Apple TV with separate power source and controllable

New Zwift user here. I have been running zwift on a laptop connected to my powertap hub while riding on basic rollers and have been happy with the performance. However, my wife wants her laptop back, so time to for me to buy something dedicated to my zwifting. From what I can tell, Apple TV is probably my cheapest option (even though I will need to buy a CABLE to bridge my Ant+ powertap hub to bluetooth). The one catch is that I can see myself wanting to upgrade my basic rollers to a set of smart rollers in the future (probably the Elite Nero smart rollers). If I were to do this, my desire would be to use the rollers as the controllable resistance, but continue to use my powertap as the power source so I can maintain accurate power readings. Will the Zwift app on Apple TV support this combination, or will it only support using a smart resistance device as both the power source and the controllable reistance?

Not having a setup like this (I use a Tacx Neo 2) I can’t say definitively, but I can say that the ATV pairing screen does have separate pairing icons for Power and Controllable, so I would think it could do what you are wanting. Hopefully someone with a similar issue to yours will chime in with a more solid response.

Hi @Andy_Fedewa, welcome to the Zwift Forums.

I asked our QA team, and they have not yet tested the Elite Nero rollers specifically. Looking at Elite’s site it should work, but we haven’t confirmed that either way. Assuming it does work, you are thinking correctly about the setup with the cable bridging your ANT+ Powertap to Bluetooth, and so on. Keep in mind that AppleTV is that is has a limited number of concurrent Blutetooth LE devices.

You might also consider the Elite rollers that we have confirmed, and that list is on support.zwift.com

So I did end up picking up an apple TV and CABLE. This combination along with my powertap hub served me very well for the last month or so.

Last weekend I upgraded my rollers to the Elite Nero interactive rollers. Unfortunately, I can’t get everything to work together. If I wake everything up then open Zwift and try to pair, Zwift only sees the Elite Nero. It won’t recognize my CABLE at all (neither the powertap hub, nor my ANT+ heart rate monitor). Alternatively, if I first wake up the CABLE and pair it to Zwift before waking up the Nero, Zwift is able to pair to the CABLE, but is unable to find the Nero.

Another interesting thing that I noticed was that if I am paired to the Nero and tap “power source” to try to search for other devices, the Zwift app starts going crazy with the “power source” icon jumping around the screen. The only way I have found to get out of this is to hit the “Menu” button on the remote which exits the pairing screen altogether.

So I am left with a few questions: is this a known bug? Are the Elite Nero and CABLE somehow incompatible? Is there any workaround that will allow me to use the Powertap as my power source and the Nero as my controllable trainer?

@Andy_Fedewa
Have you configured the CABLE to pair with your new rollers? Here’s North Pole Engineering’s how-to video.

In this video, they show you how to program the CABLE device with multiple sensor sets so that you can keep the Powertap hub as the power source for Option A, and the Nero roller’s sensor as power source for Option B.

Yes, I tried to set up the CABLE to pair with the new rollers, and while that appears to work in the cable app, I cannot get the cable to pair with Zwift on the Apple TV unless I power down the rollers. For whatever reason, Zwift on apple TV just won’t pair to both simultaneously.

As an alternative test, I tried pairing the Powertap and Nero to zwift on my Andriod phone (thanks to Zwift for finally implementing Ant+ for Android) and that works just fine. I can pair the Powertap as the power source and the Nero as the controllable.

I have a similar configuration to you and the CABLE is working fine with Zwift on Apple TV with Elite Nero rollers + HR (I did initially have a weird zero power issue but resolved that).

Silly thought - make sure no other device is grabbing the CABLE bluetooth (switch Bluetooth off everywhere other than your ATV while you’re setting Zwift connections up)

Other silly thought - change CABLE battery and make sure it is not too close to the rollers… could be signal strength…

The Elite Nero I own since August 2019. I use the Nero within Zwift on PC via built in Bloetooth of the MS Surface Pro 5 since October 2019. All worked properly.
On December I made a firmware update of the Nero with the Android app Upgrado. From this point in time the Nero does not work properly anymore: the measured power changes very/too slowly and the ergo mode loop back control within the Nero also does not work.
==> DO NOT UPGRADE the the firmware of the Elite Nero!

To test the power measurement from another source I paired the Stages RL Power Meter mounted at my race bike via Bluetooth (Nero switched off at this time). Then I switched the Nero on so that the Nero torque controller was paired. That worked properly in normal riding mode (ergo mode/workout I did not tested).

Before the firmware upgrade I was very happy using Nero. The power measurement quickly followed the effort and the ergo mode regulated the torque in regard to the cadence.
Now I am in contact with Elite to get the older firmware to downgrade… I hope that after the down grade the Nero will work all right as before.

I did not mix up Bluetooth and ANT+. I use only Bluetooth devices: The heart rate sensor Wahoo Tikr. Also the Polar BTLE heart rate, speed and cadence sensors were recognised an could be paired in Zwift. But the most easy, stable and fastest pairing occurs with the Nero power meter, Nero cadence, Nero controller and Wahoo Tikr HR sensors.

There is more discussion on a related (same?) bug on the Bugs and Support forum:

Thanks for the link. This appears to be the same issue I am dealing with. Now that I know this is a bug that others are dealing with, I can stop driving myself crazy trying to get my setup working.