This probably doesn’t deserve a new post… but I am so unbelievably annoyed!
200m from the end of a race, stood up, put the power down, and my connection dropped.
Windows PC. ANT+ dongle. 2x USB Hubs.
Connection screen showed occaisional readouts of Power, Cadence and HR, but when going back to the game there was nothing.
Unplugged ANT+ dongle and plugged back in. Didn’t help.
Garmin Express was connected, but once closed didn’t help.
Eventually, took out ANT+ for a minute, plugged back in, and it connected again.
Kickr Bike. 3 years old. Rock solid for years. Still connected to Garmin watch fine and Garmin connect shows no power drop out, so no issues there.
zwiftalizer dot com/public/82b8ac42-5374-4b62-8cb8-8ddb7733a841
Have you been able to or tried using Bluetooth on the kickrbike?
I was getting virutally zero drops for the first year of ownership, then halfway through year 2, I was getting major drops to where power wasn’t being read at all, along with erroneous data (2000w spikes) that are now there forever…
This would’ve been about August/September of last year when it started (there are posts here from me about it too).
As stupid as it sounds, someone mentioned ANT+ dongles “wearing out” which I personally still do not believe; however I do believe in them burning in and or possibly overheating and causing issues there with signal degradation etc. which I think may be the actual culprit.
Long story short, they told me to try Bluetooth, which I did.
Haven’t had a single drop since then which is… almost 3/4 of a year.
Not to mention, Bluetooth allows steering if I so wish to enable it, and also a faster response time (for hill changes etc.)
I keep HR on ANT+ though and it never seems to have issues; and reconnects without issue if I have to step away for a second.
My issue with going to Bluetooth originally was using it for audio for headphones… which to resolve that, I ended up doing audio over HDMI, and connecting a bluetooth transmitter out the back of my TV from the audio-out jack. (for anyone curious).
Windows doesn’t really enjoy / permit multiple bluetooth connections, especially when audio is involved… we still live in the days where WIndows has to switch bluetooth audio/mic devices to mono to be able to transmit & receive…
Hi @LookingForBalance welcome to the forums! I’m Oscar from Zwift.
I appreciate the information shared, it was very detailed and thanks to @Andrew_Nuse for sharing information as well.
I’d like to let you know that I checked your account and I was able to see multiple connectivity alerts when you are riding. Since you are using ANT+ you can try removing the ANT+ dongle to simplify the configuration. Check this article to troubleshoot this. If you have the chance you can also use BLE, if this persists, you can contact us directly and we’ll provide one-on-one support
Please give this a try.
Thanks. Can you tell me what you mean by “simplify the configuration”
Are you suggesting that I stop using the ANT+ dongle, or is there a way to simplify things and still use the ANT+ that I have misunderstood?
Hi @Oscar.R can you please reply to my above question?
After a few weeks where it’s been really stable I’ve had terrible dropouts today and need to relook at this.
Hi @LookingForBalance, thank you for your patience! I’m Gian from Zwift.
I’m sorry to hear that the dropouts are back. I’d use Bluetooth to see if we can get a more stable connection. Could you please try removing the ANT+ dongle and pairing your devices over Bluetooth instead? This should help us better understand what is happening.
Please let us know if that works for you.