I’m going all in with my home gym upgrade after discovering the joys of Zwift in the past 2 months, as well as seeing how much more I enjoy working out in my garage pain cave after I added cheap rubber tile gym flooring to cover up the ugly stained and cold concrete floor. (If you haven’t added rubber tile flooring to your home gym, do it! Costed me $120 to lay down for a whole 2-car garage with no tools, and it’s amazing!)
Am now angling for an ‘awesome’ Zwift setup. I already have Kickr1 and am happy with that although am amenable to upgrades if it’s worth it.
Am running Zwift via a new 15" 2018 Macbook pro with GPU, and I’ve been putting the macbook atop a drink cooler with luggage on top to get the right height for the macbook. Zwift runs like a dream on the Macbook screen but I would def enjoy a larger screen.
I hooked my Macbook up to my 32" Roku 720p treadmill TV to see how it ran; looks fine, albeit a bit grainy. Screen size was reasonable, but I def am interested in seeing if bigger = better.
If anyone is running a TV (?1080 ?4k) or projector that you think works awesomely, def let me know. I’m still looking for bang for buck but I can def drop over $2k on this upgrade if it’s that much better.
At work we’ve definitely gone to really big TV’s or multiple TV’s for large conference rooms instead of projectors. Like 86" class TV’s. $2500? Then again, an equal quality projector new is going to about run that minus a screen.
I think in the long run projectors often have too many drawbacks. Burn out a bulb, stuff gets in way of the beam, need a great surface to project onto.
Projector? One limitation to any fun there is Zwift not supporting multiple players on same screen. Imagine being able to setup almost like an Xbox or Wii setup with 8 riders or so on the same screen like Mariokart.
Can you tell me more about about the rubber tile that you used? $120 for a two car garage area sounds very cheap. I’m going to be partially finishing out basement and I’d like to look into this.
Projectors are designed to be used in dark rooms, otherwise it’s hard to see the picture. Also remember that you’ll need a sound system because the projector only provides the video, not the audio, which means hooking up a receiver and stereo in order to get sound.
Much simpler to buy a large TV, which are really cheap these days.
Can you tell me more about about the rubber tile that you used? $120 for a two car garage area sounds very cheap. I’m going to be partially finishing out basement and I’d like to look into this.
Note that I have shelving and storage scattered around the outside walls of my garage, so $120 won’t cover the ENTIRE floor of an empty garage. For sure though, it covered enough that the entire walkable area of my garage is covered. I used 6 of those packages, you may need more.
HIGHLY recommended - I never thought I’d enjoy flooring since I’ve been ‘fine’ with concrete for the past 8 years, but man, it’s soooo much nicer with it!
As others mentioned, the projector is going to be influenced by the surrounding environment, light, etc. There’s also a matter of sound - the projector won’t have that built in.
Depending on how far you are from the viewing area, a big screen TV with maybe a soundbar would be a better deal. I currently sit about 4’ from a 65" HD TV, and it’s pretty nice. I have been eyeing the UHD 4K TVs at Sam’s Club, and there are some really nice 65" TVs around $600-650 now.
With Ultra 4K, your MacBook Pro will certainly get a workout, too!
i have 2 zwift set ups: 1 for cycling, 1 for running. but i can retask the 1 for running and have 2 cycling side by side (which i did this week, as a buddy stayed with me).
in both cases, i run zwift on an appletv 4k.
this might sound extravagant but it’s not. the appletv is $179. if you’re paying more than $300 for your big TV you’re probably overpaying (43"). if you’re paying more than $800 for your smart direct drive trainer you’re overpaying unless it’s a $1,600 Tacx NEO and if you’re paying more than $1,200 for that you’re overpaying.
It really depends how close you are. We repurposed our old big screen HDTV (I think it is 46 inches) in the bike room and it feels very big as I am very close. On the treadmill I just connect to my ipad, but play spotify on the big TV as it is set up with speakers. The treadmill sits behind the bike and if running without glasses (not seeing distance clear) I have a hard time seeing details on the TV, thus the iPad.
I am fortunate in that my job involves large format projectors and concert level PA systems.
We’ve hooked up an X-box to a 20k lumen Barco projector with a Martin Line Array system- after hours of course- and after a few adult beverages it can get fun.
I’ve also hooked my laptop into a Panasonic 16k Laser projector to use Zwift in my off time, Bluetooth Headphones.
It’s awesome.
But I didn’t pay for any of it.
A consumer level projector is not going to get you anywhere near where consumer level large format displays are these days. You can get a 60" 4k Smart TV from Wal-Mart for $5-600.
