything. Also whoever's idea it was to kill the app instantly in the background so you have to find and open it again and watch the dumb video that automatically should never develop another app again.

This app worked flawlessly for me. I get consistent results all the time. Not sure what everyone is complaining about.

Ridiculous! It shows the last 4 data points, and discards any older, so any background noise gets rid of the data you want. There should be a 'confirm reading' button when it hears something, and it shouldn't get wildly different readings for the same drive position.

Used to be I could click open the app, instantly measure tension on my bike, and go. On the new one I have to wait for a little advert movie to play, then tell the app Im using it on a motorcycle. EVERY TIME! What was a quick and useful tool now puts two barriers between you and the data you want. Also the results are now much less repeatable. I guarantee this "upgrade" was approved by some office dweller somewhere who never actually works on things and doesnt use this app.

On a s10e, fully quiet garage, microphone next to the belt.. i got wildy different results to the point of being unusable. From 20hz to 110hz, it seemed to matter more how i pluck the belt than anything else. Not sure who this is useful for. Sometimes i got maybe the same results but for the same time i got varying consistent other sets of data. This doesn't help me at all to even find a ballpark figure for my belt tension.

Used to work, now it only reads>110HZ if at all, regardless of belt tension or no tension at all. My belt was completely slack and it read 110Hz and higher. Most of the time it doesn't even register readings. The line vibrates indicating it is picking up the input from the belt, but no registration takes place. Gates put more focus on making this app- a tool for those who already have the Gates drive systems- spam the user with unnecessary videos.

Completely and utterly useless. It does not give repeatable results, often varying from upper 90s to low 20s and picks up any noise such as turning the crank, but then will not pick up the noiywhen you pluck the belt. I've been forced to order a proper mechanical tension tester so I don't set the tension incorrectly

thought I could save some money ... don't even think about it. Either go to your local bike dealer or get one of the real tools. When I first assembled my bike it seemed to work but now my fingers hurt like crazy but the app gives me - in the rare cases it shows anything - values between 17 and 220. I can just assume that something I assembled later makes some side noise that disables the app from working properly. This guess does not help anything however - it just does not work ...

Not worth having, even for free. If and when it picks up a signal it can be half or twice the previous one with nothing changed on the belt position. Any scientist will tell you that an erroneous reading is worse than none at all as you just can't trust it. A mechanical cricket tool is probably a better bet.

The old app was great. Pretty accurate readings were given. Since the new update/redesign the app is pretty garbage. I can get readings, but the timeframe of when I actually get the reading or what it's getting it from mis random. This is coming from a zero tech who works with this app pretty frequently. It takes me twice as long to get a belt tension done because I can't tell what the hell this app is reading for sound.

First, their symbols for microphone recording is bad. When the microphone is blue, then that means it's recording. I thought it was a button that I needed to press to start recording. Second, as I pluck the belt, I don't get near consistent frequencies. I get 20Hz, 40Hz, and 85Hz among others. This means the method of plucking has enough variation to render the test useless for tuning. There's gotta be a better way. I'll pay for a tool that'll physically measure the tension.

Not nearly sensitive enough, and even when it does occasionally register there is no consistency to the readings. You will end up with a raw blistered finger before you ever get 3-4 accurate readings to actually tension your belt.

I used Carbon Drive to set the belt tensions on my exotic sports car. It worked perfectly. Two things that will make this tool easier to use: 1) Be very close to the belt with the microphone of your device. 2) Kill all sources of noise in the room, especially air conditioners and fans. They put out noise in the same frequency range and will mess up your readings. A third suggestion is to look closely at the microphone opening in your device. It's likely clogged with lint and crud. Clean it up!

You get what you pay for, and that about sums up this free app. That and "utterly unreliable & inaccurate." The app fails on so many points, demonstrating why tech is a false hope: User must "strum" the belt drive with phone mic pointed to belt. Even then, phone doesn't register 90% of strums. This with a new phone with mics on either end in a silent room. When the app does register, values are all over the board. 93, 22, 110, 54... Statistically, "quality" is the absence of variation around a goal (in this case actual tension). With such wide variation, we have a clear lack of quality or reliability. The app does not allow personalizing the app for your bike(s) (aside from turning off that awful video). Instead you get a generic tension chart that is ambiguous if you have gear box-driven mtn bike. Since proper tension IS important, I gave up on this app in favor of their Kriket device to measure tension. While simplistic, it IS reliable and I believe accurate. And my thumb which does the strumming thanks me for doing so.

Used this to tune the belts on a 3D printer. It worked flawlessly. Appreciated it storing the last 4 plucks; this ensured accurate, repeatable readings. Put your phone microphone within an inch of the belt, ideally on a stable surface, in a fixed position.

Garbage, this company needs to create a tool like a Guitar Tuner, that you can clip on the belt to measure the frequency because this app completely sucks and my phone says the app is to old for my current version, so you can tell this app has rarely if ever been updated! New update this app is behaving like a Malware, it wants you to click yes to allowing all of your apps on the phone to have microphone access, instead of just this one. I checked this app permissions and it already has microph

I thought it was me who could not get an accurate and constant reading on the present app, Please sort it out. Whoever should be responsible for this app,do they not realise that we who purchase expensive cycles realise the potential of the belt drive are being let down badly ,don't just except the situation and sort this app out

This app is good only to remind yourself what the acceptable frequency range is for your bike. The frequency detection is useless. Instead, use the Spectroid app with these settings: Sampling rate: 16kHz FFT size: 8192 Decimations: 1 Window: Hamming Smoothing: 0 After plucking the belt you should see all frequencies jump, but one frequency will decay slower than the rest, and Spectroid should detect it as a peak. That's the fundamental frequency that you're trying to adjust.

Seems to work ok. You have to take multiple measurements to be satisfied you're getting the right baseline. Sometimes you have to turn the mic off and on to get it to pick up sounds again.