It’s been nearly a month since Kinetic quietly added their new lineup of smart resistance controlled trainers to their website, a fact not gone unnoticed by DCR readers. But it wasn’t until this past week at Eurobike that we’d actually get to touch and see the units in person. But before we do that, it’s probably worth having a brief history lesson. History is fun, right?
A Bit of Backstory:
For those familiar with Kinetic, the American company has long been a mainstay in the trainer business with their green trainers. They’ve historically been pretty popular, including the Rock & Roll trainer that actually allowed you to rock back and forth. About four years ago, just ahead of the tidal wave of new electronic controlled trainers, they released the InRide accessory. This allowed you to get more accurate power data from your (existing) Kinetic trainer. It didn’t control the trainer, but it did get folks Bluetooth Smart data integration with apps like TrainerRoad.
Fast forward to last year and they released their Kinetic Smart Trainer software platform, effectively a training suite. At the same time, they tweaked their trainer lineup by making InRide standard-issue on their trainers – the Rock & Roll and Road Machine editions. These being basically the two core trainers they make. They make two other lesser known models, but they don’t have anywhere near the uptake as the Road Machine and Rock & Roll models.
In general, last year’s news didn’t go over well – partially because the market was just moving too fast for Kinetic. There were numerous new trainers and lower price points with far more functionality. Kinetic was competing at the same price as trainers with full resistance control, ANT+/Bluetooth Smart, and countless other connected features. While it’s true that Kinetic had a better road feel than some, it wasn’t really enough to cover the functionality gap for most.
Upon concluding my chat with them at Eurobike last year, they noted plans for a new electronic trainer for the 2016-2017 winter training season. Which, is where we find ourselves now.
The New Models:
Kinetic has gone out and introduced three new products; two trainers and one upgrade kit. It’s a pretty customer-friendly approach for past customers, which will enable them to upgrade their existing Kinetic trainers with this new electronic controlled piece. That’s cool.
The three devices they’ve introduced are:
Kinetic Road Machine Smart Control: $649USD
Kinetic Rock & Roll Smart Control: $849USD
Kinetic Smart Control Power Unit (Upgrade Kit): $549USD
The first two models simply take the existing frames (Road Machine/Rock & Roll) and make them resistance controlled trainers as a complete package. Whereas the last item allows you to upgrade *any* past model of those trainers, no matter how old, to a smart trainer. The same resistance unit (RU) is used on all of them.
That resistance unit allows for approximately 1,800w of resistance, though they’re finalizing the exact spec as we speak. Testing is also showing that it can replicate grade in the 10-15% range. But stay tuned for the final spec there as well. Both of those numbers are in the ballpark for resistance units at this price point, with the 1,800w being on the higher end, and the 10-15% being in the middle of the road.
Now one unique feature that the Kinetic Smart Control trainers will offer is the ability to actually control the trainer via a wired connection. This is upon request from cycling studios that were having challenges with wireless connectivity. This gives them a way to control numerous trainers using simple long USB cables. While I don’t think this is necessary for the average home, it may be a good option in wireless-challenged environments with lots of trainers. Kinetic says that PerfPro should have this ready in their multi-user training suite by time the units ship.
Beating to their own drum:
Now this is where things take a bit of a left-turn off the road of normalcy: The unit doesn’t support ANT+ (any variant, including FE-C), or even standard/open Bluetooth Smart. Rather, it only supports a closed/private Bluetooth Smart protocol instead. This would make for the only major-retailer electronic trainer on the market that lacks such support for both protocols, let alone either.
Kinetic counters that they’ve got the apps that matter to users on them ready to roll, such as Zwift and TrainerRoad. Further, Kinetic says that they’ll work with other app partners that request access. Even going as far as offering an open SDK that they’ll be publishing to Github as open source. That’d be great if they did that in addition to just using the normal ANT+/Bluetooth Smart protocols.
So why does this matter to you as a consumer? Well, I outlined a lot of reasons in the ANT+ FE-C post in this section, which actually has nothing to do with ANT+ FE-C. But rather, all about understanding how software companies work. See, in this case they convinced TrainerRoad and Zwift to add support. They’ve got a big enough user base to sway them. But the challenge is what happens to the other 20+ apps out there? Sure, they could add support, but it’s house to house firefighting. Each app has to ensure that these trainers work, versus just using one of the standards.
The same goes for head units. These trainers won’t work with any of the following head units: Garmin, Suunto, Polar, Wahoo, Stages, SRM, Ben & Jerry’s, Lezyne, Sigma, Magellan, Mio, etc… None. Not one.
Instead, Kinetic is offering to work with companies, such as Polar, to build in trainer support. But you and I know that just won’t happen, at least for all (or any) products. Whereas had they used the standard power/speed/cadence profiles on Bluetooth Smart (or ANT+), it’d work out of the box. Presto Magic!
The move is rather peculiar, because the vast majority of chipsets these companies use these days are fully capable of dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart. For most of the chipsets the companies utilize, they’ll pay a licensing fee dependent on whether it’s ANT+ only, Bluetooth Smart only, or dual. That licensing fee is substantially less than a quarter (yes, less than 25 cents). Let alone the fact that implementing already existing standards is leagues easier than creating your own. Plus, it offers no competitive advantage. This move will simply drive users elsewhere – even users that already have Kinetic gear and likely would have just paid the upgrade cost.
Going Forward:
I really hope that Kinetic reconsiders this move, perhaps by Interbike. It’s just software, and their chipsets would likely easily support following industry standards. And the kicker is, I think what they had on the table at first glance would have been a rather strong offering, especially for the upgrade kit for long-standing Kinetic folks, as well as for training studios. Plus, some folks really enjoy the Rock & Roll sensation that moves side to side.
But not following standards these days is just a deal killer in this market. And with the upgrade kit priced at the same price as a new competitive trainer with full dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart compatibility and FE-C/Bluetooth Smart control, it’s a really tough recommendation to make. Nonetheless, I’m interested in seeing how the road feel is on final production units – which arrives at the end of September. It sounds like they’ll have some of those at Interbike as well in a few weeks. Thus giving them plenty of time to change their mind.
With that – thanks for reading!
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Looks like a USB-B socket on the back – haven’t seen one of those in a while, except on my Concept2 rowing machine
It is indeed a USB-B. We chose that interface as it’s quite a bit stronger than a micro or mini USB and would stand a better chance of surviving if you tripped over it …
How can I use the USB B for Zwift to send resistance instructions to the trainer in place of the Bluetooth functionality?
You can’t. According to KK when I called, the USB is for commercial use to support training facilities that did not want to deal with connectivity issues. I sold my unit, very inaccurate power when riding in Zwift. I’m hoping the Wahoo Snap will play in Zwift. That arrives next week.
Ugh. So far I am not pleased with the addition of the Smart Controller to my Rock and Roller. I love the Rock and Roller side to side action and thought the Smart Controller at 20% off would be a good addition to play/train on Zwift. So far I am having connectivity issues unless I bridge the unique Bluetooth signal from Kinetic through my Note 7 that then connects via Wifi to my computer. Inconsisitent to get set up and then signals get dropped in the middle of a ride. The cadence data is all over the place. So today I tried to connect my Garmin sensors to Zwift for input data and hoped to also connect the trainer via Bluetooth for resistance instructions. Needless to say that did not work either. I also cant use my Garmin HRM or an older Polar HR monitor.
Does any have any suggestions before I return this POS? Responses from Zwift and Kinetic are mostly 3 day waits for them not answer the question I asked.
KK tried hard at first. The engineer called me at home, the General Manager gave me his cell number. I started finding things and asking questions about dates things would be fixed….then they went on radio silence. My wife rides their fluid trainer, so we were both disappointed knowing the old KK reputation.
I returned mine and ordered a Wahoo Kicks Snap. It comes in Monday. A bigger player with third party software and as long as you do the one time “special calibration” and regular calibrations every couple weeks or when you change something (tire pressure, tension I rear wheel) I think accuracy will be 5%.
Lower price in the Snap, and I’d rather put money into a power meter that can go on my bike than drop big money on a trainer with strain gauges
I do not like the bkool pro….It is dependent on your bodyweight keeping the rear wheel down, no tensioner. When you stand up the power reported is way off from what I understand .
David,
Thanks for sharing your experience with the Kinetic Smart Control RU and saving the rest of us from becoming beta testers for a half baked product. I mean that sincerely! I’ll be very interested in your impressions of the KICKR SNAP when you get and will look for your comments here on DCR (and elsewhere).
You are very welcome Bradley.
well I hope water and sweat does not get into there, most place put those horizontal or pointing down for that reason. I think using non standard wireless is a big turn off. I do like the USB wired port for studios. Another option that would have made more sense would have been to use Zigbee for the communication as they can tolerate 65,535 nodes on the same network, i.e. good for studios.
I am also surprised why nobody does a knurled contact for the tire, you would make more money selling tires and the grip would be better when sprinting. I think you should do an add on accessory for Zwift where the front wheel is inclined or declined based on the elevation…
Now you can sell an ANT+ bridge with your trainer or an BLE bridge so that ppl can use any app with this trainer.
Indoor spin classes are fun for us cardio junkies, if the spin bikes could measure power that would be awesome, might be something to look into. Working with MyZone or Polar Club?
“…I am also surprised why nobody does a knurled contact for the tire…” – well we do but because our roller is so large the tire practically does not wear out. Obviously there is no tire slippage at all and no need for trainer tire either.
“…Now you can sell an ANT+ bridge…” – since main interface of our trainer is USB for reliable high speed communication we also do just that except it comes for free and is based on standard ANT stick.
David,
Have you had any rides on your Snap? I have the Kinetic Road Machine which works well for me since I already have a powermeter, but looking for something for my wife to ride indoors with zwift/trainer road that doesn’t require buying a trainer and a powermeter!
Hi Arleigh.
The Snap had MULTIPLE defects, both hardware and software. Had to return it….another is on the way. It’s pretty sad the lack of quality in what is a very simple device.
So in the interim I’m riding my wife’s “Road Machine Smart” which really is not that smart, just provides an estimated power. By the time this is all worked out I’m betting spring will be here.
David
David
David – thanks for the quick response. A bit frustrating to hear. Wahoo quoted a 3 week wait time on the Snap, perhaps the new batch has better QC?
-A
No problem. My new shipped from Wahoo. They kept some for Warranty.
I’m not too optimistic. There were many defects software and hardware in the Snap. I respect DCR saying they are rare, but seeing 4 defects on one unit does not instill confidence.
