nickAKA
Über Member
- Location
- Manchester
I've been researching the best "budget option" smart trainers with the ability to automatically control resistance as the wife will go loco if I spend £400 on a smart pro 2.
The smart go looks like a decent option at £255 (with included ANT+ stick) as I don't anticipate needing over the quoted 800W to do what I want to do, but there are so many conflicting reviews (same with all smart trainers, to be fair) concerning connectivity / hardware issues, I'm at the point where I may just look elsewhere or keep my powder dry until all the (industry wide) technical issues are ironed-out regarding connectivity.
Ideally, I'd like something I can run through an Ipad, without forking out a pile more money on a specific dongle & connector that isn't shipped with the trainer. This is where it gets massively confusing - at this moment in time I'd be happy using Bkool's app (rather than, say, zwift) but it looks (to me) like it's really best run on a PC - is that right? I don't fancy moving my desktop into my "pain cave" (or the conservatory, as it is also known) and don't really want to buy a laptop purely for this purpose, so that's the impasse I'm at.
I could always just be approaching this in the wrong way; should my primary concern be getting some new hardware then worry about the trainer? That seems to be putting the cart before the horse to me, and things SHOULD be much simpler, but I'm getting sick of coming to a purchase decision only to read something else that makes me change my mind... Honestly, it's got so frustrating that I was considering a tacx vortex from decathlon just so I could return it in the event that I couldn't get it to work properly - Please help!
TL;DR - does the Bkool Smart Go connect to an ipad (and work properly) without having to lash out on some extra connection hardware?
TIA
The smart go looks like a decent option at £255 (with included ANT+ stick) as I don't anticipate needing over the quoted 800W to do what I want to do, but there are so many conflicting reviews (same with all smart trainers, to be fair) concerning connectivity / hardware issues, I'm at the point where I may just look elsewhere or keep my powder dry until all the (industry wide) technical issues are ironed-out regarding connectivity.
Ideally, I'd like something I can run through an Ipad, without forking out a pile more money on a specific dongle & connector that isn't shipped with the trainer. This is where it gets massively confusing - at this moment in time I'd be happy using Bkool's app (rather than, say, zwift) but it looks (to me) like it's really best run on a PC - is that right? I don't fancy moving my desktop into my "pain cave" (or the conservatory, as it is also known) and don't really want to buy a laptop purely for this purpose, so that's the impasse I'm at.
I could always just be approaching this in the wrong way; should my primary concern be getting some new hardware then worry about the trainer? That seems to be putting the cart before the horse to me, and things SHOULD be much simpler, but I'm getting sick of coming to a purchase decision only to read something else that makes me change my mind... Honestly, it's got so frustrating that I was considering a tacx vortex from decathlon just so I could return it in the event that I couldn't get it to work properly - Please help!
TL;DR - does the Bkool Smart Go connect to an ipad (and work properly) without having to lash out on some extra connection hardware?
TIA