I’VE LENT MY OLD BUSHIDO TO A FRIEND TO USE OVER THE WINTER. IT DOESN’T WORK WITH ZWIFT ON MY MAC AS ITS NOT ANT+ CAPABLE. HOWEVER NOW THAT IOS IS RELEASED, I UNDERSTAND THAT IT RUNS VIA BLUETOOTH DOES THIS MEAN HE CAN USE IT?
I believe the older units use a proprietary protocol that has not been shared with us from Tacx. We support the units that have the Tacx “Smart” branding - that is when they standardized their protocols.
It doesn’t hurt to try it out, but I’d not be hopeful if the unit is more than 18 months old.
Thanks for the reply Jon. It is an older Bushido (NON SMART) which didn’t have ANT+, I therefore went out and bought a NEO (which I love). I just wondered how the new IOS app will connect to trainers? I know that the Bushido that i have is bluetooth enabled. Does the IOS app rely on ANT+ also, or have you designed a bluetooth connection?
Thanks
Stuart
The iOS app currently supports bluetooth only, not ANT+.
All powermeters, heart rate straps, speed sensors, and cadence sensors that are bluetooth use industry standard protocols, so we support all of those.
For controlling bluetooth smart trainers everybody uses something different. We support:
- Tacx SMART
- Elite B+
- Kinetic Smart
- Wahoo
- Cycleops Bluetooth Enabled units (note, some were ANT only as recent as last year)
It is possible the old Tacx non-smart unit will broadcast power over bluetooth using the standard, but it is unlikely it will be controlled at all by Zwift as it probably does not use the Tacx SMART protocol.