I would not count on Snap, They have released entire batch (I suspect they are all busted not only one batch) of totally broken Snaps. I have tried 4 different Snap trainers, 2 had issue with “wobbly” roller metal roller was totally not aligned. Other 2 had 40-50W power discrepancies and no calibration could fix that. They are just junk, no quality control lat all. Friend of my in UK had exactly the same problem with the roller…
The lack of ant+ fec is a major fail on their part. Trainer road is also a problematic in that it needs a specific Bluetooth dongle for pc. (not sure if that’s changed).
Looks like Kurt ain’t getting my upgrade money.
The BT dongle is true for now. We’ll be adding native BT 4.0 support on windows 8/10 after our new android app is on par with our iOS app.
Good to know. Thanks!
I’m surprised by the upgrade pricing – $549 for the upgrade kit. That’s almost the same as the price of a new trainer. I’ll be looking at other options.
Agreed. Why bother offering it as an option if you set the price that high. No one is going to buy that.
I, like many I’m sure, would be lost w/o DCRainmaker. Lack of support is just not cool. Garmin’s latest “up grade” to Connect Mobil only supports MyFitnessPal and Strava…boooo. I like the way Connect works but if I can’t get everything into it easily I just don’t have any need to use it.
Can you define lack of support? Our Smart Control trainer is likely to be supported by the software you use … without the need for a dongle …
Not as of now..what’s the point of your own bluetooth proprietary way of communicating? Every other machine is already compatible, why wait for yours to become compatible when everyone else is already compatible. Is it compatible with Perfpro right now? Nope, didn’t think so. How do you not see the light?
This is a long answer. Catch the full thing on our blog later this week.
Did the blog get posted this week?
link to kurtkinetic.com
It won’t work with my Garmin Edge 1000. One smart trainer feature I’m really looking forward to is the ability to re-ride my outdoor rides, indoors. Which is why despite holding out specifically for this model since it’s announcement, I placed my order for a Tacx Genius when the news broke that it’ll be proprietary. There is no advantage for the consumer. None. Zilch. Nada. End of story. For a proprietary solution. Whether lazy engineering or backroom deals are the culprit; or an unwillingness to license existing standards (the price is already not competitive as-is), that’s what consumers of this product are going to be stuck with.
I know you’re working with Polar, but I don’t want a Polar head unit, I want a Garmin Edge 1000, which is what I have. And while you say it’ll work with other software, and I’m sure it will; for how long will that support last? Who will support it if I can’t get it to work?
This is the fundamental issue. ANT+ FE-C makes sense for the consumer. Or at least, existing Bluetooth Smart profiles. The only people a proprietary solution makes sense for is the engineers who built it. Kurt Kinetic folks, build products for the consumers, and we’ll buy them. Build products for yourselves; and you’ll have to buy them yourselves.
Nothing on the blog for 2 weeks (since 26th September)…
26th August, even!
This is the winter I get a smart trainer; I had hoped I’d just be upgrading my Road Machine and save a little. But I think I’d need to save a lot more to make the hassle of yet another dongle worthwhile.
IF it had full ANT+/Bluetooth, sure, easy decision. IF it was, say, two thirds the price, sure, worth the hassle of a cord or a dongle. But you know what else is an easy decision? A Wahoo or Cycleops that’ll work out of the box for not a whole lot more dough.
I have no doubts the hardware itself will be awesome. Every person I’ve ever talked to with a Kurt product has loved them, myself included.
You might be pleasantly surprised at the software that the Smart Control RU will work with out of the box without the need for an extra dongle or cable. We cannot speak officially for 3rd parties, but we have been in conversation with Zwift, Trainer Road, PerfPro, Fulgaz, VirtualTraining, Kinomap and a few others. We will provide more details at Interbike.
Why would I spend more money for a trainer that supports a handful of software hand-picked by you with special third party support; when I could spend less money for a better-performing trainer that works with ANYTHING, including a Garmin head unit? This was a terrible, terrible engineering decision and Kurt Kinetic is going to have to own up to it and make amends to it in future versions. Defending the indefensible is just bad PR.
How odd. Why would you not add support do they think it’s 2012? Surely the more flexible you are the more you sell.
Indeed! We have actually gone out of our way to help support third party software interested in working with our hardware. We have open sourced an entire BLE framework that can help companies migrate off Wahoo’s closed-source SDK, developed lightweight SDKs for .NET, Android, iOS, macOS and tvOS that do all of the encoding / decoding of messages from our devices (free), and have integrated with the APIs of every possible data platform (Strava, MMF, 2PEAK, Training Peaks, etc.) to allow you to easily take your data to your platform of choice when using our own software to do workout.
no ant+ !??!?!?!
stupid decision for sure!
Ok I have a 5 year old Road Machine that I am looking to upgrade this fall/winter to a smart trainer. The price of the upgrade and the lack of ANT+, etc, make this an easy decision. Hello Cycleops and Wahoo, so long Kinetic. Very poorly thought out pricing and connectivity strategy.
Extremely disappointing–was looking to upgrade from KKRM, and it made perfect sense (for example, if the upgrade unit were 200 bucks less, it would still be tempting, as zwift and TR are both supported). But between the high price and the lack of standards-based compatibility, it’s off the list.
Bummer.
What additional software would you like to see us compatible with? Just because we decided to not adopt Garmin’s Protocols does not mean that we are suddenly incompatible with everything. We are in active communication with all of the major trainer software companies (Zwift, TrainerRoad, Fulgaz, Kinomap, VirtualTrainer, more) and even the major fitness companies (Strava, MMF / UA) about integration.
How about Golden Cheetah? Some of us are old school enough to avoid buying into the whole monthly subscription nonsense. If I spend my money for something, I prefer to do it once, and not over and over again.
I am in the market right now for a trainer. and your rock and roll smart control is in my top 3. but this lack of immediate compatibility is turning me towards others. I dont care what standard you follow as long as you are compatible. and you say dont worry give us your money and we promise we will work on it. Sorry not good enough.
are you compatable with Bkool simulator? will you be?
“Some of us are old school enough to avoid buying into the whole monthly subscription nonsense”
You might want to look at our software then, no “subscription nonsense” ;)
Joe….My Kickr Snap had a defective installation of the optical sensor and out of round roller that shook the bike. Really low quality build. I’m 0-2 in my attempts to get a “smart trainer”.
Where can I get one of these Ben & Jerry’s head units you mentioned? Sounds delicious!
You should start here: link to ebay.com
Wow. This was exciting until I saw the caveat and the price. Since I already own a KK an add on seems ideal but that price is outrageous!
What’s the point of releasing smart trainer without open Ant+ and BT communication? It shouldn’t be even called smart. I seriously can’t comprehend that policy.
ANT+ FE-C is not actually open. You have to register to get access to the specs and those specs are defined by Garmin. Our decision to not support ANT+ on this device will be detailed on our blog in the coming days. We hope you take the time to read it.
BLE is an open platform with standardized protocols for simple sensors. There is no adopted spec for electronic trainers. Let me say that again: there is no official BLE protocol for electronic trainers. Every trainer company supporting BLE has defined their own protocol (Wahoo, TACX, Elite, CycleOps, and now us) and it has not been an issue for software developers. We don’t expect any problems in integration with your favorite software.
Except you could have easily just adopted the standard BLE power/speed/cadence protocols – which would have solved half your battle. It would have instantly made it work with: Wahoo, Polar, Suunto, and countless apps.
As for FE-C, it’s open. It’s just as open as BLE is. You had to register for BLE access and join an organization. It’s no different. Garmin may technically own ANT+, but that hasn’t stopped all other competitors from using FE-C or broadcasting on ANT+. Until BLE comes out with a trainer spec, this is the best option today. That battle was fought and won, and every trainer company except CompuTrainer (RacerMate) had adopted it.
I think it’s great you want to share your API for BLE control. But that’s no different than what Tacx, Elite, Wahoo, and CycleOps all do. But until everyone gets together and decides on a BLE control standard, then use what’s out there. Re-inventing the wheel and skipping over existing BLE/ANT+ standards isn’t the solution.
The bottom line is this: ANT+, and by extension (and maybe even to a larger extent) ANT+ FE-C is the de facto standard. You can write a fancy blog post, and heck even if you’re correct in your assertions I’d be willing to bet the majority of potential customers are going to look and see no support for FE-C and move on. The responses on this blog should be a (very) strong indicator, is this is basically your target market (self included).
In my university marketing program we were taught this when it comes to marketing: “perception is everything”. Lastly, I wouldn’t brush off having Ray saying he wouldn’t purchase it for that reason…his recommendations have considerable influence in this market.
The best option today is providing an electronic trainer that works with the software that a consumer uses and to make it affordable as possible. We believe that Smart Control checks those boxes. It works with your iPhone, your Android device, your Desktop computer. It does NOT work with Garmin Head Units, but given that you don’t ride our trainer up a mountain, compatibility the Garmin HUs is irrelevant.
If our hardware does not work with your preferred software and we cannot provide a compelling alternative with Kinetic Fit or work to get compatibility for you, then we have no expectations of selling a trainer to you.
But none of my devices work with Bluetooth.
Laptop – no
Desktop – no
Heart rate strap 1 – no
Heart rate strap 2 – no
Power meter – no
Head unit – no (and yes I do use it on my trainer as it has extra metrics and when I’m pushing hard intervals I can’t always look up)
Fair enough if I don’t fall into your target audience but personally that’s quite annoying as I’ve always sung the praises of your products. But I do think you’ve misjudged your customer’s needs, as you can see from this thread but also from what I’ve seen in the groups I follow on Facebook etc.
Seems strange that for the sake of what it would take to add the extra protocol you’re willing to alienate so many existing and potential customers. But hey ho, if that’s your business model then that’s your choice.
Do you not have a phone?
Yes, with a 6″ screen? My TV that’s hooked up to my PC is 27″ so why on earth would I use my phone!
Plus it’s Android which the Sufferfest app doesn’t work on.
I don’t mean to be so negative but it’s just really annoying when companies expect you to own the tech they want to work with rather than the tech that people actually own. You’re possibly 100% right that long term BLE is the way forward BUT it isn’t the 100% supported tech that you suggest in the present which is where we are now.
I understand the negativity. Telling people that they have to upgrade their tech is never well received and we expect it. It’s the blind loyalty to a slowly dying technology that is difficult for me to understand.
