I’ve got no experience with the other trainers but I’ve had my Kickr Core for 3 years now and I’d buy it again if I was buying a trainer today. It’s been great.
But… correct me if I read correctly into this. What we’re implying is that the new Zwift trainer will lower the price of the other trainers. However, that doesn’t mean that the price of those will be lower than 499. The Volt received a solid review by DCR, if it maintains what it promises, I don’t think I’ll mind the inability to get a Core discounted at $700. Does what I write make sense?
My casual take on the landscape (USA centric) of smart trainers before the recent markdowns was:
- Kickr at $1200
- Kickr core at $900
- Tacx neo at $1400
- Hammer H3 at $900
- Everything else was not widely available, or had notable limitations/tradeoffs. The above is what I would consider ‘mainstream’ tier 1 trainers.
This had $900 as the ‘base price’ for mainstream top-end smart trainers. If the zwift model works well, it seems to have features that would put in in this category, or at least very close. This sets the ‘base price’ at $500, and now all these models need to justify their premium compared the the zwift trainer. I don’t think prices will drop to $500, but there will be conversations at other trainer companies if $1000ish (ie double the price) is a sustainable price. I could see Wahoo do something like drop the kickr core price, and possibly make more changes to differentiate the core vs the Kickr. (and this includes deliberately crippling the core in software). We may not see this in major price drops of current trainers, but if the Zwift model works well and sells well, I think we will see it changing how future trainers are designed/specified. Maybe Garmin will invest more in a trainer to compete with the zwift trainer, rather than an updated Neo model.
Yes it does. For the most part you will probably not miss the difference between a 1200 trainer and the volt at 499. You wallet will notice the difference tho.
Fwiw I do think prices will come down.
The price point of this trainer will probably cause other companies to keep making older trainer at a lower price point (Saris will sell the h3 at s lower starting point from now on, for example).
When or if this will happen, I don’t know. But if you can’t wait and see, you could do much worse than the volt for 499
Especially because I don’t expect prices to drop below 499. The saris H3 may be an exception related to the company economic situation.
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I think the H3 radical pricing is temporary - I have a hard time seeing how any of the improvements in the H4 will cost them much, if any more to manufacture. The difference is also not enough to justify the price difference, even $600 vs $900.
Once they move through enough H3s so that they can sell the remainder at $600ish in a reasonable timeframe the price will go up I think. I guess they could sell them all if cash flow demands that - I guess it really depends on how dire their financial situation is.
i got suito , returned it and got myself direto.
So, I went on and got the Volt. I paid $0 thanks to Amazon credit 
We’ll see how that goes, but based on DCR review I’m hopeful!
Thank you @mcneese.chad for the recommendation! It wasn’t on my radar at all, but it may have been a game changer!
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Sweet! Let us know how it goes once get it 
How are you finding it? I bought the Volt last year and I’ve had nothing but trouble with it. It’s been back for repair under warranty twice plus I’ve had to buy a new power supply for it myself. I really hope you’ve had better luck!
And I believe you had the option to select a 10 Speed Cassette pre installed?
Yes, that’s correct.
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Oh wow… so far it’s been smooth sailing, no problem at all.
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