Does Zwift support the Garmin Foot Pod? Just wondering if I can take a run around the course on a treadmill.
Yes, I can confirm it works. Only logged one run but I’ve been “testing” it out and have done a couple runs now. There is some debate on whether or not you can calibrate the Garmin foot pod to work with Zwift accurately. So far for me the answer seems to be yes as well. I went on a short 2 mile run this morning and I was showing about a 6 second difference between my treadmill pace and my Zwift pace. I could tweak the calibration number a little more but considering the difference last night was about 53 seconds off per mile, I would argue that playing with the calibration number does indeed have an effect (Watch was off during the run this morning).
I work (part time) for a bike shop which is a Garmin dealer and I called both our rep and Garmin support to see if I could get some clarity on if the pod stored the calibration or if it was the Pod itself. The rep said he didn’t know, Garmin support seemed to think if I was asking if run data is stored on the Pod, which I know it is not. Since I’ve already had a few customers as me in the shop about this… I figure I need to find a good answer. As I know I will get the question at a multisport expo in a couple weeks… I know I better find out ASAP.
I think what I want to do is run outdoors on a track and do a couple known distance runs. Then I can compare auto-calibration to figuring out the calibration old-school, and then seeing if an auto-calibrated unit vs manual calibration has an effect in Zwift.
One more small note… We all of course are assuming that the treadmill is accurate. While I have a pretty decent treadmill (good solid platform but no bells and whistles for electronics) I have absolutely zero confidence in it’s accuracy. I don’t trust any gym equipment, period. So if I can run one mile IRL on fairly flat ground, and have that effort and speed pretty much equal what I get in Zwift then I will be happy.
A Garmin Foot Pod will only track speed. For some reason, Zwift will not recognize the cadence part of the Garmin Foot Pod. The only two foot pods that do both are the Milestone (which is BLE only) and the new Stryd (which is really pricey).