I inherited a Wahoo Kickr from a neighbor. They said their power data was cutting out randomly. As it was a Gen-1 Kickr, they decided it was time to get a new one and let me take a shot at fixing this one. Once I cleaned it of triathlete sweat and dog hair, cleaned the optical sensor, and did a spindown (both standard and a “Factory Spindown”, it appeared to work just fine… at first. It connects and reads power to the Wahoo App. It connects and reads power to Zwift on my phone. But if I run Zwift on my laptop, it cuts out. When it cuts out, it is random. I was holding an easy 15mph on a flat course and it would simply drop, my virtual self would coast to a stop, then it would connect again, and cut out again. On my phone, I rode that same steady pace for over 10 minutes without issue.
I’ve spoken with Wahoo support and learned that the Gen-1 only has 1 Bluetooth channel or whatever and apparently the newer generations have improved on that. Still, if it connects to my phone uninterrupted, why wouldn’t it connect to a laptop? Would a newer, external Bluetooth dongle for the laptop be the fix? Or can I line-out from my phone to a lager monitor? Either way, I’m liking that I’m on a Kickr for $15 in parts and some elbow grease.