Here’s my suggestion if you considering a Smart Control RU. It looks like you use Sufferfest for workouts? If so, you can use the Kinetic Fit App for Android and subscribe to Sufferfest’s streaming service for $10 / month directly through it. We have a partnership with Sufferfest to stream all of their content through our App (free). With a cheap Chromecast you could then have that video (or any of the other workout videos we have in our library, some free, others paid) broadcasted onto your TV alongside workout metrics, all synched up. Yes I know, it’s more tech, but the $25 device removes your computer requirement and makes you far more mobile as you don’t have to be next to your computer. Replace the head unit on your bike with your Android device when you’re doing your trainer sessions and now you have a far more powerful interface in front of you with more metrics than you can shake a stick at.
Your data is Your data and you can take it wherever you want: Strava, 2PEAK, Training Peaks, FIT files, CSV files, etc.
We’re still working on ANT+ support in our Android Application so it could talk to your existing HRM and Power sensor. I hope to see that complete in the next month or two.
I realize that this suggestion is a complete wholesale change on your current setup. But if you’re open to getting an electronic trainer, why not look at the options? It costs you nothing to try it out. :-)
I don’t mean to be rude but that contradicts most of your other replies and even contradicts itself!
You’ve mentioned numerous times that your use of the BLE protocol negates the need for dongles yet your suggestion is to buy, in effect, a dongle that is more expensive than an Ant+ dongle. You also suggest that I commit to an extra $10 a month to yourselves.
You then go on to say it’ll cost me nothing to try it out! This is a few lines after saying I need to buy a new dongle and pay $10 a month subscription! And I have tried previously to use my phone instead of my head unit and it was immediately clear why people pay good money for Garmin units! Plus, I have never heard of a phone app that works with cycling dynamics.
You also seem to use your own blindness to accuse other people of being blind. What I have to Ant+ is not loyalty, blind or otherwise! I choose garmin as they have proven to be amongst the best units in terms of cycling and multi sport watches etc. This has lead me, along with quite a few others, to invest in various other Ant+ accessories. So what you are mistaking for blind loyalty is in fact a genuine investment in a technology platform.
Think of blu ray players, how many of them are sold without DVD support? TVs are still sold with analogue tuners. ANT+ may be dying but it certainly isn’t dead yet.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come across as rude or accuse you directly of blind loyalty. It was an aggregate obsveration of many of the responses on this post. I’m trying to be helpful. I apologize if it wasn’t.
You don’t need a Chromecast dongle to work with our Trainers. I was merely suggesting a solution to replace your entire computer. Trying to be helpful …
The $10 / month is to Sufferfest, we are a pass-through. Not trying to upsell you…
It will cost you $0 to download the Kinetic Fit App right now. Not trying to get you to spend $ right now.
Your investment in a technology platform is understood. But you cannot deny that that tech platform will never be adopted by any industry outside of Garmin’s fitness devices. I’m trying to offer solutions as you slowly migrate to BLE for your tech:
– we are planning on support ANT+ devices on Android (for your HRM)
– our iOS App supports the Mio Velo and 4iii’s Viiiiva for ANT+ bridging (something Apps based on Wahoo’s closed-source SDK cannot support)
Sometimes we rip the bandaid off. Floppy drives, CD-ROMS, Adobe Flash, headphone jacks, etc. We’ll see how it goes…
Actually a pretty good solution. I already pay Sufferfest $10 per month. I don’t blame you for trying to move the market forward but it seems like you are banging your head on the wall for a cause not worth fighting for.
I don’t usually respond to online banter like this. However, you’re elitist attitude and overall disregard for consumers who are your exact target market definitely don’t encourage me to try your products. My money will be going elsewhere this winter for sure
Just trying to keep things light. I apologize if it came across as antagonistic.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t I guess…
“compatibility [with] the Garmin HUs is irrelevant.”
A potential customer, arguably a group of them, is asking for something and you’re going to tell them that their needs don’t matter? Good luck with that. SMH
“It’s the blind loyalty to a slowly dying technology that is difficult for me to understand”
I’t rather stick to “slowly dying” tech that is actually being actively developed and supported by everyone and everything
“But if you’re open to getting an electronic trainer, why not look at the options”
I am looking at the options. Plenty to choose from … No need for artificial limitations
“You don’t need a Chromecast dongle to work with our Trainers. I was merely suggesting a solution to replace your entire computer. Trying to be helpful …”
Why would one need to replace computer? To get less powerful hardware instead?
“But you cannot deny that that tech platform will never be adopted by any industry outside of Garmin’s fitness devices”
It is in fact widely adopted by vendors too numerous to list.
“Sometimes we rip the bandaid off” – well this time it seems that you rip the skin instead of bandaid
“It does NOT work with Garmin Head Units, but given that you don’t ride our trainer up a mountain, compatibility the Garmin HUs is irrelevant.”
Not for all of us. For example, my main piece of tech is a Garmin 920xt, which has a nifty recovery adviser built in. However, it only takes into account workouts recorded with the watch. So yeah, when I ride the trainer with Trainerroad, I also record the workout with the 920 so that the recovery data is useful.
Incompatibility with Garmin head units is a dealbreaker for me on this right now.
Totally agree, I do precisely the same. All my workouts (indoor or outdoor) go into my 920XT
Been looking at smart trainers for this winter training and really like the side to side motion of the rock and roll trainers. Currently I am on a dumb trainer without variable resistance using a stages power meter (hr and speed sensor too) onto my Garmin 1000 using sufferfest videos through a dvd player, but the solution you outlined here is actually quite a bit better assuming the app works and sufferfest stuff comes through. Since I am not really heavily invested in trainer stuff already, it seems just going through Kirk Kinetic and using the app and casting it onto the TV is a pretty good solution to all of this.
There is a several second video delay using chromecast. That is not a viable option. My guess is that ANT+ was deemed too expensive and they decided to not pay for it. They say its a dying protocol yet all the other trainers use it? and basically every accessory for your bike uses it too. that sounds alive and well.
BIG FAIL.
Looks like an old Computrainer RU. Poor development on design, connectivity,… While Wahoo, Tacx and Elite (CycleOps missed the boat but jumped on it this year) are setting benchmarks in trainer business, Kinetic is pottering in the background.
Thanks for the info Ray! I was ready to upgrade my R&R trainer, but now I’ll wait. I can’t believe Kurt K went in this direction .
This is a spectacularly unwise and arrogant move. Let’s revisit this in 12 months and see how close they are to going out of business.
If this is indeed an unwise move, we will correct our mistake long before we go out of business. :-)
As others have said, this monumentally short sighted decision just means this can’t be considered in my options to upgrade.
I really hope they come to their senses as I love my road machine but currently a full KICKR Snap at <£500 is way better value with its compatibility
What software do you currently use? Smart Control will likely be compatible with Zwift, Trainer Road, PerfPro, Fulgaz, VirtualTrainer, Kinomap (and more). If your preferred software isn’t listed, please tell us so I can reach out to their development team. Integration is fast and easy. Zwift and TrainerRoad added support for inRide’s custom BLE protocols with minimal effort (and no assistance) and Smart Control is just as easy.
No idea why Kinetic believes they are special enough to move to proprietary protocols when literally all of their competition is open via ANT+/Bluetooth/both.
It’s as if they’re blind to the decline and fall of the people at Computrainer, who made the exact same mistake and went from the dominant trainer company to irrelevance.
Not even proprietary, they are publishing the api. Just different – very odd decision unless there is something their api provides that standard protocols don’t. Although in fairness, there is no standard Bluetooth control protocol which is why Wahoo originally rolled their own. Maybe KK thinks they can get everyone to use their api like Wahoo did, only times have changed.
Yeah, I can understand publishing an API for BT control, since as you noted there’s no official standard there. So each company is indeed doing things slightly differently, which sucks, but is fine in the context of the realm of suck that exists.
But not also transmitting on open BT for Power/Speed/Cadence is the real issue. Nevermind the whole lack of ANT+ thing.
There actually are improvements in our API over the official BLE protocols. We will be discussing this at length in a post on our blog soon. We hope you take the time to read it.
Several already smart trainers at the upgrade price point. No way these things gain traction.
Too late.
… but seriously though. Go ride one at a store in a month and compare against those similarly priced trainers. You’re welcome to say it sucks at that point, but I would hope you would leave open the possibility that our trainer might be the bees knees so you don’t miss out…!
No open Ant+ or FE-C and open Bluetooth and over $500 to upgrade an already over $400-$500 trainer. Looks like Kinetic is making my decision to a Wahoo Kicker even easier. Loved my Road Machine but it’s probably going to the wife’s bike since she doesn’t need anything but speed and cadence.
Ouch! I was just getting excited about the prospect of upgrading the resistance unit on my old Kurt Kinetic Road Machine (it’s at least 12 years old now) that the girl is using…
But if there’s no ANT+ and BLE, it’s definitely NO SALE and I’ll pick up a 2nd Kickr or Kickr Snap or Tacx or Elite… It makes me sad when I see companies not integrating the consumer friendly standards…
Actually we are integrating the consumer friendly standard: BLE. BLE is on 100% of iOS, Android and Mac devices and with Windows 10 BLE support has become much simpler so software like TrainerRoad will work with all of your BLE gear without the need of a special dongle. No dongles ever again!
Unfortunately ANT+ is far from open (at least my definition of “open”). Our decision to not support ANT+ will be detailed in an upcoming blog post. We hope you take the time to read it.
Not compatible with Ben&Jerries ? No deal !
Very stupid move by Kinetic. I think I will continue with my Rock & Roll for a while, but when the time comes to replace it with a new one, I will definitely choose Kinetic any more.
I wonder why none of the other brands have designed anything similar to the R&R: the freedom to move more freely is quite nice.
The R&R is nice isn’t it!? I’d encourage you to demo the Smart Control and see if it works with your software before you make a decision simply because we don’t support ANT+. You might find that ANT+ isn’t actually as big a deal as you think… And this flywheel is to die for!
Like everyone here I find the move indredibly stupid, but I therefore can’t understand why they made it – Isn’t there anything we’re all missing there? If it’s not a cost issue (25 cents!), what could be their reasoning on their end? Is it really pure arrogance/incompetence?
For those old enough polar once ruled the roost when it came to smart training watches, refused to open up their software to the emerging ANT+ standard. Look at them now !
Garmin rules !!
For all of you that have a Kurt Kinetic – cherrish it….., for it is now a dinosaur !!!
Sweet! What kind of dinosaur???
Ray, do you have any thoughts on why Kurt Kinetic would think it was a good idea to not follow standards? Other than 25 cents, what’s in it for them?
They want folks to buy into their training platform subscription service.
