What does "Gem Powered" mean for powerups? And how do they carry over?

When selecting a powerup (not ability) in Temple Run 2 you have the option of making it "Gem powered". For example, here is the Coin Bonus one:

It's easy enough to infer that this gives you 50 gems normally, and 100 when you spend a gem on it.

However, what happens when you add one, two, three, or more gems?

Here's what I tried. This is what the screen looks like when you add one gem and this is what happens when you add two. Adding more simply fills the bar without text changes. After powering with two gems, here is what happens before and after using the powerup in-game: even if I spent two gems, I only got 100 coins. This spent both gems.

What is the point, if any, of upgrading past one gem? Is this specific to the Coin Bonus powerup? Or is this just a glitch and it should be adding 50/100 coins per gem?

Solution 1:

Bear in mind that Temple Run 2 is a 'free to play' title - they make their money from people buying in-game items, so there are lots of ways to burn through coins and gems.

In this case you can 'gem-power' a power up so that the next time you use it you get more from the power. 1 gem gives you 1 boosted power up use, 2 gems gives you 2 and so on.

If you're going for a long score run you might cash in 5 gems so that you can use the boosted power 5 times.

To be honest, for the amount you get back it's a waste of gems.

Solution 2:

I can confirm that spending gems on power-ups is not an investment.

Gems spent on a power-up get consumed when you the power-up. I would advise not spending any gems on these power-ups, instead save them for the 'save me' feature.

I learnt this the hard way :(