Wahoo Smart Roller Trainer Suunto Guide
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Can you connect and use the Suunto Race with a Wahoo roller trainer? If I have created my own Suunto Guide training program in the Suunto app with the Wahoo roller trainer, is it possible for the watch/Suunto Guide to control the power meter on the Wahoo? So is it possible that the Suunto changes the wattage depending on the desired program when the Suunto Guide is running on the Smart Wahoo
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@GiPFELKiND You can connect the Suunto Race to a normal Wahoo trainer, or power meter. HOWEVER, the Wahoo ROLLR (if you have that specific model) is a quirky model in that it doesn’t support the regular Bluetooth Power Meter spec like all other Wahoo trainers/bikes, because it lacks a power meter (physical or estimated).
Thus, Suunto can’t connect to it, because it doesn’t broadcast the standard BLE PM spec, but only the controllable side (FTMS).
Now, if you were talking a regular Wahoo trainer, then it could connect to it as a power meter, but still not FTMS (as Suunto doesn’t connect to the Bluetooth FTMS standard for controlling trainers, just the power meter side). If you did have a 3rd party Suunto app that supported FTMS (I’m not aware of any, but perhaps one does), then you’d be in business.
While some might think this would be the opportunity where I point out Suunto’s lack of sensor support/management being an issue, it actually isn’t. The FTMS standard is great, and some companies do support it on watches (Garmin/Wahoo for control/passive reading, Apple for passive reading, COROS for passive reading) - I actually think for control it’s a waste of time for wearables companies. 95%+ of consumers are doing trainer control with an app of some sort (TR/Zwift/etc…), so those people are covered. Meanwhile, passive is mildly useful - but even then, 95% of trainers broadcast the power signal via standard BLE power (except the ROLLR). Thus again, virtually everyone is covered.
Where Suunto has the gap is multi-sensor management, and to a lesser extent if we were talking trainers, then ANT+ to deal with older trainers that don’t have multi-channel Bluetooth (since Suunto couldn’t access the BT channels if an app like Zwift is broadcasting it).
Anyways…probably more than you were asking for in an answer.