(Well, that was the reasoning last year anyway)
…yet they’re shoehorning in support for all the competing training platforms?
We’re not sure where the 25 cents idea started, but let me be clear here: this decision was not made to save ourselves $0.25 per unit.
It’s also not about what’s in it for us. It’s about what’s in it for you. This is a long, nuanced explanation that involves Garmin, Wahoo, Kinetic, Zwift, Trainer Road and more. We will be writing up a detailed explanation on our blog this week. We hope you will take the time to read it.
We would love for people to subscribe to our platform, but that’s not why we made this decision.
If only you could be bothered to write it…
lol…no Ant+…jesus fekin christ..
Who say down at Kinetic and said..’you know what…lets upgrade our turbo-trainers..everyones doing it..Wahoo..Cycleops…Tacx…lets do ours!”..
‘yeah..and lets upgrade it with no Ant+ or Bluetooth smart…whatsoever….that’ll make em scratch their heads..!’
‘yeah…’
‘yeah!..’
‘great..thats sorted…now somebody pass me another crack pipe I’m going off my tits here for a hit…’
FFS.
Kinetic = losers.
It does have Bluetooth Smart. Which means that probably every device you own (aside from Garmin Head Units, but who uses a head unit to train on a trainer?) has the ability to communicate with our trainer without the need for a dongle.
… pass me the crack pipe …
Joel,
Come on. 70% of the market is owned by Garmin and even more ANT+ (in any variety). I´m sorry but this is just a wrong turn you guys have made, and it feels like it´s done mainly to go against the grain and flip the finger to Garmin. We all know who you guys are, and you make a brilliant platform (loving my Rock and Roll here) but you are turning your lovers to haters this way.
I´m moving over to the TACX NEO after this, but I´ll miss the side motion for sure.
If you would like to work on introducing a better and fully open standard, then there are a few main things:
Make it backwards compatible with the mainstream communication protocols out there (uhhu wake-up, for now it REALLY is ANT+).
Then tell everyone you have found a more capable/stable open platform and start lobbying to make sure they will adopt it.
Then (and really not before!) phase out support for the (in your view constraint/obsolete/aged) protocol in a consumer friendly manner.
Maybe you guys can work out a nice way to get us all back to loving your products by using a simple and cheap ANT+ dongle with full support. Also…. Don´t charge us for this mandatory dongle, it´s your way to show us you are consumer minded, but want to have us focused on new protocols.
Also the upgrade price is a crazy one, you must realize this. If it was in the 300 range, it would be something I would consider given it would have ANT support.
By the way, I am leading a group of product developers inside an IT company. This is basic stuff here guys, just ask anyone.
Hope to see your /proper consumer minded response/ soon in a blog or elsewhere.
Joel, I guess I’m old school I do use my Garmin Head unit when I am on a trainer. My HRM, speed and cadence sensors are all Ant+ and all connect flawlessly every time I turn it on. When I’m done with my workout it wirelessly connects to my wifi and uploads my work out. Last year I wanted a power meter and really considered the inride solution from KK, but that private BLE meant I’d have to either replace all my Ant+ gear and ride with my phone or just purchase a power meter that I could use on or off the trainer with my existing ecosystem. So that was $200 that KK lost from me and went to a competitor. Now I have been wanting to get a trainer that I can use the head unit to control resistance and be able to quickly ride existing course profiles and was excited to learn about the new option from KK, however the decision to stay with your version of BLE, and not going dual Ant/BLE and wanting $500 for the upgrade to my existing machine is pushing me to other options. Even if the other options are more expensive, at least they are allowing me to keep my existing accessories and train old fashioned with a head unit instead of having to buy a laptop or use my phone to ride or log or control my workouts.
Joel, your market research people either lied to you or phoned it in. People use the tech they have, and that means they use their Garmin head units when indoors on trainers. You can continue to mock it in the hopes of making it go away, but wishful thinking does not equate to reality. Take a look at, i don’t know, every head unit review that Ray has done and you’ll see mention of using it for indoor use.
Seriously, take a look at what you’re doing (“you” being the company, with you, Joel, as its voice in this forum), you’re ignoring input from customers and/or telling them they are using products incorrectly. That’s a hard road to hoe.
You have a limited amount of time until Ray publishes his trainer buyer’s guide… There are people here telling you that they will take that into account when making a purchase this season, and more of them will read what Ray says than will read this magical blog post to which you keep referring. And that equates into dollars for your company. The choice is yours. Good luck.
“…I´m moving over to the TACX NEO after this, but I´ll miss the side motion for sure…”
TACX NEO actually does have side motion
I have read it will have ‘some/limited’ side motion.
if this is incorrect and I could compare it to the RNR I would be totally sold and have some green old iron for sale.
thanks
I tried both and they feel too different. I can not make direct comparison because of it. The motion of NEO while not over-exaggerated feels really nice and cushioned. I liked it. I suggest that you just simply find NEO in whatever LBS you have around and try it. That is what I did. Also if you are thinking of buying NEO make sure that there are easy ways to exchange if something does not work. There are reports on Tacx’s forums o NEO’s dead/malfunctioning on arrival/soon after.
I’m a pretty serious time trialist and am a prime candidate for your products. I’m happy spending £1,000 on a trainer if it will improve my FTP by 10w over a season, which is why I’ve always loved Kurt Kinetic’s smooth and realistic feeling trainers – they are the closest thing to riding outdoors and allow the rider to develop the right muscle groups because of this, meaning your indoors training translates to improvements in race performance.
I used to train with an iPhone mounted to my handlebars, but I now use a Garmin head unit, as does virtually everyone I train with and race against. I’d say once you get to the “high end amatuer” end of the market, about 90% of people are using their head unit of choice, and 90% of the time that will be a Garmin. All the top end power meters support ANT+, as to the most reliable HR straps. I know it’s dated technology and has lots of limitations, but it’s absolutely rock solid in my experience compared to Bluetooth.
Why do serious cyclists use a Garmin head unit instead of a phone?
1) It has real buttons. When you are pushing yourself to the limit and can’t see properly because of sweat and your brain is turning to mush due to the effort, having a physical lap button to press to record the end of an interval is what you need.
2) Head units normally use resistive touch screens as opposed to capacitive touch. This means they work when they are covered in sweat, unlike a smartphone screen.
3) They are water proof, again not presenting a problem when sweat is pouring all over them.
4) You can have the same data in front of you as you do outdoors. For example, I have 3s power displayed next to 30s power, with lap NP and lap AP underneath. I know your own iPhone app is very good and would allow something close to this, but most other apps are really limited in this respect.
5) When you’re warming up for a race, you don’t want extra complications like having your iPhone mounted on your bars and then taking this off 5 mins before your start time. Or that the latest app update has changed the screen layout, or added some new functionality. Garmin head units just work. You just want to get in the zone and stare at your power and HR data for 20 minutes as you do the same warm up you did last race.
I have a big fat powerful Win10 tower PC with a 27″ screen, perfect for Zwift, TR and all the services you support. But my pc doesn’t have Bluetooth….. and it’s only 2 years old. So what was that about “no dongles necessary”?
I use the ant+ dongle that came with my garmin watch, and it works totally reliably.
I imagine that I can’t be the only potential buyer with such a setup..
Further more I do make use of ant+ connection to my Edge unit to show my self chosen stats, that TR and such doesn’t show on the big screen. And to a lesser extend for its recovery guide.
You probably have lots of reasons for your move, and fine by me, but I just don’t understand why you don’t open up for those features I just mentioned.
Is is really so detrimental to your strategy?
Btw, funny that ditching cd-roms etc. that you mentioned, were all pioneered by Apple :-)
There’s just the small difference that you could buy external CD-ROM drives and so on, except for Flash I give you…
This is like trying to sell a gravel grinder bike which only fits 20mm tyres. There is less than zero chance I will buy something which doesn’t support basic standards.
Given about 30/32 = 94% of comments along the lines of “What were you thinking” regarding connectivity, I think a public announcement of a swift U-turn is in order.
Breaking the status quo is never easy. But if we do our jobs right, you won’t even notice that its happening.
So they have no compatibility with the market dominating Garmin/Suunto devices…I am loathe to call anyone stupid…but…the Board of Directors for KK need to be replaced. No one wants to add another electronics box to the mix with no compatibility.
This confuses me. Right now I hop on the Smart Control R&R, pull out my phone, and do a workout. In the ANT+ world, I plug in a 30-pin adapter, a Wahoo ANT+ Key, and then maybe buy another head unit to strap to my bike … We’re trying to remove the need for more gear by going to where the rest of the tech industry went 5 years ago. You might be surprised by how little not supporting ANT+ actually affects you. We understand the head-unit argument, but last time we checked, your trainer isn’t up the mountain with you. And doing a workout in other mobile / desktop software seems to be a better experience, and taking your data from that workout in FIT format is simple. We will be doing a write up on all of this soon on our blog. We hope you read it.
Joel,
Here in Alaska we have ample opportunity to ride trainers (6+ months of winter). I’ve put over 2,000 miles on my trainer in 2016 alone. My workflow is hop on my Road machine fire up my head unit and ride to a DVD or training plan I’ve created and downloaded to my Garmin. Not supporting Ant+ affects me greatly. My HR, Speed, Cadence, Power meter are all Ant+ and talk to my head unit indoors or out. The beauty of the Kinetic Road Machine is that the same equipment I use on it goes right out the door with me when weather is suitable for riding. I would love to ride on Zwift or Trainer road or any other live-stream platform but my reality is that in Alaska a broadband connection with unlimited or actual usable bandwidth is a still in the future pipe dream. In total there are 52 broadband providers in Alaska. There are 282,000 people in Alaska without access to a wired connection capable of 25mbps download speeds. There are 113,000 people in Alaska that have access to only one wired provider, leaving them no options to switch. Another 53,000 people in Alaska don’t have any wired internet providers available where they live. So while many of the lower 48’rs can just fire up their smartphone and ride, that’s not an option for many of us (and I’m sure there are many places in the lower 48 that are broadband wastelands as well). I keep checking for this soon to be published blog but no-joy. As a consumer it sounds like you are comparing your company to Apple in that your innovation will change the world in trainers and software and I hope you are correct. However so far your implementation on products (In-ride, new power unit) to me is comparable to what Nintendo has done versus Sony (Playstation) and X-Box. Sony did it the best up to the PS3 slim version; all their PS versions were backwards compatible to the original PS which kept consumers inside their ecosystem because they saw value in upgrading because it allowed them to keep and continue playing with their existing products. Huge win for the company and for the consumers, and kept many a user from switching. I love my Road machine simply because it just works, I put my bike on it, it is very quiet, no issues with leaks and gives me a very realistic road feel. Having the ability to control it with my existing equipment at a reasonable price for upgrading would keep me in the Kinetic ecosystem. But you are locking me out because not supporting Ant+ actually affects me even when I don’t take my trainer up a mountain with me.