Consumer level projectors usually top out at 4-5k lumens (not very bright) and cannot even overcome the most normal of room lighting. We’ve almost entirely done away with screens and projection for small venues and conferences because it’s just easier and better to set up a 72-86" monitor and be done with it.
The other problem with projection systems is lag. The projector is only as good as it’s source, so you’ll still need a robust engine to drive the image and the projector still needs a bit of time to process the image and spit it out. That time is small, usually 1 or 2 seconds, but if you are racing on Zwift and miss the start of a sprint by a second or 2…
It’s even worse for Mario Cart. The time between the input on the wireless controller to the x-box to the screen is noticeable, so by the time your eyes tell you to turn and your fingers hit the button, you’ve already crashed.
Pro level, high lumen, laser projectors are awesome and will blow your mind with the resolution and detail they can convey, but they start at $25k and go way up way fast.
Get the biggest, baddest TV you can afford and rock out with it.
In my experience in working with projectors in classrooms, I’d say go for a tv. It’s the set up we’re moving towards.
Question about tv height placement…my front wheel will be about 3 feet from the wall (and this is only set up for biking). About how high are people mounting their tvs?
Thanks for the helpful input. Sounds like you know what you’re talking about AND have walked the walk.
TV it is!
Now it’s just a matter of size, I can probably figure that out on my own, but I’m leaning toward a TCL 43" Roku TV (my current treadmill/Vasa TV is a 32" Roku which I like because I can easily pick it up and move it, but it’s 720p and does get grainier than I like on Zwift. Yeah, the macbook retina screen has already spoiled me!)
Can I ask why you added the rubber floor? Was it just for looks? After running I sort of enjoy the feeling of cold concrete on my hot feet…
I actually wasn’t sure I’d really love the rubber floor before getting it, but I did mainly get it because my garage floor has permanent car-oil-grease stains from the prior owners (I decided not to park cars in the garage and took it over for my gym).
It wasn’t super ugly or anything but now that I added the rubber flooring, it finally has a real ‘gym look’ as opposed to ‘looks like a garage with stuff in it’.
I guess another way of putting it, is that before the flooring, I’d get in there ONLY for the workout, crank it out, and get the heck out of there as fast as possible. It just happened that way, it wasn’t like I though “wow this is an ugly garage (it’s not.)”
Now after the flooring though, I get off the bike/TM/Vasa, and feel that soft, clean (EASY to clean!) springy and not-cold surface, and I’ll actually decide to hang around for another 15+ minutes if I have the time to finish whatever show I’m watching and do strength training. Or in yesterday’s case, I liked it so much in there that after a 60min Zwift ride, 45 min run, I decided I liked it enough in there that I could add 40 more mins of vasa for the trisport workout!
Again, YMMV, but for me, I absolutely love it. My wife loves it too, which is telling (and she doesn’t work out much - she just likes the way it looks now compared to before!)
And at <$200, you might as well try it. You can send them back to Amazon very easily if you don’t like them as well - the boxes they come in are light and not bulky. I should honestly start another thread about what a cheap and easy home gym upgrade this is.
I use a 60†tv from Costco with a big sound bar. I sit maybe 6 feet back from the tv. I love that setup. My bike room has windows so I’d be worried about a projector because of incoming sunlight plus (and I know this sounds absurd) TVs are so relatively cheap and easy to replace if anything goes haywire.
I use a 60†tv from Costco with a big sound bar. I sit maybe 6 feet back from the tv. I love that setup. My bike room has windows so I’d be worried about a projector because of incoming sunlight plus (and I know this sounds absurd) TVs are so relatively cheap and easy to replace if anything goes haywire.
Sounds awesome! I don’t think I’ll have 6 feet to set back, so I’ll probably go smaller. Did you just leave your TV on the ground or did you get a stand to raise it up?
Interesting. My house is brand new (so no car grease on floor)
I just moved in a few months ago and before I had a gym inside the house. Now I have a large room off of the garage that’s part of the same concrete. It’s smoothed out so I don’t mind it.
I was just curious if maybe you did it to save the floor of the garage or something. Haha
I’m running zwift on 4k TV (Samsung NU 6900 55inch bought $320 last black friday) on 4K settings. The Tv is connected via hdmi to desktop computer. I put the TV on the floor, because this is the only way to see your watts on such tv being in an aero position. With big projector you will have problems with watching your watts because it will be much higher than your eye line(unless you have extreme upright position, or road bike)
