I’m a middle-aged weekend rider. Maybe 60 miles a week in season. I was hoping a Kickr set up would keep me busy over the winter. I have found the entire experience to be unbelievably frustrating. Like throw stuff at the wall frustrating. Everything I hated about indoor cycling combined with everything I hate about computer problems. I can’t even tell you how many workouts the thing has ruined. Has anyone else gotten to this point? Here are my problems in order. Connectivity. We tried using a Mac tower as our main workstation. It’s been upgraded to Bluetooth 4.2. 12 core, 580 RX vid card, 64 gigs ram. Ant+ dongle, USB 3. I can’t tell you how many workouts I tried to start where the thing just wouldn’t find the connections. Sometimes it would find them-sometimes it wouldn’t. Sometimes quitting out to change your environment will drop all the connections in the computer had to be restarted. The layout of this software is dreadful. Having to boot into an environment to change your settings is ridiculous. Having the software quit out when you end a ride is it unbelievably poor interface choice. Yesterday we got past all that by using my laptop. 2016 MacBook Pro. I tried to connect my Bluetooth headset so that I could listen to music and hear the ambient sound from the environment. My race was at 3 o’clock we started that process at 2:45. I missed the race. Bluetooth continue to drop… Over and over again. Is it just me? There’s only two days this week over 40°F where I live. It’s just not enough exercise for me this winter I’m going to turn into a flabbo. My son gets good use out of it – he can’t use the tower either and he uses an air book. He can’t use his Bluetooth headset either – he hast to run his iPhone. Listen I get these or luxury problems but this was an expensive thing and we sold our elliptical trainer to pay for it so I’m really stuck. I was ready to smash the Kickr to pieces yesterday with a sledgehammer. Literally that was gonna be my work out.
Don’t blame the Kickr.
Get yourself a proper PC with an ANT+ dongle.
Use the sledgehammer for the Mac stuff.
We have the Garmin Ant+ dongle connected also. Are you suggesting that this platform doesn’t support Mac properly?
All I know is that Zwift works fine with my Anself ANT+ Stick, ancient PC Hardware with Win10 and my Elite Direto X.
Never used Apple and never will.
I don’t think, the Kickr is a problem here, cause there are so many Kickrs around and you never read about problems with these units.
You did update the firmware of the Kickr?
And you did use a USB Extension cord to place the ANT+ dongle next to the Kickr?
For what it’s worth, the most stable platform seems to be Apple TV.
Yes updated yes the extension cord for the ant plus dongle. Since were seeing a marked difference between different generations of computers I can only assume that it’s hardware although as a person who uses Apple products in their professional life it’s hard for me to imagine that that this is platform specific. At this point I think the entire experience is pretty much ruined for me – I’ve come to hate Zwift so much I’ll probably end up going out today. It’s presently 19°F.
Interesting. Can I incorporate a Bluetooth headset without causing the whole thing to fail? It would be nice to be able to ride to music. Yesterday that was the straw that broke the camels back.
ANT+ and Bluetooth and WiFi all use 2.4GHz.
It’s known that they cause interference between each other.
And tell your Family, not to use the Microwave when you’re training 
It should be ok. I use BT headphones connected to my phone at the same time as having my trainer and HRM connected via BT to my Apple TV.
Plenty of people have multiple trainers working at the same time.
If you have the option to use only 5GHz wifi then that would eliminate one possible interference candidate. It’s usually recommended to set a 2.4GHz wifi router to use a channel towards the start of the numbers (e.g. 3) to keep away from BT and ANT+ (though it might not be possible to change the channel that your wifi extender is using - have a look with a wifi monitor app to see what channels you’re using). But microwaves, baby monitors, cordless phones and all sorts of things can cause interference.
Zero problems with Kickr, Mac (2012), ANT+ or Bluetooth. Best experience without shelling out obscene money is Apple 4KTV. Also probably the easiest: switch on and go.
Can obliterate Apple TV for under £200, hardly obscene money.
What can?
So - this morning, once I had repaired the hole I made in the wall yesterday, we hooked up the HDMI of my MacBook Pro to the TV monitor and speakers system. So - Zwift connected Bluetooth 4.2, music and Zwift SFX running live into actual speakers. That might get it done… How are people connecting Apple TV? All bluetooth? Does it have the same graphics as a decent workstation?
Apple TV 4K: 1080p resolution, lowest detail tier, 30fps, limited connections, one input method.
Any old 4th gen i3 PC with a GTX 1050 Ti: 1440p resolution, highest detail tier, 60fps, unlimited connections, unlimited input methods.
@Matt_Peyton: You wrote that you have an ANT+ USB dongle and USB extension cord (ending by the trainer?). But have you used the ANT+ connection for the trainer? I only seem to see you referring to trying Bluetooth connections.
You’re clearly running it wrong. But you’ve admitted your prejudice anyway, so you’re biased.
Huh? Running what wrong?
That’s where we got to as well. It was the limited connections that was the problem because we’re running the trainer plus heart rate monitor plus cadence sensor from the bike which I find works better… My son likes the computer much better because he’s got his music playlists And he does not like the remote or switching around between the apps. We just actually manage to get Swift sound and iTunes sound to repeat back to the TV to HDMI and come out of the TV to our light pipe speaker system. Seems to be a solution for that part of the problem.
How helpful!!!
The answer is that I can connect via ANT+ or Bluetooth and see the things I need to see now provided I don’t try to then add music and headphones. We are running the music through our speaker system – louder but better than throwing my headphones at the television screen.
Is there a speed and accuracy difference between Bluetooth and ANT+?