seeing as Zwift are not integrating people into ZwiftPower automatically for gdpr or privacy concerns on data, blah de blah, how come this plugin is allowed? its showing pretty much the entire users data to those using the plugin or is this because it is not publicly available that its acceptable?
Didn’t ZHQ recently nix the “Zwift Activity Monitor” 3rd party app (or is it back in use?).
If so, “Sauce” is likely to go the same way, since it’s a “better” version of ZAM.
ZAM was because zwift started to use encrypted data for it and ZAM couldn’t process this, sauce for zwift somehow has been able to hack that encrypted stream and get it working
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The likely next step is for Zwift to “break” Sauce by closing whatever loophole Sauce is using to access the unencrypted Zwift data.
If it’s so popular with users, why dont Zwift just licence it and incorporate it?
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Because of Not Invented Here syndrome.
UCI competition requires TD at 100%, you must comply with a trainer list for use, requires height and weight verification, a ZADA test, confirmation of outdoor performances (if/where possible), etc etc. So yeah, it’s different. None of those are requirements for community racing.
The counterpoint to this is that Zwift isn’t fair to every user anyway.
Aside from the already mentioned bike changing, how about the obvious one of level / achievement locked equipment?
How does a brand new user entering something like ZRL choose a good bike?
They are level locked out of Alpe, so even the quickest route to the Tron bike is locked out for them for a significant period of time.
I also think that arguments that viewing a stat (that arguably should be visible anyway) is cheating in a game where you can have power-ups that greatly affect outcomes is a tad silly, but ymmv.
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Those are all good points. I’d ask this: does the fact that Zwift is unfair to many users mean that even more kinds of unfairness are okay? 
In other words, the new user is already fighting an uphill fight–wouldn’t it be worse to make it more unfair? Increasing the unfairness?
(I’m not saying these tools actually are unfair, I don’t see a problem with them as they stand. But information is often really valuable, I wouldn’t discount it being more valuable than a whatever-second burst of climbing.)
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I was merely pointing out that zwift racing is already an unbalanced or unfair platform. Coincidentally so is IRL racing. There will pretty much always be someone with better bikes, tech, team, legs, etc
In terms of data, it seems a hard argument to sustain that access to data translates to an advantage that follows to results. You still have to actually perform the watts at the right time, and is any of the data really changing that? Especially as most races on zwift have power-ups anyway?
In my own personal situation I use data for my own personal hud and turn off the zwift hud, so I neither see names or data for other riders at all as I found it too distracting. Other than in TTT where I have teammates data too. I suppose the advantage there is being able to see someone is gassed, but they could just tell you over discord too.
I just think the “yes its cheating” argument is not very sustainable and eventually boiled down to “you guys that use it are so defensive you know its wrong” which isn’t even an argument.
If someone could quantify the performance improvement that might help the argument. For example, the whole weight doping cheat was obviously advantageous, but to put sauce in that kind of category is to me absurd. Ymmv
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Is it cheating in a time trial to use best bike split to tell you where you need to put power down for the fastest time?
This is best analogy I could come up with, and I would suggest knowing your draft bonus is a tiny benefit in comparison.
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i think it’s a cool app. i don’t use it but it’s cool. i don’t think the draft thing is useful info though. last wheel is the best draft regardless of whether it’s .1wkg more efficient than mid pack or not, because you can see everyone in front of you at all times and it’s also the best place to start your sprint from because the in game latency makes it impossible to react to someone who is already doing 500mph by the time they appear on your sidebar or screen
the only catch is that you are last wheel
I get you, and I agree that they aren’t cheating. I was just thinking about the importance of data. Take the women’s Olympic road race as a good recent example–as good as she is, a big factor in Dr. K’s win was the lack of data that the peloton (cough the Dutch women cough) had about where she was. It wasn’t that the other women couldn’t put out the watts to catch her, it’s that they didn’t know when or how many watts to put in (or even in a few cases that they had to in the first place). In effect, one person (Dr. K) had data about where she was, and the others didn’t.
That data is there in Zwift, so it’s not a perfect analogy of course (which is why I don’t call it cheating). But if the data is more easily accessible for one rider vs another, that would be an advantage. And on the advantage point, I was just trying to say that “X already has an advantage over Y” isn’t by itself a good reason to let X have an additional advantage over Y But again, I don’t think Sauce is an issue. I don’t use it, but I could. And when you’re talking about people on Zwift, you’re talking about people who can afford to have a bike and trainer and pay for Zwift. Sauce isn’t an additional huge burden for anyone who wanted it at that point.
So I think Sauce is an advantage, and maybe even a reasonably significant one, but not one that is problematically unfair. If I was up at the pointy end where ‘big things’ were riding on my results and I had a team and etc etc, I’d likely be using it. To me it doesn’t count as cheating not because it’s not helpful, but because it’s not deceptive or harmful or coercive and it’s available to anyone.
That just goes back to my point. More or less someone will always have an advantage on you. Either in data, ability or having ridden within themselves to hide data and be categorized incorrectly. Hopefully the upcoming merit based ranking can help there.
As for the example, all riders had the data from their own eyes, they just either missed it, ignored it thinking she would bonk or didn’t communicate with other riders.
But in any event it is nearer the equivalent of no HUD racing on zwift - which sauce respects. The analogy being sauce is the extra benefit that comes from radio comms and team car.
Everyone has their own opinion on it, i think it is just one variable in 100s, that will maybe affect a result once in a blue moon.
It is a driver of innovation. No-one talls about the knock-on effects (zwift power and WTRL only exist because of this type of innovation)
I’ve long been planning elimination races based on sauce positional data for example (wish i had the time tbh). The idea of geobased gamification and new types of races is quite large.
It would be extremely sad to cut down all these ideas that really do impact on zwift’s direction.