Public Wattbike with Zwift

[livpoksoc]

Our office gym has a few Wattbikes in there. Not actually used them yet, but wonder if anyone has any experience using a public wattbike with Zwift? Is it as simple as bring your phone to the wattbike, pair the two together and start pedalling as if at home?

Thinking I can get some extra routes/badges crossed off this way.

P.S. not used a wattbike anywhere before. I assume Zwift uses inputs from Wattbike like a dumb turbo trainer? I.e. resistance is unchanged, but Zwift just takes revolutions and reduces your speed in game based on gradient?

 

[Alex321]

Assuming it is an Atom, it should be fully compatible with Zwift as a smart trainer.

https://wattbike.com/pages/best-smart-trainer-for-zwift

 

[steverob]

Most Wattbikes in gyms are probably going to be the Pro or the Nucleus models rather than the Atom/AtomX, which will mean that Zwift will work as a dumb trainer but won't be able to adjust the resistance for you (though you can always do that manually yourself if you want).

Pretty sure both the models above do send out power/cadence numbers over Bluetooth, so the iPhone version of Zwift should pick these up and work fine, however I'll admit I've never actually tried that myself.

 

[Peter Salt]

Our office gym has a few Wattbikes in there. Not actually used them yet, but wonder if anyone has any experience using a public wattbike with Zwift? Is it as simple as bring your phone to the wattbike, pair the two together and start pedalling as if at home?

Thinking I can get some extra routes/badges crossed off this way.

P.S. not used a wattbike anywhere before. I assume Zwift uses inputs from Wattbike like a dumb turbo trainer? I.e. resistance is unchanged, but Zwift just takes revolutions and reduces your speed in game based on gradient?

Most Wattbikes in gyms are probably going to be the Pro or the Nucleus models rather than the Atom/AtomX, which will mean that Zwift will work as a dumb trainer but won't be able to adjust the resistance for you (though you can always do that manually yourself if you want).

Pretty sure both the models above do send out power/cadence numbers over Bluetooth, so the iPhone version of Zwift should pick these up and work fine, however I'll admit I've never actually tried that myself.

Yup, bring your device and pair it - that simple. If there's a couple of them in there just make sure you pair the right one

There's no such thing as a 'dumb' Wattbike. They all measure and transmit your power (and cadence) via both Bluetooth and Ant+ (so you have a choice of technology, provided your device can receive Ant+ or you have an external receiver). Whether it's a model that automatically adjusts your resistance or not is completely irrelevant - just like in real life, it's the power that you're producing that matters and not your gear

'Dumb' wheel-on turbos that you mention don't measure power - they measure your cadence and wheel speed and approximate what the power may be. This is completely different.

 

[<Tommy>]

Our office gym has a few Wattbikes in there. Not actually used them yet, but wonder if anyone has any experience using a public wattbike with Zwift? Is it as simple as bring your phone to the wattbike, pair the two together and start pedalling as if at home?

Thinking I can get some extra routes/badges crossed off this way.

P.S. not used a wattbike anywhere before. I assume Zwift uses inputs from Wattbike like a dumb turbo trainer? I.e. resistance is unchanged, but Zwift just takes revolutions and reduces your speed in game based on gradient?

It might not be a factor in your thinking so ignore me if it isn’t.

But I understand the wattbike pro is a bit up and down with power accuracy. It’s not really a big deal unless you don’t want it to effect your zwift segment PB’s.

A lot of guys who came onto zwift from the bkool trainers had this issue from over reading bkool turbos and it just depends if it bothers you or not.

 

[livpoksoc]

It might not be a factor in your thinking so ignore me if it isn’t.

But I understand the wattbike pro is a bit up and down with power accuracy. It’s not really a big deal unless you don’t want it to effect your zwift segment PB’s.

A lot of guys who came onto zwift from the bkool trainers had this issue from over reading bkool turbos and it just depends if it bothers you or not.

Sort of a good shout, however some of my PBs are never going to be beaten as they were achieved during club rides in lockdown where we did 'Zwift & Zoom' rides, and we had the 'keep the group together' option toggled on

 

[livpoksoc]

Yup, bring your device and pair it - that simple. If there's a couple of them in there just make sure you pair the right one

There's no such thing as a 'dumb' Wattbike. They all measure and transmit your power (and cadence) via both Bluetooth and Ant+ (so you have a choice of technology, provided your device can receive Ant+ or you have an external receiver). Whether it's a model that automatically adjusts your resistance or not is completely irrelevant - just like in real life, it's the power that you're producing that matters and not your gear

'Dumb' wheel-on turbos that you mention don't measure power - they measure your cadence and wheel speed and approximate what the power may be. This is completely different.