I will add to the comments in the vein of “the people that made this decision may be out of a job”.
Kinetic is employee owned and run by about 6 people. No CEO. No Board of Directors. The decisions we make are mulled over for long periods of time and collectively agreed too. We all care deeply about the products we create and we try to make products that you will want to purchase. We support our products with ridiculously awesome warranties and have chosen this path to ensure that we can provide the best possible experience for you. We have actually learned some things, contrary to what you might see, and are moving forward with products that will work with all of the devices you purchase today, tomorrow, and probably the next 10 years. No dongles. No dependency on a privately controlled wireless tech acting as a middleman. Relationships with every software developer, helping them with integration, testing and ensuring a stellar user experience.
I have a 3 year old KK Road machine and it works great but eventually wanted to upgrade to a smart trainer. Like other peoples comments the upgrade kit to retro fit my current road machine is a crazy price. Not sure how they plan on staying in business.
We plan on staying in business by continuing to sell a large number of trainers.
I am sure you will sell trainers still. All I was saying like most people on here is the upgrade kit price is outrageous. $549 to upgrade my existing KK road machine. I would think $200-$250 is more in line honestly but that is just me.
I know you might say I cannot get a new smart trainer for that but I can get a new Kickr Snap at REI when they do their 20% off coupon for ($700 – 20%) = $560 before tax. Just saying and I would like to just upgrade mine but if the price does not come down to an acceptable number I will just sell my KK and wait until REI has their 20% off to use it on the Kickr out of principal to your pricing scheme.
Also how do I connect the smart part of your trainer with my setup. I have a desktop computer that is connected to my TV. I have an ANT+ stick in the computer that pairs that to my garmin speed/cadence sensor on my bike. I start zwift or TR and it finds the dongle and communicates the information to the screen for me.
I am assuming since you are not supporting Ant+ I would have to then buy another stick with my current setup.
I also like some people use my 910xt when riding on zwift to get my stats instead of pulling the file to attach to my garmin connect account. Reason why which I am sure you guess is because I want to see how many miles I went on a flat course vs. zwift shows my “virtual” mileage because of the hills and such.
In case you’re not aware, REI also carried KK accessories, including the Resistance unit. They often have 40% off single items (Excluding bikes) a few times a year, so you could probably pick it up for $330 sometime this year if the price stays the same. It’s how I plan on picking it up. $300 is the range I would have expected this to cost in the first place.
Thanks for the REI tip Philip. Still not inexpensive in $CDN. I am still waiting for the dust to settle, and riding in Zwift using my cadence and speed from Garmin. Stone age I guess, but thought I would wait a bit.
40% off? Typically REI does 20% off sales (usually right before Thanksgiving, then again in the Spring). Never seen a 40% off sale, unless referring to the Clearance/Garage Sale, but that’s generally for refurb/returned items.
Obviously, the 20% off sale is still a good deal – especially since it’s virtually always valid on Kurt Kinetic products.
WOW did they ever miss. I was really hoping to hear great things and be tempted to upgrade even though the pricing had me already leaning away. I think if they were comparable to other “smart trainers” then the price is reasonable but the upgrade isn’t. Then add the standards issue and they have shot themselves in the foot!
Wow! I’m in the market for a Smart Trainer, and on Ray’s advice, waited until these announcements before making a decision.
I really like the look of the Rock n Roll trainer, as this seems quite realistic compared to the way I ride, but there’s no way I’d consider buying this if it doesn’t follow standards (out of principal).
“Out of Principal” is one of the many reasons you don’t see ANT+ support. We will detail our decision in an upcoming blog post, we hope you read it. :-)
Add my name to the list of disappointed KK R&R owners looking to upgrade. Upgrade price is too close to that of the KICKR Snap (and others), and that’s before even getting to their unwillingness to play in the sandbox.
Makes more sense to sell the Kinetic and take my trainer business elsewhere, unless they reconsider their position.
Through some email interactions with KK support I was pointed to this post (which does at least leave the door open for a course correction):
link to support.kurtkinetic.com
We reconsider our positions on a daily basis. Everything is subject to change. If we are wrong, you can be assured that we will correct our mistakes.
I appreciate your responses Joel. Wireless protocols aside, the Smart Control upgrade price is still a concern.
I have the original R&R (T-016). Any performance differences between the new R&R Smart and the Smart Control installed onto an original R&R?
Ya know I don’t know the answer to that. Jason can help you out: joverman@kurt.com
And we definitely see the upgrade price complaints. I’m not responding to those as I don’t really have any authority on that. :-/
I appreciate you responses as well Joel. I don’t have a dog in the fight as I won’t be making any trainer changes soon. I think what KK may have missed here is that people are already invested heavily in ANT+. We get it. We know how to get stuff to work. We don’t want to invest again. For my trainer I use an old second hand laptop that works with ANT+, for me to purchase your (very expensive) upgrade I need a new laptop. But I have already invested in ANT+ sensors and dongles. I don’t want to reinvest. I want the new tech to work with the old tech. What your calling blind loyalty is actually investment in the form of cash and energy and time to figure out how to make things work together.
I’ll add to the chorus: No Sale. I love my Road Machine and it does what I need when combined with TrainerRoad. When I find myself in a position to move up to a smart trainer though, KK is not under consideration. Willful failure to adhere to industry standards is an indication of bad management decision-making and I am not investing money in a product that may not be around long.
I cannot imagine the decision making framework that led to this outcome….
Forward thinking. Sometimes it’s okay to remove the floppy drive if there is better tech that already exists in 100% of devices being sold (no dongle needed) and the software development community is eager to ditch the status quo and move on…
It’s not “100% of devices”; your being disingenuous, at best. You’ve already said it doesn’t work with Garmin HU. You’ve already tried to mock those who use head units indoors. Potential customers are telling you that your wrong. Your not “ditching the status quo”, you’re not meeting (and ignoring) customer needs.
Software developer community is eager to implement new features that can help win over competitors. Implementing yet another protocol is nothing but distraction however small or big.
I’m putting away my pitchfork and taking a “wait and see” approach. I want to see how good the unit actually is and how not having ANT+/BTSmart will affect my setup (R&R). Definitely looking forward to hearing them out on their blog on the reasons they feel this is a valid and smart business move.
Thank you. It’s all that we can ask for.
Honestly, the lack of ANT+ FE-C support is disappointing from a tech standpoint, but at the end of the day, how do I use my trainer? I use it with my iPhone and TrainerRoad and/or Zwift apps. Both of these applications are supported by the KK platform apparently, so this seems completely fine to me.
I’m still trying to figure out why anyone would want to train using a smart trainer and their Garmin head unit, rather than something like TR or Zwift. What benefits does that bring?
The biggest issue with the KKs is that the trainer upgrade is only $100 less than the full trainer, which probably means it’d be cheaper for me in real money to sell my Road Machine on CL and buy a new trainer. Seems like KK picked the wrong price point for the upgrade, but that’s probably driven by actual costs. If I sell my trainer to fund the replacement, I’m not longer locked into getting another KK though, so it might be a mistep KK’s part.
Zwift is coming to iOS! … and will only support BLE sensors. Thank you for taking a step back and understanding that if we, the creators of the hardware and software, do our jobs correctly, the wireless technology used is irrelevant to you.
Reading through the comments I see a few things that are underlying all decisions I am making when it comes to sport tech at the moment.
Everything shall be able to communicate together without any hiccups. Being the Tacx Neo I got with the Garmin 520 or with the android tablet that has built in ANT+ and BLE, or being the Win10 tablet.
And they should not have a closed protocol or have limited support in the market, or limit where you can use the data (Polar in the past).
I see this ticks the two no buttons for what I would consider.
Also looking at the price point of the Kinetic Rock & Roll Smart Control brings it into the ballpark of the new Tacx Flux that works with everything.
If I were in the market to get a new trainer at this price point I know where I would go.
Built-in ANT+ on Android Tablets is available on some Samsung Galaxy Tabs and a few Sony Xperias. That’s it. Those tablets also have BLE. So does every other Android device sold. If you’re looking to the market to continue to support the bike tech you buy, BLE should be your primary decision point, not ANT+. Dynastream failed to win that war back in 2006, Garmin bought it wholesale and has been cornering the bike market for the last decade while the rest of the tech market moved forward with BLE.
When you are in the market for a new trainer, maybe see if we were right or wrong. If we’re wrong, there will probably be a Kinetic FE-C trainer waiting for you.
But still why not provide backward compatibility as it were? One of the reasons I bought an android phone was specifically to have ANT+.
I was very excited when I saw that there would be a Smart Control Power Unit upgrade available for existing Kinetic trainers. The MSRP price of $549 for just the power unit, though, definitely poured some cold water on my initial enthusiasm. I wouldn’t pay anywhere near that just to retrofit my existing Road Machine trainer.
The lack of ANT+ and/or Smart Bluetootth support, which I just learned about for the first time here, is a definite deal killer.
If the final price isn’t significantly lower than $549, and if support for established wireless protocols isn’t added, I’ll be purchasing another brand of smart trainer and selling my Road Machine.
It does have Bluetooth Smart. But there is no established wireless protocol for electronic trainers. Everybody does there own and things seem to be working out okay …
What software do you use when you train? We will likely have support from Zwift, Trainer Road, Fulgaz, Kinomap, VirtualTrainer and more. If it’s not one of those, tell me and I’ll reach out to their dev team!
Sorry, I know you have BT Smart support, I meant to write established BT Smart as it relates to smart trainers.
I actually use my Garmin head unit when I train indoors. I want that option. It’s doesn’t make sense why you don’t want to give your customers that choice–especially since the costs to do so seem so trivial.
Like many others, I currently train indoors with TR and Zwift. I know those programs should work fine with the upcoming power units. My concern is what about those great programs that have not come out yet? Will they support your proprietary protocols? Hopefully, but who can say for sure? Why not just bake the support for these established standards into the product?
Joel, I hope you are right because aside from the ant+ issue you look to possibly have built a really good trainer. If it’s accurate, running erg off that flywheel could really condition your legs. Inertia is a big issue in the uk and your unit wil have a huge amount.
