Same thing for me, received it today, box is a it damaged...but the stickers are fine !

I got mine a few days ago. I was out of town last week and had a mail hold so it might have come earlier.

Got mine. Thanks Dan.

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Human Person

I received my widget. Thanks for that.

I tried it for the first time earlier this week and I have questions. Many questions.

1. Calibration. How is that supposed to work? You calibrate the thing against an unknown, i.e. a treadmill of unknown precision. You can't pair it with your watch to calibrate it on the track or using GPS like you can with an old-school Garmin footpod. So what gives?

2. Calibration 2: My Zwift settings are metric. Most treadmills are imperial. When I calibrate it will tell me to run at a certain speed in km/h. Mental math conversion to miles. 40 seconds later new speed. More mental math. That happens once more. I realize I made a mistake in the math, and go and look up the proper speeds in miles. Re-calibrate and now it asks me for different speeds. What is this? A mental acuity test?

3. Dropouts. This is the most serious one. Everything seems fine, until I hit a tempo workout and start running at 4:15min/km (6:50min/mile). Works for a while, then all of a sudden my guy stops. Move iPad around a bit, and he starts shuffling again. Keeps happening all the time until I slow down again. It works better if I keep the iPad closer to the widget, but that's not really practical. I suppose it has something to do with the 'mill generating more RF interference with higher speeds, but it's annoying. According to Google I'm the only one suffering from this, or am I?

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Citizen of the world, former drunkard. Resident Traumatic Brain Injury advocate.

i don't know. i ordered mine off of amazon yesterday. should show up tomorrow. i'll let you know.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Mine came in the mail on Tuesday. Thanks for setting this up Dan.

So now that many of us have had our footpods for a few days or more, what are some initial impressions of Zwift running? I started this past July using it, after 20+ years of running outside and never going near a treadmill. I told myself I was going to commit to trying it for 6 months, and at this point I think I'll continue to use the running workouts on zwift, though I haven't found the group runs to be all that interesting. I live in a major city with sidewalks becoming more and more crowded all the time (especially with all those new escooters lately), making it harder and harder to get in any sort of interval work outside, which was my main reason for taking the plunge into indoor running earlier this year. I find that if perched on the treadmill tray I have a zwift workout going on one tablet and a second tablet next to it with netflix/prime video downloads, I can make it 35-45 minutes without going completely batty but can't see myself ever doing anything much longer then that indoors.

I started running on Zwift back when it was still beta and you had to click on a special spot on the main pairing screen. I just looked and I have ran 1,099 miles, including a stupid Thanksgiving Treadmill Marathon last month (Never again, ha). I have no problem running on the treadmill, and runs up to 2 hours are no problem for me. I usually run while listening to my ipod with zwift running on my tv. There are times I find myself staring at my avatar navigating the course and times I don't even look at the screen for quite a long time. I mainly just boot it up for a little distraction and to put the mileage I would already be running to use by getting new gear unlocked. Running on Zwift has not made me run anymore than I would have, but I do think it has made me run indoors more than I would normally have done.

I also have never done a Zwift running workout. I just do what is on my plan given by my coach. I guess it is interesting for me to think about though, on one hand, if Zwift made us pay extra for running (on top of what we pay to bike), I would not pay it. Yet, every single run I do indoors I am firing up Zwift Running because I do really like it and it does provide a fun distraction.

Now I have used my new Zwift Run Pod only once, and it even though I calibrated it, it seemed to be all over the place. The Garmin Foot Pod I borrowed/stole from my friend has been much more steady on the paces.

It is horrible - and it’s been made worse with their recent “3 step” calibration procedure. I’ve had the MilestonePod (now the Zwift pod) for a year. It’s never been perfect, but if you were doing a steady run and calibrated it then you were usually within .1-.4 of your treadmill speed. Now, with their latest update I’m never within .5 of what my treadmill is set at. I’ve never had a run come within .45 miles of what my actual distance on the treadmill was. And it’s just all over the place. I’ll be steady at 8.0 and see anything from 5.6 to 10.1.

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MS: Exercise Science
Your speed matters a lot, sometimes you need to be very fast, where sometimes you need to breakdown your speed.

