Look what was just announced, wonder if it will work with Zwift? Echelon bikes are currently not on the list of supported indoor bikes.
It seems like someone has made a major mistake here.
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LOL!!! 
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Have you bought it?
I bought one as soon as I saw the articles, Amazon drones came to my house today to deliver, they dropped it off, it fell 50 feet down onto my driveway where my Tesla truck was parked. It landed on the truck, broke the bullet proof windows. So I saved $1500 for a “Peloton” bike which is awesome, but now it’s going to cost $5,000 to replace my windows. All in all, a great deal.
There are plenty of articles that discuss the different kind of “riders” for in-home training, some benefit from “Peloton” like approaches, others from the Zwift approach. It’s down to preference too. I think if you are buying a Peloton bike (or Amazon Prime bike) to use on Zwift, you’d be better served to buy something like a Wahoo Kickr bike that is built for that interface. Just like you wouldn’t really spend money on the Wahoo bike to use on Peloton. Where it’s a bit difficult is like the situation in my house, where my wife wants a Peloton bike, her argument is that I could use it for Zwift. Not a chance. Some households have Peloton people AND Zwift people, so what can you buy that both can use?
I’ve actually done a Peloton class on a Wahoo Kickr, though it’s not quite the same as having the bike (I’ve tried my friend’s out before), it gets you 90% there.
Looking at the photo in the article, that’s a spin bike, with a manual resistance knob. So not even like the Peloton bike. If someone is looking at getting into Zwift on the cheap, they can spend <$499 and have a better experience than that bike. Buy an old bike on craigslist or facebook market, buy a used fluid trainer, put on a speed sensor, works perfectly with Zwift. You get gears, and a set up that you can upgrade later (either with another bike or a smart trainer) No matter how much people want spin bikes (or Peloton bikes) to work with Zwift, the only conceivable way they’d work is with power pedals. I actually tried for six months to find a solution with a spin bike I had, nothing except that worked.
Peloton bike has manual resistance. Old ones use the pads like any old spin bike but the new one use electro-magnetic but is still manual (I think). Peloton does not want auto control otherwise they would sell much less of the exercise program which is their money-maker.
I have this bike and works fine for me at $300 (Walmart sale). We have four riders in our house that are four different sizes and use it from just hopping on and pedaling to music, to Peloton classes, to scenic rides on Echelon/iFIT/YouTube apps, to yes zwift. There are 3rd party outside apps that feed Zwift the power and cadence numbers, Zwift gets my HR from my strap and it knows my height and weight. It calculates it good enough for me that I feel like I’m riding and enjoy the pixel scenery just as much as anyone else. Sure it doesn’t have auto elevation adjustments, but I’m smart enough to know to crank the resistance knob up when going up a hill or down when going down a hill. Does it match perfectly? No Is that really a life or death dealbreaker? no.
Should you use it to enter races and compete against others… no…
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The Bike+ has software-controlled load just like a smart trainer. It is however not compliant with ANT+ or BT fitness equipment protocols, so you’d still need to run it as a dumb trainer and use powermeter pedals to link it to Zwift. This said, you can sideload Zwift onto its (Android-based) platform. See DCRainmaker’s review of the Peloton Bike+ for more details.
With powermeter pedals, there’s no reason not to.
He has no powermeter…
There are more people writing about 3rd party apps which “calculate” power from HR (and eventually cadence) - we all know it is BS and we also should communicate it here.
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There are also 3rd party devices that get and broadcast the power measured by both versions of the Peloton bike - with the resultant wide variability from the original model, and the impressive precision of the Plus model.
He writes clearly
I do not discuss possibilities of Peloton bike, I answered the questions
Does it match perfectly? No Is that really a life or death dealbreaker?
I wouldn’t have ANY desire race anyway. I’m just here to be immersive and soak in the scenery while getting a good workout. Just adding some context that using bluetooth enabled spin bikes DO work for many here even if it’s not the perfect setup. This makes total sense in the current environment of a global pandemic, a surge in home fitness activity, wanting to be “social” while stuck inside, but also trying to stretch things economically in tough times.
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Yeah, I wasn’t disagreeing with you, just pointing out that it would be unfair to use this setup in a race, unless you put a trusted power meter on the spin bike.
Your desire may change, most of us are competitive by nature, you may want to try after using Zwift for a few months.
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It’s all good…no worries! Ok let me edit that to “I have no desire to race RIGHT NOW” with this setup and would fall to the back of even the slowest group rides anyway. I totally get the point that some would use the setup unfairly if not a trusted power source, but wouldn’t think of doing that. However, I am a marathon runner and surely have the competitive gene 
I picked up the spin bike to mix up the training to some things that aren’t impact and weight bearing on the aging knees and for those inevitable injury “breaks” in my running.
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