Originally Posted by
kevlar_heart
The only reason for the sensors is to give Zwift something to receive. Yeah, you can use a trainer not on their list, and yes, you can get numbers back from Zwift....they may not be 'real world' accurate, but if you use the same set up time after time you can use the results to measure progress. Much like the bathroom scale isn't as accurate as the one in the doctor's office...if you use the bathroom scale to measure weight daily, that scale is your baseline device for gauging gain/loss....no matter what the "true" weight may be, you can see the trend.
With money tight I am using my supported "dumb" trainer. It gets the job done even if it's not the most elegant training solution.
Hmm, I dunno, but I think it could be more complicated than that. Part of the numbers not being “real world accurate” is that they don’t align with your effort at all. For example, if using virtual power for another trainer other than what you have, if your trainer doesn’t ramp resistance as progressively or over the same time period as expected, when you suddenly accelerate and your wheel speed jumps very quickly (faster than the virtual power curve anticipates), the wattage could suddenly drop (despite your increased output) or fluctuate wildly until the wheel speed stabilizes. In such a case, how do you use the data for training?