However lots of us still use a garmin head unit to draw data from our trainers, though I’m no fan of garmin. We now even have the option of setting workouts from those head units. As it stands your new trainer doesn’t support that as far as I can see.
In relation to trainer road, I run mine off a laptop, which needs a specific dongle to run Bluetooth with a trainer, even if the laptop has Bluetooth built in. I prefer to use a laptop just coz it’s bigger, I can see the screen more easily. I sometime do a trainerroad workout then follow it up with a zwift spin if I’ve anything left, I’m going to need a really good iPad to get the screen I want for that.
DCR did mention a wired option. I know perfpro are looking to support that. Will that also be an option for trainerroad?
I do wish you all the luck with this as it does seem a good unit, which could be an effective training tool. I just hope you’ve not made a misjudgment in relation to ant+ support.
My response is a little snarky …
Why doesn’t Garmin just support BLE in their Head Units?
:-)
As far as proprietary protocols, we did our own thing because I find the existing spec lacking, and I want to make a better product than just another trainer.
How is ours better from a technical perspective?
– Stateless messaging
– 4Hz update rates
– Smaller packets, more information
To make those improvements, we have to do our own thing. We’re not the only ones doing this, it just seems that we’re the only ones being called out for it. :-/
Hi Neila –
That flywheel is a beast. Just saying …
Our lack of support for Garmin stuff is a complex answer. We will detail everything later this week on our blog. Check it out.
If you get an iPad for Zwift, you’ll need a trainer with BLE. Fortunately for you we made one and it’s awesome and it should be Zwift compatible! Yay! You can also run TR on that iPad! And Sufferfest. And Kinetic Fit. And ______ You get the point …
The USB option is of interest to pretty much everyone. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see support for it with the usual suspects.
“To make those improvements, we have to do our own thing. We’re not the only ones doing this, it just seems that we’re the only ones being called out for it. :-/”
You’re being called out for it because you’re the only one not *also* adopting the other standards out there. It’s perfectly fine if you want to do something extra on the side for BLE *control*, as I noted in the post, everyone does to some extent. But not supporting the other open BLE or ANT+ standards is the singular reason why you’re being called out.
Every other trainer company has adopted both of those standards for their 2016 lineups (and even their 2015 lineups, some also even their 2014 lineups).
From memory Wahoo didn’t originally have FE-C but then added it after the response from customers so I don’t think you’re the only ones getting the backlash. That then made their trainer suitable for everyone within the price point.
Fair enough.
Supporting the standard BLE GATT protocols is doable, but not ideal. And I do have a good reason for it beyond just building a better API. That message is better left to our blog post.
Removing that dongle requirement for windows 8/10 is on our list of improvements for TR windows.
Hi Joel, thanks for your involvement with this – it can’t be easy, but i’m sure it’s appreciated by many even if they disagree with your point of view. For my pennysworth…
Firstly, on the technical side
– Stateless messaging : not necessarily a good thing as it can often result in polling on the sink which can result in poor power performance. This has been one of the reasons that BT based networks have traditionally been prone to high power consumption compared to some other wireless protocols for low bandwidth scenarios in particular. ANT (and other) use the synchronisation to go into deep sleep as often as possible. Might not be an issue, but it’s certainly not a Good Thing ™ per se.
– 4Hz update rates : FE-C channel period is by default 4/8Hz and can be nogiated up (or down) by the fitness equipment (in this case, the trainer).
– Smaller packets, more information : packet size should be pretty irrelevant here – more information is obviously a nice thing to have – especially if you’re defining the protocol.
Secondly I can’t help but feel that Rays comment is the pertinent one – other guys are implementing stuff _in addition to supporting the existing open standard_. If that is (partly) a consequence of developer resource, which would be completely understandable given your comments, then I can’t see any real world disadvantage saying so. If it’s purely a design decision then that’s slightly less understandable to me. Good luck with things either way, I have a slight suspicion you might need it .. which pains me to say as a happy RoadMachine/InRide user (inter alia).
My thoughts exactly. What about future software. And I use my Garmin indoors.
I work at a bike shop and get everything at cost. Even with that discount the upgrade price is still too high in my opinion.
And I use my Garmin on the trainer.
Don’t really want to defend Kinetic on the decision as it is an odd choice in 2016 but in reality the trainers will ‘just’ work with the apps most people use.
I’ve got a PowerBeam pro (bought in early 2013 when the trainer choices were far more limited) which also uses a proprietary protocol.
Does it cause me any issues? None at all. It works with the apps I use (Zwift/TrainerRoad) without any problems.
Do I regret buying it? Not at all as it’s worked since the day I bought it without a flaw.
Big question is would I buy it again in 2016? Probably not as there are so many alternatives which is where Kinetic possibly has a problem (guess the biggest problem for Kinetic now is this review which will in all likelihood force them to change or risk killing sales)
Well, if their current roll-out is to be judged based on last year’s offerings, I wouldn’t believe any of their spin. In particular, I would be extremely wary of any “improvements” or updates they claim to have in the works. IMHO, they will never happen.
My reason for saying this is based on the abysmal performance of, and support for, the Android app they perfunctorily cobbled to together for the “smart” lineup. We were promised a fully functioning app shortly after the release. Never appeared. The current version, a year later, is pathetic; only about 50% functional. Many “coming soon!” dead ends that have lasted the year.
And we’re not talking resistance control training here- just monitoring, recording and reviewing what comes out of the sensor unit. No real way to customize displays. Generally clunky. You can’t even bulk upload all of your workout history (Y’know, that 4 months of workouts you amassed before the app would even link to strava… To be fair, I only use strava, to which I must upload each old saved workout *individually*. Dunno if the other linked app connections make more sense, but it doesn’t look like it).
It’s just a shame, since the trainers themselves are very solid. As folks have pointed out, these are not complex problems to resolve in a consumer friendly way. That why it smells so much like less-than-thorough design, and zero post-launch gameplan or support resources.
I will own up to the lack of progress in Android. We over promised and haven’t yet delivered an App that is equal to its iOS counterpart. I’m sorry. I won’t make another promise, but I will say that we *are* working on it. I know from your perspective it might seem like we’re all hype and no action, but let me list some of the things we accomplished this last year on software engineering side, and maybe we can rebuild some trust when we do turn our full attention to Android and deliver a quality product.
– Major revisions to the iOS App
– AppleTV integration
– Chromecast integration
– 28 Professional Training Plans, 200+ Workouts
– Partnership with Sufferfest
– Redeployed server architecture supporting tens-of-thousands of users and hundreds of thousands of hours of workout data (from both Android and iOS)
– Rewrote the entire firmware on the inRide to make it stable and replaced (still replacing) all units for free
– Built out Kinetic.Fit to support our growing Application feature set
– Open-sourced our BLE framework for iOS so companies that are stuck on Wahoo’s SDK have a reasonable exit-ramp so they can support more devices than just what Wahoo dictates
– Built lightweight SDKs for every platform (.NET, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows) to make it stupid simple for software engineers to add support for our tech (Zwift, Trainer Road and more -> all had zero issues and zero complaints)
– Automated a machine we call “Crank Armstrong” which runs our trainers for days, weeks at a time, at speeds of up to 40mph and kicking out 2000+ watts of glorious power.
– And Smart Control RU.
This was accomplished by a small team of 6 guys at Kinetic. And I’m the only full-time software engineer. When we get the Android version up to speed, I hope you come back and check it out. There’s a ton of stuff that will be there for free that rivals a lot of the subscription apps.
Joel,
i have a first gen. Rock n Roll. I use my MacBook for TR and I’ve bought a large library of Sufferfest videos. I have an ANT+ power meter and various sensors. I want to have my data in the same online training diary as my running, swimming and cycling data i.e. Uploaded through my watch/head unit.
How do I make that combo work? Forgive me if this is wrong, but I have to have your app on my iPhone and upload every workout manually? So now I have my phone involved?
I think the idea that people don’t use a some sort of watch or head unit is incorrect. I also need to have the MacBook as my setup isn’t near a TV screen; won’t be; and I’ve bought Sufferfest videos.
I also have an ANT+ P2M Type-S. That’s ANT+, so ANT+ is going to be in my future for a while.
I guess I’m another n-1 sale. It’s good that the market is so large…
Joel,
As a small company with limited resources why would Kinetic even try to compete (software-wise) with an established field of training apps/platforms? Typically if you want to build a better mousetrap and go compete with established players, you need a lot of resources to do so. While I am a software engineer and can appreciate some of your arguments, I would focus on making the hardware (and the firmware in the Smart Control RU) as robust and solid as possible, not on apps or yet another training “platform”.
Sadly I can’t find a single positive review for your Smart Control RU trainers, only a handful or remorseful early adopters. From what I can gather, you guys must be in “circle the wagons” mode with the Smart Control RU product line right now. Hope you can pull it together and be successful in the marketplace.
IMHO it’s a bizarre direction that Kurt have gone in. Ant+ FEC is the standard and will be for a while yet, not to support it is creating a problem which isn’t needed.
But some kudos is due for being visible and defending the position (with some humour…), I’m fairly certain it’s a position that will be reversed quickly.
The real problem is hidden. I know that’s vague which makes me look arrogant, but I will have further explanation as to why we’re doing things this way. On our blog. Later this week.
And being more visible is something we are working on, that way you don’t have to yell into the comments section here, but rather straight to our faces. :-) And then we can understand each other better. ‘Cause LOUD!
We reconsider our positions on a daily basis. Everything is subject to change. If we are wrong, you can be assured that we will correct our mistakes.
All my cycling and running tech is ANT+
I like it, it just works. I like the one to (very) many pairing.
Quarq power meter – many HR straps – footpods – speed sensors – cadence sensors – speed and data sensors – garmin edge – garmin Fenix – etc etc
I have a wahoo dongle for the very rare times I use trainer road on iOS
I don’t find Bluetooth as reliable – I never seem to get any ANT+ problems…. Ever
I suspect I’m like 90% of people who read this blog.
Why should I change ?
Most of my equipment is Ant+ as well when I decide to get into the trainer market repurchasing devices will not be in my future as I still need them for running and swimming so Kinetics will not be for me. Sure sounds personal between Kinetics and Garmin…..just sayin!
Well, all my cycling tech is dual ant+\BLE. And I find I only ever use the BLE side. My only problem with KK is the upgrade pricing. Drop that 100 or 200 and you can take my money.
J
Like many my KK R+R has been bulletproof for more than 5 years but Zwift, TrainerRoad and rapidly reducing smart trainer prices have me looking hard at a Tacx Flux or similar for this winter. I couldn’t care less about ANT vs BLE – my laptop is happy with either and I can’t run Zwift or TR on my garmin.
