The Apple TV Zwift experience
So this will be a LONG post, but bear with me Ill try to share my experience moving over to this gadget. As a background this was installed in the pain cave in the basement with WiFi, Wahoo KickR Gen1, Wahoo RPM cadence, and 4iiii HRM; and I am not tech illiterate. The reason for the upgrade was that my laptop had really long load times getting Zwift to start. Once started (sometimes 15-20 min later) everything worked fine...all sensors detected through ANT+ dongle, ERG mode and all workouts went to Training Peaks. Sure the resolution wasn't great and it was choppy video (2011 MacBook Pro), but it got the job done when up and running. So I got tired of lugging the laptop to the basement and figured Apple TV would kill a lot birds with few stones so to speak. I also saw DCR's review which made this little piece of tech look great, easy and almost plug and play. Suffice it to say, that I have not enjoyed the experience and have been almost more frustrated with this than any other tech I've owned.
The thing was easy to set up. Downloaded zwift easily. The first problem I had was it didn't pair with my sensors as easily as I had hoped. I bought the 4iiii HRM as both a bluetooth HRM and a sensor bridge. Because I have too many sensors (Apple TV only allows 2 BT connections) I figured I'd just run everything through the 4iiii. Well I set up that app on my phone and had it detect my KickR power, KickR speed/cadence, and RPM. Well, ATV didn't always "see" my 4iiii. After several sessions of this I finally realized I had low battery in the 4iiii. Ok fixed that but ATV still didn't always connect to 4iiii correctly to see other sensors. Now Zwift loaded immediately but I was spending 15-20 minutes trying to get all the f*ing sensors to pair. Unistalled and reinstalled Zwift several times, updated ATV OS. Frustrating. I finally resolved the issue by unpairing everything from the 4iiii app. Now I run KickR power / controllable trainer and Wahoo RPM cadence through BT to ATV. Then I run the 4iiii HRM through the mobile app. As an aside to this, this isn't automatically recognized. I have to start a Zwift ride with power / cadence but no HR. After riding I will then try to re-pair and it finally recognizes. Ok so the sensors at least work now.
Problem number two is resistance in the KickR unit itself. In all fairness I am not sure if this is an ATV or a KickR issue, but since it never happened before using laptop and dongle I assume that ATV is the problem. Many times I will start a "ride" and it will be in a "pseudo" ERG mode. The resistance on the KickR doesn't change with the terrain. "Workouts" on Zwift in ERG mode ironically worked fine. Power was adjusted accordingly and I didn't miss any workout sections. On "rides" such as ABP my Avatar simply speeds up and slows down with the uphill/downhill. I tried de-selecting ERG mode from workout menu option, no help. I tried adjusting trainer sensitivity, no help. Finally, i had to uninstall and reinstall the Wahoo KickR utility / app. There apparently is a ERG mode setting there that I deselected, then my standard rides changed with resistance. But now the workouts don't work. Did a VO2 last night where I had to gear up and gear down to get the right resistance. On ATV menu during game there is an option to turn ERG on / off, but this button didn't seem to do anything. Not sure how to fix this problem. I now "restart" ATV every time I get on it to hopefully flush the glitches out. But I have no confidence any time I get on that it will work as I need it to.
Problem 3 relates to the treadmill and stryd. First time I loaded zwift run, I had to calibrate the stryd unit through zwift. There is option where you can do this through the pairing screen. I also have to run Stryd through the ATV, and 4iiii again through the mobile app. I assume that once I calibrate it once, it will work seamlessly in the future. But literally every time I try to run in zwift, I have to do the calibrate screen to get my Avatar to move AT ALL. This seems counterintuitive to me. And not very efficient.
Problem 4 relates to logging in to Watopia / London and there being no Avatars other than yourself. This happened about 50% of log -ins but has resolved with the restarting of the ATV every time I lused it.
Overall the level of frustration that came with ATV was unexpected. I was hoping for a seamless experience. I don't think it is too much to ask to turn everything on, and just ride or run. I'm hoping that others that use it and may have gone through similar problems have ironed out these issues and can help. I know there are lots of tech folks in here. My patience for this device has dwindled to the point of going back to the laptop and accepting the long load times, but seamless in game experience. And yes, I have been on google / zwift blog endlessly trying to solve all these issues.
