Equipment:
Cycleops Hammer (1st gen)
MacBook Air (internal bluetooth)
Separate Ant+ dongle
I’ll try and get zwiftalizer stuff, but I’ll describe the problem. I generally use trainerroad on our macbook air, where the bluetooth takes care of erg mode. I then use zwift to get data from my assioma pedals. No problems there.
I let my son use my Hammer to zwift, and it seems that regardless of bluetooth, ant+, using zwift companion, moving stuff around, his cadence/power constantly drops to zero while he’s pedaling. I’ve gone into other apps and had them forget the Hammer, but it keeps happening. He’s riding right now on my ipad pro and the issue is there on that platform as well. Not sure what the problem is or what to do that hasn’t been generally recommended. If there were a problem with my environment, surely I would also see issues using trainerroad with my trainer? Anyhow, hoping I can figure out how to get my son a more consistent experience, it’s pretty frustrating seeing an avatar constantly starting and stopping.
I Zwift on my IPad as well and use a Hammer Cycleops trainer. I only need Bluetooth with the IPad so not sure how your ANT+ figures in.
Also, Saris has a calibration app that you might want to run but since your trainer works fine in your setup I am guessing it’s the trainer communicating with Zwift.
If Zwift powers up on your IPAD then it should grab the Hammer’s Bluetooth channel unless you have something connected to the ANT+ and the trainer may get confused. Just out of curiosity what color is the LED on trainer? Green is Bluetooth and whiteish is ANT+.
I mentioned the ipad just to illustrate the issue is on multiple devices, it was just something I tried today. I don’t use the ipad generally, just the macbook air. I also don’t generally have my ant+ hooked up. As I said above, on the macbook air I have trainerroad and it never has issues with running the trainer on erg mode, I just find it odd that on the same setup I’m getting issues with zwift. Zwift grabs the bluetooth signal (blue light is solid), it’s just constantly dropping out. I’d post a screenshot of his ride today, but I guess I don’t have that ability to post images. But it’s zeroing out a couple of times a minute.
Yes, you are right about the blue LED is Bluetooth I had said green but Blue is correct. So it’s not ANT+. ANT+ is white LED.
You’re further ahead on this than I am so I can’t offer anything but there are lots of experts here so hopefully someone has the answer.
The only other thing I can offer is that there have been numerous posts regarding BT connectivity after the last Zwift update.
The odd part is your trainer road setup is solid and Zwift is flaky. Points more to the application.
A new “hotfix” has just been released … bluetooth issues seem the likely target of the update but no release notes yet so purely speculation on my behalf. Game Update - August 6th, 2020 - #141
I’m starting to think it’s something about the rider and nothing zwift related. While the bluetooth pairing is buggy, even with the latest update (I have to turn bluetooth off and on on the macbook to the pairing to stick). My son is 9 y/o and weighs 75ish lbs, riding his 24" road bike. It seems it might be something with his pedaling making power and cadence drop out. The odd thing is his legs are constantly moving, but I’m not sure how he’s applying pressure to the pedals. I got on his bike and didn’t experience any of those drops. Not really sure where to take it from here, but this is my current working hypothesis
I don’t believe this is the case, rider weight doesn’t have any bearing on spindown calibration. I do think something about his low power (~50w) may be around the trainer’s floor, anyhow I think we may be just keeping him on the dumb trainer
It’s not his weight but how much torque he can generate through the pedal. Have you tried to calibrating your smart trainer with him riding? Anyways, you are there and I’m just guessing so best of luck and Ride On!