I have an asus motherboard from ROG… expensive as hell for a computer part…
It is an asus maximus VI formula…
that motherboard came with a mini PCIe combo 2 antenna which detects both 802.11ac and bluetooth 4.0…
this has worked perfectly for my computer to detect bluetooth devices.
I’m pretty upset to learn after starting a membership that i still have to buy another bluetooth dongle.
Can anyone offer me any solutions to maybe get my own motherboard to work?
Thanks,
Isaac
Sorry Isaac. I just found out that to get my Wahoo Climb to work with TR I’ll need the magic dongle, as TR can’t control the climb over ANT…{sigh}. Quite why we need some specific dongle is beyond me. It’s hardly ‘standard’ bluetooth if only one dongle works…
Bluetooth cycling devices in most cases use Bluetooth “Smart”, something most phones and tablets have but not many PC’s. Google “Bluetooth Smart” for more info.
Options:
Run trainerroad on a phone or tablet. This is what I do. I used to run on a PC but I now use that for Zwift while TR runs on my phone or tablet in Bluetooth mode. Better anyway as I can reach my phone to change workout intensity.
Buy a Bluetooth Smart dongle
Buy and use an ANT+ dongle. What I use for Zwifting.
Upgrade your computer. Obviously not a reasonable option.
Buy an Ant Dongle from Amazon, 30 bucks. Its useful for Zwift and other things, paring Garmin devices.
thanks for the interesting reply.
I do have an ant+ dongle on my PC already however I do need the dongle in order for me to use my smart trainer. I currently use zwift and I do like zwift.
I have an iphone so it will be impossible to use trainerrroad on my smart phone in combination with my HRM…
So yeah, my options are:
What HRM are you using? I’ve got Wahoo TICKR that I liked so much I bought a TICKR run.
Tried a wahoo tickr… i tried using zwift for ios on my iphone with data from 3 Bluetooth devices: stages power meter for cadence, tickr for heart rate, and kinetic smart trainer…
It was a nightmare…
Especially difficult to get the hrm working… So i returned it. It just seemed like the device would not work and i would need to tell the iPhone to forget the device and add it again. Then it would work for a while until i close the zwift app… idk the experience sucked
I have a bontrager ant+hrm.
You could buy a second ANT+ dongle and run TR & Zwift concurrently on your PC.
When we implemented Bluetooth connectivity in our Windows app a long time ago, there were so many PC devices with differing levels of Bluetooth connectivity, and many PCs didn’t even have Bluetooth hardware yet. Because of the amount of work it would require to make the app’s device layer communicate with all the possible devices out there, we decided to just support the Bluegiga dongle at the time.
Bluetooth has since become equally prevalent as ANT+, and we’ve worked to support it natively on iOS, Android, and Mac, yet we haven’t been able to address it for our PC users. When Windows 8 was released there was hope of being able to connect to Bluetooth devices through that OS, but if we would have implemented our solution using Windows drivers for Bluetooth dongles, this would have only worked on Windows 8. We’re planning a full revamp of all of our apps, and one of the key pieces we plan to address is Bluetooth connectivity on Windows.
I hope this helps explain your original question, @isaac124! I’m sorry we don’t yet have a better solution. For now, the other comments in this thread contain good advice for how to get all your devices working together.
Thanks @larry. Are there plans to support the Kickr Climb under Ant+? I had moved my whole PC setup to Ant+ because I didn’t want to be dependent on one flavour of Bluetooth dongle, and Ant+ has worked like a charm. But, TR’s Climb support is Bluetooth-only, which ‘surprised’ me.
Bluetooth is a very common standard now, and it’s a bit weird for TR to only support it via a specific Bluegiga dongle.
Unfortunately, we don’t have plans to add ANT+ support for the KICKR Climb. We don’t have a ton of users with the KICKR Climb who are using it with TR, and we chose to spend our development resources elsewhere to bring you more updates to the core TR training product. That’s not to say this won’t change in the future, but at the moment we’re focused on the more immediate changes we can do to make you faster. You’re completely right on your last point though, and this is something we plan to address.
I’ve got to say, the Climb is more of a toy than a training aid, so I think you’re right. It would be good to see Bluetooth support being more standard, and not require the Bluegiga key, and I’m sure that’s a better use of development resources.
I had some problems with my Wahoo fitness app stealing the HRM, which kept it from being detected by TrainerRoad, but once I dropped it from that it’s been seamless with TR and Zwift since. It works fine with my ELEMNT as well as that app is different from the Wahoo Fitness and doesn’t interact with TR at all.
I only use the Wahoo Fitness app to make sure my firmware is upgraded and to control my Headwind.
I’m fooling around with writing some software that might control it and my lights in the garage together though, maybe I can drop that too…
But YMMV of course.
Same. Was so frustrated that I deleted Wahoo app. Later I reinstalled it and made sure to NOT add TICKR+ as a sensor.
We wrote the code before Windows 10 had good BT 4.0 support. A recent update has come out for Windows 10 that will make it so we can do that. The team is working on it now as part of a desktop improvement project.
BTW, I just bought the Bluegiga dongle so my Wahoo Climb would work with TR. It worked just fine: added the dongle, unpaired the Wahoo Kickr as an ANT device and re-paired it as a Bluetooth device and Everything Just Worked.
Did Bashful +1 today, with lots of 125% FTP spikes:
The Climb does make it interesting, but I think it’s a bit of a toy as far as TrainerRoad is concerned. Still, I’m very grateful to Santa for putting it under my tree. I just wish one of his elves had put the Bluegiga dongle there as well
You can get decent dongles for under $20 if you don’t insist on the Garmin dongle. Add a 10 ft. USB extension cable for under $6 (Amazon Basics) or 30 feet (usually extreme overkill) for $15.
Just an update.
I have given up using my desktop computer for TR workouts. the connection problems just won’t go away.
I think the reason is that the dongle needs to be connected directly to the computer and the computer needs to be closer to the trainer. I cannot move my desktop closer to my trainer, and USB extension cables are not a solution as they seem to mess up the signal or something. having no laptop, i cannot really do much to fix my connectivity issues to my desktop.
my android tablet works fine though… so i use that…
I do think it’s incredibly stupid that basically all smart trainers offer wireless connection only…
also had this issue… i returned the wahoo tick’r the day after i bought it for this very reason.
I use two ant+ dongles on my pc so i can run zwift and tr simultaneously. Seemed easier than doing ant+ and bluetooth.