I like the option to upgrade my existing trainer but 500€ seems excessive in the current market, especially for a company that hasn’t yet proven they translate their fluid unit quality across to an electronic one.
What I really want to know is what is this new unit like to ride – road feel, responsiveness, noise? If it scores well in those boxes and the price drops a bit then I think it is well worth a look for existing KK owners.
Further on upgrade pricing …. If I understand this correctly I can take a fluid R+R, buy the new smart Road Machine for 570€, switch over the resistance units and have a smart R+R plus working fluid RM to use as backup or sell. This seems to make more sense than buying just the upgrade for 500€ or am I missing something?
Agreed on this – the pricing is high for me for the upgrade. I loooooved my R+R but bought a Tacx Vortex last fall for zwifting for @$550. I’d switch back over by upgrading but just can’t justify the cost in my head – would definitely do it at $300, probably would at $350.
For what it’s worth, I understand but don’t care about the Ant+/BLE discussion. If it works with zwift on a PC, I’m in.
Huh – a friend forwarded this on to me. Add the rock & roll feature to the vortex I already own at my desired price point. Guess I don’t have a dog in this hunt anymore.
link to coplate.bike
My question is do I need to get and use the Kinetic app to be able to connect to a Zwift session on my PC?
I have the R&R trainer and would consider the upgrade to Smart, but I can’t quite picture the options here. I pay for Zwift already. Do I have to pay for the Kinetic app too in order to use any of the other training software? I don’t know if my laptop supports BTLE, so does a phone with the app act as the middle-man? I already have a ANT+ dongle, do I need to get a BTLE dongle too? I think this really needs to be clearly laid out.
Hi Jeff –
You do NOT need the Kinetic App to connect to Zwift. Zwift has a “Mobile Link” app for mobile devices that you will use that gives you some nice controls as well as giving you a BLE connection since your computer doesn’t have one. That app will communicate with your PC over WiFi. No BLE dongle required.
If you have an iPad, Zwift will be coming to that device soon here (it’s in Beta) and that will work directly with Kinetic gear and again, no Kinetic App required.
The Kinetic App is free. We do have a paid subscription tier in it, but that only adds additional training plan content and unlocks a few advanced connectivity options with Apple TV, streaming more video, etc. The free app is still very functional and feature rich as is.
This actually answered a question I had, so thank you for that. I’ve been looking at smart trainers for this year but here is my setup so far. I own all the sufferfest videos and training plans already and watch those through my TV using DVD (old school). I use my Garmin head unit to show me what my heart rate monitor and my stages PM are doing and ride the workouts to that. I then upload the finished workout via Bluetooth to strava, garmin connect, and trainingpeaks. I would love to get smart training capability.
So, to ride to Sufferfest videos using a Kirt Kinetic smart trainer and get readings from my power meter and heart rate monitor and be displayed on my TV (hdmi connections but not a smart TV) what would I have to do? I understand this is a very basic question but this whole smart training/app thing is new to me.
It’s quite possible in the future I will join the zwift crowd or maybe do trainerroad, but I don’t want to be paying several monthly subscriptions to ride trainer workout indoors, but you never know. If it adds to the fun, I might.
People have made a big fuss about the lack of ANT+ integration on the new kinetic trainers, and while i agree with that, there is potentially a way around it.
The way I see it, you can use your phone or computer with bluetooth smart to control the trainer and then use your ANT+ head unit to pick up data from the various ANT+ sensors you have already on your bike (speed, cadence, power, etc). You won’t be able to control the trainer from your head unit, but in my mind that is not a necessity because you can use your phone or computer for that. Then after the ride, you upload your data from your ANT+ head unit to any of the apps you normally upload to (strava, gc, tp, etc). Now, the bluetooth smart app you use to control the trainer won’t have all of the sensor info it wants, but that I don’t think that would keep it from “smartly” changing the resistance. Besides, if you’re like me, I’m not about to go out and buy a whole new sensor suite and head unit just because Kinetic decided to be stubborn and not support ANT+.
The only question I have left unanswered is does the smart control trainer still behave like a non-smart kinetic trainer when it’s not plugged in? In other words, if I decide to do a not-plugged in ride, like if I’m next to my car warming up for a race in the middle of nowhere, will it still have the same resistance/speed curve that my good old trusty road machine has?
Ps. the upgrade price sucks big time!
The problem is not all apps will work with it, for example Sufferfest won’t control it. So it’s not so much the sensor side it’s the actual control as they’re introducing a barrier to apps being compatible.
So, buy the KK smart trainer AND a power meter to get power data on your head unit?
Seems quite expensive compared to a few cents extra to make the trainer ANT+ compatible.
They really blew it on this one with the propriety standard. I would have been a buyer but I’m back to looking at cycleops.
I really like my Road Machine trainer. The upgrade to the Smart Control would be ideal for me but the upgrade price is a bit steep. A lower price point and you would be getting my money. At the current price point and the apparent proprietary issues will make me hold off and check out the reviews. Frankly, I am more inclined to spend more and get the Wahoo Kickr 2, for it’s proven track record.
I only use TrainerRoad and Zwift anyways so the proprietary protocol doesn’t really affect me. Those apps will recognize the Smart Control. My current collection of sensors already work with the apps so it could be a seamless transition for me.
Another concern is from the fiasco with the inRide 2 sensor and the TrainerRoad app for Macs. I had to resort to using Parallels running Windows 8. Then I bought a bluetooth dongle that TrainerRoad for Windows recognizes to make my frankenstein contraption work.
In all fairness there was a clear indication on TrainerRoad’s site stating inRide 2 issues with the mac app. It’s my fault for not reading more thoroughly but what a pain nonetheless.
So will I have to buy a new heart rate strap to track HR with this? Currently I have a Garmin Edge 520 and an ANT+ HR strap. I realize the Edge won’t work with this. Does it come with a head unit, or do I have to jerry-rig some sort of a mount for my tablet and buy a new HR strap?
Lots to comment on here …
1. I appreciate the need to advance technology. The real questions are maintaining backward compatibility and open communication standards. Looks like Kinetic isn’t doing either, here. I can see moving on from ANT+ (personally, all my devices are Bluetooth), but not being compatible with an open Bluetooth standard is problematic, and there is a high likelihood that something will simply not connect.
2a. Sufferfest – some apps, like Sufferfest, do not support the new Kinetic Smart Control (check out the Sufferfest web site – they are only supporting FE-C). I’ve tried using the Sufferfest videos on the Kinetic app, but the timings and other settings are not always correct. Kind of a problem if you’re measuring your FTP …
2b. BTW – Sufferfest is moving to a subscription model themselves. Will all their new videos be available? They seem to want to keep that as an exclusive at this point.
2c. Those of us who want to use the Sufferfest app (just because we like it) will be out of luck with Kinetic. Sufferfest doesn’t support the inRide Power Pod – think that has anything to do with open standards?
3. The trainer and the software ideally should be able to be used independently from each other, allowing users to mix and match the best options for themselves. Sure, integration is may offer some advantages (and should), but there should be functionality if I want to use a KK trainer with ANY software, or the Kinetic app with ANY trainer.
4. Prices points are what they are, but the upgrade unit does seem quite high considering that one can purchase a new unit with broader compatibility from others for about the same price.
I’ll ad my voice (won’t change anything).
The problem is not KK using their approach to BLE, if they believe it’s better, then do it… However not supporting open BLE or ANT+ standards that are used by all other competitors is a very dumb move. Why antagonize and make life harder to your potential clients (say goodbye to most of them) ?
All other trainers are adopting both so it’ll an uphill struggle to convince customers to pay for yours, that has less compatibilities than others.
You can push your approach as long as you offer to bridge the gap, but also supporting open BLE or ANT+ defacto standards.
One parting thought… Even Apple, while pushing for lightning and wireless audio, is offering the lightning to audio jack adapter to bridge the gap… and you’re not Apple, so why would you think you can ignore the reality of the trainer market and the de facto universal support for open BLE and ANT+ ?????
First of all: sorry for my bad English.
Second, last season i´ve logged over 7000km on my trainer (yeah, its sad) mainly i´ve used Zwift, BKOOL and GoldenCheetah but i love trying new software like XERT mobile or Ipbike, and sometimes when i´m in a hurry i use my Garmin.
I need a new trainer and Kinetic just rolled me out.
By the way i own an Xperia Z3 compact and a Samsung note 10.1 2014, i bougth them because (among other reasons) they were ant+ compatible, i don´t need adaptors of any kind.
I´m not so sure about this, but i think ant+ has less energy consumption than BLE, well, and multicast and… COMPATIBILITY.
Dear KK
First of all, I (and many others I’m sure) appreciate you are engaging with us on this topic. At the very least we can say you are hearing us. Only time will tell if you are actually listening.
The “executive summary” of this post is as many others have said before. No Ant is suicidal, and your pricing is completely out of whack. I’ll elaborate further
I understand your arguments (your blog entry pending) that BT is the future. However, Ant is very much the present, like it or not. Here are three reasons why, for me at least, a BT only solution is a complete no go:
1. Despite your incredulity, I too use my Garmin head unit when training indoors. I use it in combination with an upgraded old PC, because sometimes I pull a Froome and stare at my stem, and because I like having ALL my cycling workouts in a single device. My computer sometimes goes haywire and cuts me off mid workout and looses my data. My Garmin head unit has a 99.5% success rate at recording my workouts (it does crash sometimes too)
2. ALL my cycling technology runs on Ant+, only my Tacx Vortex has BT (as well as Ant+)
3. Ant+ sends the data via broadcast. BT is point to point. This is important (at least TO ME), because it means I can use PerfPro at the same time as Zwift (with two Ant+ dongles). When I have a hard structured workout I use both, when I have an easy one I tend to use Zwift only. On top of this, I record all my workouts in the Garmin as backup. This is not possible to do with bluetooth
I have had a KK Road Machine for what seems like ages, and it’s a great device. But it’s “dumb”. Last year I purchased a Tacx Vortex which works great, but my precious wife liked it too and has “stolen” it. Therefore I’m in the market for a new trainer this winter. I was very excited to hear about the upgrade option for my KK, but the technological choices detailed above means it’s not an option. Not to mention your pricing doesn’t make sense in light of your competition at the moment. I am much more likely to either go for another Vortex, or to make the investment in a Wahoo unit (which is guaranteed to work with everything and is by all accounts a very solid unit).
