Does very cold weather affect smart trainer Bluetooth transmission issues?
I have an Elite Tuo that lives in the shed and has been faultless since I bought it a year ago. This week during below freezing temperatures the Tuo has repeatedly failed to connect to my laptop via BT although ant+ is fine.
I’ve done all the usual unpairing/pairing and the laptop scans but doesn’t find it. My BT hrm connects fine.
Interestingly my mobile phone connects to the Tuo but it’s intermittant.
Could the extreme cold( extreme for the Uk) affect the Tuo’s transmission of BT?
Even after an hour’s over/Under workout when the Tuo should be warmed up the issue is still there.
I’m not too fussed about having to use ant+ but need BT for calibration purposes.
Bring it in the house and warm it up and you’ll know the answer.
It’s certainly plausible that electronics can be damaged by a deep freeze. Google seems to spit out plenty of links. I’m guessing that the fine print of your trainer manual may have a minimum temperature specification. The biggest risk for a trainer seems to be condensation since it doesn’t have any drives or servos motors.
As @AJS914 said, it may be possible that the electronics in your trainer were damaged due to the cold…
It may be worth trying a couple of other things, though:
Ensure other phones/laptops/tablets have BT turned off so there is no competition from other devices that may try to “steal” the BT signal going from your trainer to your laptop.
Check your laptop’s BT settings to make sure your trainer isn’t connecting to the laptop itself – if it is, go ahead and disconnect it as we want the trainer to connect to the TR app, not the actual laptop.
Unplug your Tuo if it’s been a while – this allows it to “hard reset” and shed any bad data that can get “stuck” inside of the trainer.
It may also be worth reaching out to Elite Support about this issue if it persists.