The thing was easy to set up. Downloaded zwift easily. The first problem I had was it didn't pair with my sensors as easily as I had hoped. I bought the 4iiii HRM as both a bluetooth HRM and a sensor bridge. Because I have too many sensors (Apple TV only allows 2 BT connections) I figured I'd just run everything through the 4iiii. Well I set up that app on my phone and had it detect my KickR power, KickR speed/cadence, and RPM. Well, ATV didn't always "see" my 4iiii. After several sessions of this I finally realized I had low battery in the 4iiii. Ok fixed that but ATV still didn't always connect to 4iiii correctly to see other sensors. Now Zwift loaded immediately but I was spending 15-20 minutes trying to get all the f*ing sensors to pair. Unistalled and reinstalled Zwift several times, updated ATV OS. Frustrating. I finally resolved the issue by unpairing everything from the 4iiii app. Now I run KickR power / controllable trainer and Wahoo RPM cadence through BT to ATV. Then I run the 4iiii HRM through the mobile app. As an aside to this, this isn't automatically recognized. I have to start a Zwift ride with power / cadence but no HR. After riding I will then try to re-pair and it finally recognizes. Ok so the sensors at least work now.
Problem number two is resistance in the KickR unit itself. In all fairness I am not sure if this is an ATV or a KickR issue, but since it never happened before using laptop and dongle I assume that ATV is the problem. Many times I will start a "ride" and it will be in a "pseudo" ERG mode. The resistance on the KickR doesn't change with the terrain. "Workouts" on Zwift in ERG mode ironically worked fine. Power was adjusted accordingly and I didn't miss any workout sections. On "rides" such as ABP my Avatar simply speeds up and slows down with the uphill/downhill. I tried de-selecting ERG mode from workout menu option, no help. I tried adjusting trainer sensitivity, no help. Finally, i had to uninstall and reinstall the Wahoo KickR utility / app. There apparently is a ERG mode setting there that I deselected, then my standard rides changed with resistance. But now the workouts don't work. Did a VO2 last night where I had to gear up and gear down to get the right resistance. On ATV menu during game there is an option to turn ERG on / off, but this button didn't seem to do anything. Not sure how to fix this problem. I now "restart" ATV every time I get on it to hopefully flush the glitches out. But I have no confidence any time I get on that it will work as I need it to.
Problem 3 relates to the treadmill and stryd. First time I loaded zwift run, I had to calibrate the stryd unit through zwift. There is option where you can do this through the pairing screen. I also have to run Stryd through the ATV, and 4iiii again through the mobile app. I assume that once I calibrate it once, it will work seamlessly in the future. But literally every time I try to run in zwift, I have to do the calibrate screen to get my Avatar to move AT ALL. This seems counterintuitive to me. And not very efficient.
Problem 4 relates to logging in to Watopia / London and there being no Avatars other than yourself. This happened about 50% of log -ins but has resolved with the restarting of the ATV every time I lused it.
Overall the level of frustration that came with ATV was unexpected. I was hoping for a seamless experience. I don't think it is too much to ask to turn everything on, and just ride or run. I'm hoping that others that use it and may have gone through similar problems have ironed out these issues and can help. I know there are lots of tech folks in here. My patience for this device has dwindled to the point of going back to the laptop and accepting the long load times, but seamless in game experience. And yes, I have been on google / zwift blog endlessly trying to solve all these issues.
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Comments
Just a couple of observations from my n=1. When I first set up my trainer with Zwift, I tried connecting everything via BT and nothing seemed to work right. I was experiencing a lot of what you mention - things not connecting, lags in responsiveness (no resistance changes, power display not updating in Zwift, etc.). I switched over to connecting everything via ANT+ instead, and it's worked perfectly since then. This doesn't help solve the ATV problem per se, but I think some of what you may be experiencing may a result of trying to connect stuff via BT? (not that there's any other option with ATV).
With regard to not seeing anyone else besides your avatar in Zwift, from what I understand this is a bandwidth issue. I've had this happen when I'm running in Zwift on the treadmill at the local club. Their wifi signal is terrible and I'll sometimes have the same situation where I don't see anyone else in Zwift. You may try a wifi signal booster, or hardwiring your ATV to your router if that's a possibility.
Are you able to load the pre-defined EN bike workouts for Zwift on the Apple TV? I've got those all downloaded on my MBP and use them quite a bit. That was honestly the main reason I hadn't tried the ATV route yet, as I like using the OS EN bike workouts but I thought you had to download them to a laptop and run Zwift on the laptop to use them.
That being said I abandoned the ride because laptop it sooo slow and riding at 2-4fps and super laggy video made it unbearable. I've submitted a help ticket to Zwift so we will see what happens.