Been on TR exclusively for 4 years, love it. Team has decided they want to do some winter group training rides on the other program. I know you can run the two in tandem, one using BT the other using ANT+ but there seems to be issues with power matching, dropouts and things like that.
Anyone else running these two in tandem and figure out how to make it work with power matching?
I ran both for a couple of months.
Here is one of several setups that worked for me:
And the other combination:
And finally Iāve also used Garmin ANT+ adapter on MacBook Pro, and connected both Zwift and TR with ANT+.
All of them worked.
I should have been more clear; has anyone run them in tandem on single PC?
Have correct Bluetooth dongle TR suggests as well as garmin ANT stick
I run them both on a pc. I use 2 garmin ant+ dongles and it works flawlessly! I put Zwift on a 4k Tv and TrainerRoad on the laptop screen.
What are you using for Power meter(s)? I have kickr and 4iiii, trying to use power match.
Let Zwift take KICKR but not control and then TR can control and power match through 4iiii.
Iāve also had success doing it this way. Just power (not fec control) in zwift, and then full control as normal in TR. Iāve also successfully tried the opposite (out of curiosity) letting zwift have full fec control and then free ride mode in TR. However, these attempts were a few years ago.
I have Powertap P1 Pedals, Kickr Snap, Garmin speed sensor & wahoo Tickr. I pair the kickr snap, pedals and Tickr with Trainer Road using powermatch. I only pair pedals and heartrate with Zwift. Make sure that the trainer is not paired with Zwiftā¦it will compete with TR if you do.
Iāve tried it once running zwift on ant power and cadence only on a PC while running TR on my phone while connected to ant fe-c and cadence. That worked for me but I didnāt do it for long. I went back to TR on the phone and Netflix.
If youāre going to be riding in a group on Z, probably donāt need to have TR running as you wonāt be able to follow a workout and stay in the group. If you want to use TR to train solo while using Z as eye candy, I have done that in the past on my Mac with 2 ANT+ dongles. Itās been a while but if I recall the KICKR was paired to each service independently. TR would control resistance, just make sure you donāt have the trainer set as ācontrollableā in Z. I would put TR in minimal mode and overlay it on the bottom of the Z screen.
Based on the feedback here Iām wondering if its simply the BT dongle and drop outs on that. Iāve never had an issue on ANT+ before.
As most are aware there are issues with the Gen1 kickerās reading high, so the difference between my 4iiii and KICKR is +10%. This is great for my ego but garbage for training. My 4iiii has been rock solid and its what i use on power match during my FTP ramp tests.
The issue I keep having is during rides when both Z (ANT+) and TR (BT) are running is that from time to time the 4iiii BT will drop out, leaving only the kickr power numbers. I lose cadence data and notice a marked difference in effort as the 250w target shifts from 4iiii PM reading to KICKR. In reality because it starts pulling from the KICKR the power output is more like 225w because of the inflated KICKR numbers. This kills my training effort on intervals.
Maybe I just need to buy a second ANT+ stick? Any reason why the BT dongle that TR recommends would cause this?
I have always heard that Bluetooth and windows donāt play nice together. They say ant+ with windows and bluetooth or ant+ with Apple. I donāt have experience with the Bluetooth dongle and windows though.
I wish I had known that before I bought that stupid dongle. For little pieces of plastic these damn things are $$$.
You could run TR on your phone and Zwift through ant+ on your PC. That works too.
I do it this way also with no issues, but i run them both on the laptop screen with TrainerRoad in minimal mode. There is a script on ZwiftHacks that automatically resizes the Zwift window
Most of this has been covered, but here is the best combined reference on mixing TR and Z.
I use the Method #2 (double ANT+ dongle on PC) and it has worked flawlessly for 3 years.
I have also done Method #1 with great success.
Since the current Kickr Firmware supports up to 3 bluetooth connections, I will test tomorrow this setup:
TR on Iphone with Kickr Core and Assioma Duo PM in PowerMatchMode and
Zwift on Ipad witch the Kickr Core as the Power Source. Maybe Iāll connect my Apple Watch with Heartrate to one of these two, but I am not sure, what to do with that dataā¦
Iāve always paired TR with Zwift.
I just use two 2 ant dongles on two usb ports with two usb cable extender.
Never had a drop.
Iām running both on the same Win10 PC, TR through ANT+ (not even using a USB extension, the dongle is in a USB port 5 meters away), Zwift through BT (USB extension, dongle 1m from the trainer). I had some issues recently with the apps fighting over the trainer even though Zwift is supposed to be in ālisteningā mode only - I disabled BT in TR, forcing it to use ANT+, and start TR first so by the time Zwift starts ANT+ is not available anymore. Works fine. Sometimes the trainer (Tacx Flux) gets lost and forgets to follow the TR powerset commands, I cycle its power and it fixes itself.
I wish both apps had switches for both comm channels; as it is, TR has a switch for BT only, and Zwift is a mess (you canāt even tell which channel itās using if both are available).
