Support for any/generic smart trainer using ANT+ FE-C (indoor cycle trainer) protocol

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Hello all,

I’m a keen cyclist and one of many people getting excited about Zwift. I’d love to be able to obtain a Kickr or simliar, but I’m never going to be able to afford one. I also much prefer the experience on rollers. For some reason there aren’t yet any smart rollers, although I expect they would have a similar price to the Kickr if they did exist.

Being a mechanical and electronics engineer, I intend to make my own device to add resistance, power and speed measurement to any of the sets of rollers that I’ll own over the rest of my cycling life. I have a full prototype design and ready to build, but before I do I want to check that I’ll be able to use with Zwift at all.

My question to the Zwift devs is once I have a device fully compliant with the ANT+ FE-C profile will it function with any of your existing hardware profiles, such as the Kickr? If not, would you be willing to add a generic FE-C compliant device to the setup in your software?

Also, which simulation parameters does your software send over FE-C to the trainer to use for resistance? Ideally, would bike speed from the simulation.

Once I get a working device I will be adding a small motor to enable accurate simulation of inertia instead of a flywheel, adding simulation of downhill coasting. 

I appreciate any way you can accommodate me.

Thanks

Edd

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There are some rollers with ANT+ controlled resistance - eg. http://road.cc/content/review/110312-elite-real-e-motion-rollers - but very expensive.  Good luck with your home build version!

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Thanks Russell, I hadn’t spotted these. I’ve actually ridden the model with the manually variable resistance and they’re a little pricey but really really solidly made. The smart version you linked still isn’t (yet) supported by Zwift and, as far as I can find, doesn’t support the FE-C trainer profile (the easiest way of getting Zwift to control the resistance). £1200 is still far too much for normal hobby cyclists.

I’ll try this post in the features request section and see if I get any more luck.

 

 

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Hi Edd, have you made any progress on this? I am looking at how the data is transfered, basically, I would like to use zwift with rollers resistance as well. Did you have a look at using magnets for resistance?