Ah excellent, thanks. I assumed some of these things were baked into the wizardry. I did ADZ on a dumb trainer first time out, and it was just a tedious drawn out spin session as the resistance never changed.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Wattbike speak the now standard protocols for power and cadence etc. Not sure about Ant+ but they certainly speak the Bluetooth ones.

 

[Peter Salt]

Sort of a good shout (...)

Not really.

The original Wattbike Pro/Trainer was one of the trailblazers. As such, its reliability and accuracy are well-documented and have been a subject of several sport science peer-reviewed papers., For an example, see: Validity and reliability of the Wattbike cycle ergometer, J Hopker, S Myers, S A Jobson, W Bruce, L Passfield, International Journal of Sports Medicine.

Ah excellent, thanks. I assumed some of these things were baked into the wizardry. I did ADZ on a dumb trainer first time out, and it was just a tedious drawn out spin session as the resistance never changed.

Oh no, it's nothing like that. Just pull a lever and you'll definitely 'feel' the hill

Wattbike speak the now standard protocols for power and cadence etc. Not sure about Ant+ but they certainly speak the Bluetooth ones.

The oldest of Wattbikes (2008) actually only 'talked' Ant+ and were upgraded to Ant+ and Bluetooth later on.

 

[<Tommy>]

Sort of a good shout, however some of my PBs are never going to be beaten as they were achieved during club rides in lockdown where we did 'Zwift & Zoom' rides, and we had the 'keep the group together' option toggled on

Yeah it’s not really a big deal is it. I think it’d be annoying to me personally if I’d of set a blistering time up the alp and I had no chance of ever beating it. But generally the PB’s aren’t that much of a biggie. I guess another factor is over / under reading in races which can obviously effect results. But again, I think personally no two turbos are the same so it’s hard to take it too seriously!

https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/wattbike-power-accuracy-compared-to-other-pms/24097

With a quick google search I find this thread on trainer road which includes contribution from gplama who’s well respected. He highlights how the wattbike atom potentially dramatically over reads once you get past approx 470w apparently. Not directly related to you, but then a few others chime in to talk about their good / bad experiences with the wattbike pro regarding power readings.

All the above is a moot point for you really as you said you’ll mainly be looking to tick off badges rather than worry about marginal accuracy differences… but I guess at least it confirms that the pro will work just fine with zwift.

Sorry for going slightly off topic too… but I kind of ‘went down the rabbit hole’ when I started reading up on it. And maybe someone else will find it useful in the future (Or not! 😄)

 

[livpoksoc]

Yeah it’s not really a big deal is it. I think it’d be annoying to me personally if I’d of set a blistering time up the alp and I had no chance of ever beating it. But generally the PB’s aren’t that much of a biggie. I guess another factor is over / under reading in races which can obviously effect results. But again, I think personally no two turbos are the same so it’s hard to take it too seriously!

https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/wattbike-power-accuracy-compared-to-other-pms/24097

With a quick google search I find this thread on trainer road which includes contribution from gplama who’s well respected. He highlights how the wattbike atom potentially dramatically over reads once you get past approx 470w apparently. Not directly related to you, but then a few others chime in to talk about their good / bad experiences with the wattbike pro regarding power readings.

All the above is a moot point for you really as you said you’ll mainly be looking to tick off badges rather than worry about marginal accuracy differences… but I guess at least it confirms that the pro will work just fine with zwift.

Sorry for going slightly off topic too… but I kind of ‘went down the rabbit hole’ when I started reading up on it. And maybe someone else will find it useful in the future (Or not! 😄)

Fully appreciate the time you had spent down there. Good to know.

Now to inspect the pedals to see which cleat system to bring in my laptop bag 🤣

 

[Legs]

Sort of a good shout, however some of my PBs are never going to be beaten as they were achieved during club rides in lockdown where we did 'Zwift & Zoom' rides, and we had the 'keep the group together' option toggled on

If you’re concerned about the authenticity of your Strava record, you could delete those activities in Strava and replace them with generic “60-minute workout” entries with annotations.

 

[Milkfloat]

The earliest of WattBikes need a firmware update to work with Zwift, but hopefully the bike is less than about 5 years old or someone has done the update. I updated the ones in my gym when nobody was watching as the management had ignored my requests for a few months.