Hardware Recommendations for ZWIFT

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Pretty much decided Im going get a Wattbike atom. Could anyone tell me the most cost effective and reliable hardware set up for running zwift.

I do have an older Samsung tablet - but I m thinking this might not be up to the task. A friend of Mine had an apple TV box adapter thingy and a flatscreen TV - which looked great.

Anything else I would need ?
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
Depends upon what you prefer - second hand mini pc will run it fine. You may need an Ant+ dongle.
 
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kingrollo

kingrollo

Guru
Depends upon what you prefer - second hand mini pc will run it fine. You may need an Ant+ dongle.

I tried a few years back on my laptop - but it was a nightmare - think the laptop was to old. I was thinking an apple TV box and flatscreen TV - might be cheaper than a gaming standard laptop.
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
Certainly cheaper with apple TV. You don't need a gaming laptop. I was running Zwift on a 4th gen i5 pc with inbuilt graphics and streaming video at the same time.

You could use your tablet (or smart phone) with the companion app
 

cyberknight

As long as I breathe, I attack.
Certainly cheaper with apple TV. You don't need a gaming laptop. I was running Zwift on a 4th gen i5 pc with inbuilt graphics and streaming video at the same time.

You could use your tablet (or smart phone) with the companion app

i use a HP laptop with 8 gb of ram integrated gfx and it runs fine, although an apple tv box does sound a cheap way to do it
 
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CXRAndy

Guru
Location
Lincs
Apple TV is fine except for some short comings. There is limited Bluetooth connection s. So if you want to have cadence and HR you need to connect those through the Zwift companion app on your phone.

I use a mini PC and 32" TV . I have a ant+ dongle to make all the connections
 

the_mikey

Legendary Member
I've used Zwift on a number of laptops successfully:

Core i3 - 3220M - 4Gb ram - Windows 10 , Zwift runs, graphic render is poor, you must run this in 520i mode.

Core i5 6200U - 8Gb ram - Windows 10, Zwift runs well, graphics looks reasonable, avoid using 1080 resolution as it will slow the pc down and won't make the graphics better in real terms.

Core i5 7500 - 16Gb ram, Nvidia GTX950 graphics, windows 10, This is a somewhat elderly gaming laptop machine but Zwift runs like a dream on this, graphics are smooth, lots of detail, works in HD

In all cases I used an external Bluetooth dongle (TP-Link brand) which works reasonably well but your mileage may vary due to the possibility that the 2.4GHz band that all these devices use is shared with millions of other devices. For example, if I bring in a bluetooth speaker for playing music whilst Zwifting, it can cause the comms to drop out if the phone or the speaker are too close to the Kickr Core I use.

It may also pay to replace your old HDD with a SSD, this will not only speed up your machine, it will also mean you spend less time waiting for software updates to download and start up before your workout.
 

CXRAndy

Guru
Location
Lincs
 
Location
Essex
Mrs Spesh runs Zwift on an Apple TV box and a monitor, with her phone or ipad running the Companion App and handling the extra Bluetooth connectivity for cadence and HR.

Her setup is right next to my gaming PC / TV setup, runs really smoothly and it boots up and loads Zwift about 5 minutes faster than my PC :wacko:
 
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kingrollo

kingrollo

Guru
Ok - Apple tv looking the favourite route - couple of questions

Presumably a hdmi monitor would be ok - rather than me buy a flat screen TV.

I have HRM - el cheapo that works with my Garmin - would Apple tv/zwift pick this up as a device.?....or would need an ANT+ dongle.
 

Supersuperleeds

Legendary Member
Location
Leicester
I scabbed an old mini pc from work, two hdmi monitors and put a USB bluetooth adapter on the front and away I went. I then have zwift companion on my iphone
 

Daninplymouth

Senior Member
Wattbike is fine with Zwift, Apple TV and a hr monitor no need to use the companion app to pair anything. I run this through my tv and watch movies on my phone or if it’s a simple training ride and I don’t need to see the screen I run Zwift through my phone and use the Apple TV for Netflix
 
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