Personally, I will be purchasing my new trainer at the end of October or in November. If your pricing becomes more realistic and you decide to implement the Ant+ stack, I’ll likely upgrade my KK. Otherwise, it will be sold and one of your competitors will get my money. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but this the thought process that I’m sure a lot of your clients and potential clients are following.
The ball is in your court
FJ
Same situation here… I have a R&R trainer that, taking into consideration the current specs of the new smart KK trainer/upgrade will find it’s way to craigslist and be replaced… Most likely by the new Magnus
What’s the latest with this blog post? Is it going to be going up here:
link to kurtkinetic.com
FWIW, you can add my name to the list of disappointed KK owners looking to upgrade my Road Machine. I can kind of understand the “upgrade resistance unit pricing” issue; if that’s what you guys have to charge to make it profitable then so be it, but from a customer’s perspective it doesn’t totally make sense.
However, not supporting ANT+ is just daft. All of my sensors are ANT+ and I want to record my trainer sessions on my Garmin, help me out here!
For those of you using TrainerRoad and a Garmin we have a desktop feature where we rebroadcast data as ANT+ devices so you can pair it on your Garmin.
It’s very popular for CompuTrainer users and it sounds like it might be popular for Kinetic Smart users :).
We call it “TrainerRelay” in our legacy app but our new has rebranded it to “DeviceRelay”. If you have any questions let me know.
well, all the technical details aside… but Imthink I habe never ever read a more arrogance and ignorant BS from an official companies rep like Mr. Joel Stewart.
I think you haven’t done any good to your company and to selling and promoting your products…
Sometimes you comments are crossing the borderline to insulting people, I think.
Well, people (at least those who are reading your comments here…) will know what to buy or not…
I appreciate Joel’s comments, but I won’t hold him responsible for KK’s decisions. I hope that after seeing all the feedback from just this small group, Kinetic will think again about their product and solution going forward. They have a great fluid trainer. I’m not so sure they are going to make inroads into the smart trainer market without ANT+. AS has been suggested before, it would be a good idea to support ANT+ and their BTLE solution out of the box.
It’s quite obvious that Joel comes from the engineering side of the company and not marketing. His responses started off well enough. But they quickly transitioned into argumentative with that arrogance and borderline insults directly to posters (for any potential buyer to see).
I suspect someone above him pulled the leash a bit after seeing the backlash here. Contrary to popular sentiment, there is such thing as “bad press”. Joel being the direct source of that does not reflect well on the company, whether he had their blessing or not.
I suspect the radio silence is in part to avoid more self-inflicted damage. The lack of a blog post, or any explanation as to its absence, does not look good.
Maybe they are re-evaluating their direction or they just want to let the fire die down and hope most people aren’t following this discussion.
Either way, I am disappointed in the source of information and how it was delivered. I steered clear of the InRide gear once I heard about the numerous issues. I will continue to do the same with their Smart Control. At least I have a solid fluid trainer that they can’t screw up ;)
Well I do not know how BTLE is superior from an engineering point of view. For one thing it does not practically allow multiple head units to read from the same sensor. It becomes “superior” only in case when one wants to use smartphone and that smartphone as not Samsung/Sony Xperia.
Personally even though I use PC/software at home to control my trainer I still always run Garmin unit in parallel, and outside it is Garmin only. Battery life in smartphones is too short even without talking to sensors.
There are 6 people in the company. I think Joel might be more than a “company rep” :)
works for the company, vocal via online media… = company representative.
He could be the owner, the industrial designer, or the accountant. I’m not sure that’s relevant after how they’ve dismissed the vast majority of potential clients’ concerns.
Acknowledged. It all reminds me of cars without CD players, or iPhones without mini plugs Dan. I find the price high, but if I buy the upgrade, I can still use my Garmin, albeit apparently not to simulate previous rides
But you can’t use your Garmin. imgiess you could download the power data from your laptop and try to overlay your heart rate data. Or use an ANT+ USB dongle, which avoiding this dongle Kurt Kinetic promotes as a USP…
I think most people want to know their trainer will work with further software as well as current software. The majority also want to record their data. Not everyone records via their cellphone, despite what KK thinks.
I guess it would be like having an iPod with a connector that is unique to that product, that your car stereo can talk to, but it doesn’t talk to your car speakers so you have to wear headphones. Ground breaking stuff.
Won’t the data get recorded by the Kirk free app and sent to Strava, Trainingpeaks, ect? You could still run the garmin outside of the app if you have a power meter or want to get speed data through use of a speed sensor…right?
Ryan, That is my plan. I do still ride in the basement with the Garmin on the bars, but while the speed is different in Zwift due to the virtual hills, my cadence and hr are the same, so I am looking at the Garmin less and less.
Still the pricing of the bolt on is pretty steep (especially for a Canadian!)
I collect my data in Garmin connect (swim/bike/run). So to keep all my training records together I need to export it each time or own a power meter? So if you’ve got a Garmin you should also budget for a PM as well as this? It’s starting to make the top smart trainers look cheap…
That’s just not really user friendly. It may be great for anyone who only uses Bluetooth; but it does seem to exclude a large portion of the market.
Four turbo sessions a week – seems like a lot of working around the issue. For what it’s worth, I would have paid the upgrade cost for the smart control unit fairly happily, and I really applaud KK for offering that as an option.
Yeah Dan, I’m not sure how you would go about getting data into Garmin Connect cheaply. I use Trainingpeaks for everything and it seems to work with that; I find TP to be superior to most others. For me and for the setup I’m envisioning, this Kirk Kinetic app seems to do what I want and I can easily cast my phone or ipad that is running the app onto my tv using my apple tv. Much better than the setup I’m using now which is dumb trainer, stages power meter, hr strap, The Sufferfest videos (they are going app only now) downloaded to DVD and played on my tv and everything recorded on my garmin.
Also can’t believe this decision. I’ve always wanted a Rock n’ Roll but have been waiting for the smart trainer version to come out. I do sometimes use Zwift or Sufferfest when I’m on my existing trainer, but regardless, I always use a Garmin head unit (and if I weren’t using a Garmin head unit, I’d use something else ANT+). It’s just so much more convenient than a computer/phone.
When my cycling team gets together to do trainer sessions, nobody is rocking up with a laptop to track their HR/cadence/wattage/etc. It’s just head units. Many people (including me) have HRMs that are ANT+ only. Or how about bringing a trainer to warm up before an event, and you have to use your phone or laptop? Nope.
Kurt Kinetic: It is very nice that you responded on this thread but the message comes across as fragmented and piecemeal. I think the 6 of you should get together, pow-wow, and put together a clear statement about your position. Respond to this post with a convincing argument, explain that ANT+ is still on the table, just not for now? You are suggesting a paradigm shift for a lot of these people so need to do a more complete job of explain and selling it.
I stumbled into a kinetic road machine, then got the inrinde pod and rode it all winter. No subscription, worked out of box with my iPhone, worked with strava, worked with my BLE HRM. I am maybe their happy customer. Terrific value for the money and absolutely no regrets.
I use my iPhone to record my outdoor rides for strava along with a wahoo tickr ble hrm – it is all perfect. I see a bunch of friends with unreliable gps on their expensive garmins, they sure seem like pieces of junk to me so I’m confused why you all care so much, maybe because you invested a bunch in unripe tech?
I am considering a smart trainer for this coming winter, it is sort of painful and distracting to need to watch that effort line while riding hard. I was looking forward to the kinetic offering because based on my road machine/inride ownership they built a fantastic durable device and take care of their customers.
I totally do not care about ant+ because I’m so happy today using my phone. I totally don’t care about subscriptions. I can’t believe the storm that is showing up in this comments section. I guess there’s a seriously passionate market. Mostly though a lot of you come across as pretty narrow minded to me. Sort of reads like when you come across someone still using a dos-based computrainer from the late 90s, there’s no discussion they are very happy in their own world, oblivious about how simple and awesome the modern stuff can be.
I care most about better mtb climbing simulation and am waiting to read a comparison of the different devices.
“Mostly though a lot of you come across as pretty narrow minded to me. Sort of reads like when you come across someone still using a dos-based computrainer from the late 90s, there’s no discussion they are very happy in their own world, oblivious about how simple and awesome the modern stuff can be.”
Actually, this is precisely the scenario people here are trying to avoid. Kinetic is doing exactly what CompuTrainer did: Beating to their own drum and ignoring industry standards.
Of course, in the late 90’s there were no such standards. But there was from around 2007 onwards, and CompuTrainer ignored those standards (and still does). We all know how that ended.
BLE looks and feels to me (an iPhone user) like an open standard. I guess from my perspective it isn’t a problem because it always just worked. I even have a BLE dongle for my pc. Is the hate because kinetic are defining a new BLE profile for encoding the data interchange?
link to en.wikipedia.org
Or are the strong feelings because they chose a different protocol that isn’t compatible with a bunch of existing stuff?
Since they have an open sdk it doesn’t look like they are trying to leverage a proprietary protocol to ‘own the customer’ which would actually make me mad. If the protocol was private I’d be uncomfortable since I’d be at the mercy of their devs to continue to use a device I paid for.
Anyhoo. Mr DC Rainmaker you rock. Thanks so much for operating this site. Is great to be able to have public critiques. I sure hope Kinetic gets their act together and explains itself with a well structured response, end of the day I want a good device to use.
Thanks Eric.
“BLE looks and feels to me (an iPhone user) like an open standard….Or are the strong feelings because they chose a different protocol that isn’t compatible with a bunch of existing stuff?”
Correct. They aren’t following the open standards for BLE sport devices here (any of them). They’re rolling their own private variant of it.
That said, I’m optimistic since they haven’t posted that blog post yet, that they took the weekend to crack a few cold beers and decided the best path forward is to listen to the 100+ people here that have expressed concerns about their direction. At a minimum, that represents about $60K in sales. In reality, it probably represents about a million+ dollars of untold voices (only about 1 in 2,000-3,000 visitors per page leave a comment).
“Correct. They aren’t following the open standards for BLE sport devices here (any of them). They’re rolling their own private variant of it.”
Well, the BLE radio/handshake/packet conventions are certainly being followed. What isn’t in a previously defined spec are all the semantics of the fields in the data extents. This together is the data “profile”. The lack of these profiles is I guess the tragedy of BLE.
If the trainer only supported ANT+ I wouldn’t buy it because I’d need to buy some crappy dongle to use my iphone with it. And that stinks even more from my POV. :)
FWIW, here are some public profile specs:
link to developer.bluetooth.org