I spent around $3750 for my ebike. As an example of what that gets you, I tested a lot of bikes, cheap and expensive and here’s what stood out to me:
- Torque sensing rather than cadence sensing for pedal activation means my bikes torque scales with my own. A cheap bike just goes “oh, the pedals moved a half rotation, engage electric motorcycle mode”. This makes my bike feel more connected, it’s the difference between putting on an exoskeleton versus driving a walking robot from a cockpit.
- Torque specs and maintenance info clearly listed, bike shop can get spare parts. While I’d like to see parts availability commitments become more common, right now the best you can do is go with a well known brand.
- Frame geometry is often better on bikes from bike brands making bikes with tech than tech startups making bikes. This relates directly to on-bike comfort
- As we’re all discussing here, battery quality can make a difference in safety and functionality.
I hope this helps. I still think you can get a reputable bike at a good price, but I would generally skip the Temu, Amazon, no name rebrand ebikes out of concern for their quality.
As someone who has bought a fair number of smartwatches and fitness trackers and always over-researches every decision I make:
None of these are fancy “smarts first” watches like an Apple Watch or an Android Watch. I found I needed less smarts than I thought as I usually carry my phone at all times anyway. It is nice to have the doorbell ring on my wrist and to reply to texts by choosing from a few pre-written responses while biking, or otherwise unavailable to text. If you really want a bunch of apps and integration with your phones OS, Apple and Android are the big two and its not really feasible to go 3rd party for the same experience.