Not an expert but will try to explain how I understand it

1. Calibration - it uses the speed of your treadmill against the speed that Zwift is asking you to run at for three different speeds - so I understand it if your treadmill is totally out of calibration (there are videos on you tube how to test your treadmill calibration) then your pod will mirror that - however the speed on zwift will reflect the speed that is showing on the treadmill. Kind of double dutch talking.

2. Settings - doesn't zwift allow you to change to imperial and metric within you profile settings? Have a read of your treadmill manual as I found there was a way to change it to metric from imperial on my treadmill.

3. Dropouts - This is a bug within the Zwift program and has been documented - the Facebook Zwift Runners Club has spoken about this issue to - Zwift is aware of this bug and a fix is in the works.

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"PAIN is nothing compared to what it feels like to QUIT"

Still waiting for my pod. Fingers crossed. all the boxes checked. Got notice from Dan. Got notice from zwift. validated shipping address. Now just waiting anxiously...

But that's kinda pointless isn't it? I want Zwift to tell me how fast I'm really running. For me, that's one of the plusses of using Zwift as an 'abstraction layer' over top of the treadmill. The treadmill is just a dumb belt with a knob to make it go faster, and Zwift figures out how fast I really go.

Look at it this way: if my workout say "4km at 4:15-4:20min/km" it would be great if I could just find the speed on the treadmill where I go 4:17. At that point I don't care what the number on the treadmill says, because that's bogus.


I don't own a treadmill. I use shitty gym treadmills, and I couldn't find a metric/imperial switch in the 30 seconds I looked for it. And I could of course temporarily change my units in Zwift, but that sounded like a drag and I thought I could do the math.

Reason I'm bringing this up is not because I can't solve all this - of course I can. I bring it up so somebody at Zwift (Hi Jordan!) reads this and thinks about it. Because the user experience wasn't seamless, and I hope Zwift aims for it to be seamless.


That's good to hear. Obviously my google-fu was weak. However, I also own a Stryd power widget and that has been rock solid in Zwift. So there's that.

Thanks!

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Citizen of the world, former drunkard. Resident Traumatic Brain Injury advocate.

Hey Dan,
I got the original foot pod email from you about being one of the 1,000, but nothing from zwift. I did email you about it. Didn't want to clog up your inbox with another follow-up email.

thanks

My Garmin foot pod also has been rock solid.



That's good to hear. Obviously my google-fu was weak. However, I also own a Stryd power widget and that has been rock solid in Zwift. So there's that.

Thanks![/quote]

It took 3 tries to complete the calibration because of dropouts with my iPad. I have started a couple of Zwift runs but had to stop due to dropouts after just a minute or two. I haven't used the footpod since, but will try again if Zwift provides an update that addresses the issue.

Got mine today. Will have to try to calibrate in the next couple of days. Gotta finish Tour of London first.

Let's talk!
I love running outdoors but as of last week i realized that doing some treadmill runs is better then all outdoors. because the weather here in montreal SUCKS! and chance theres still availability?

Should those of us that haven't received the pods yet still be patient or is it safe to say we should have received them by now?

Still waiting.

Same here, still waiting.
C`est la vie

first run i could not get it to pick it up at all: reading off iphone. Second run i got it connected 2 out of the 5 miles I ran. Does it work better with the ipad?

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

Not sure, but I am having similar issues with Apple TV and iPhone, which is how I Zwift with my bike. Maybe it has to do with distance from the pod?

My first run was fine using iphone, just a 15 second lag from when I started running to when my avatar started moving. Second run on iPhone dropped 45 seconds in. Third finally got the pod connected to the Apple TV Bluetooth, but it dropped when I started running and never reconnected so I turned it off after 5 min.

Have just been simultaneously recording my treadmill runs with my fenix 3, only off by .01-.02 miles from the treadmill distance after 30 min, too bad I can’t use that for Zwift!

Yea right! My Fenix 5 and garmin footpod after about 700 treadmill miles this year show a 2 mile difference across the entire year.

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

Zero issues with my iPhone. 5.5 miles of Zwift running and I love it.

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Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/

Well F Bryan! Whats wrong with mine!.....Maybe its because i still have a iphone5 :-( (Broke dentist still has iphone 5, maybe I need a go fund me)

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz