Jetblack and Zwift announced USB-C support for the JetBlack Victory a week or two ago, but I finally got around to updating my trainer, and thought it was interesting enough for a quick post, especially given some of the inside baseball backstory.
In any industry, there are always plenty of small pet projects that others know exist, and quietly watch for years as a company toils about trying to make it happen – often faced with nearly impossible headwinds. As silly as it sounds, the JetBlack adding USB-C support to its trainers was always one of those things.
Every year, I’d meet with the JetBlack team at Eurobike (which I’ll be at again next week), and they discussed their desire to add USB-C connection support, for people who may be struggling with wireless connection issues. The concept is hardly new. Obviously, the industry effectively started that way (see the CompuTrainer), but wirelessly quickly took over (and CompuTrainers disappeared), but for whatever reason, there was a hard cliff where virtually no other trainer could connect via any type of wired connection to major training apps.
Kinetic briefly tried, but just like JetBlack they couldn’t get any of the big apps onboard. The irony being that for the most part, it was these very apps (cough, mostly Zwift), that actually asked for this capability – largely to solve some of their pro-series racing ambitions. Yet ultimately, when companies finally added the hardware, Zwift and others were slow (read: not at all moving) to implement it. Thus, no USB-anything for anyone.
When JetBlack announced the Victory two years ago, I commented in the comments section that it seemed unlikely this hardware would be lit up anytime soon. But while it took a while to get Zwift onboard, I’m glad it’s finally here. It’s not something I need, but I know for some people battling weird connectivity issues, it can be a huge help.
Kudos to JetBlack for beating the drum for years, and/or beating the Zwift horse enough times to get it over the line. Now, what say you TrainerRoad and others?
Note, a few minor technical details:
– For Mac & PC only (not for phones/etc…)
– You can bridge Zwift Ride/Zwift Click/Zwift Play controllers (converting from Bluetooth to USB)
– Covers trainer power, cadence, resistance control (but oddly, not heart rate)
Obviously, you’ll need to update your firmware on your JetBlack Victory in order to see the new feature, plus of course the latest Zwift update (and if you want to funnel your Zwift Play/Click, ensure those are updated too). Basically, just have yourself a giant update party (and hope it goes better than recent COROS updates). That all takes just a few minutes.
Obviously, at this point you’ll want to connect up your USB-C cable:
Since I’m guessing some people will ask, here’s the high-wattage USB-C the cable with the tiny status LED (seen below). It proves somewhat handy when you have lots of USB-C cables coming from a hub, to know whether or not it’s actually plugged in on the other side. Here, it doesn’t really do much other than be pretty. Also, I appreciate the 240w side of things.
Once that’s done, you’ll pair things up and notice the nifty little USB-C icon:
Again, here you can pair up the power, resistance, and cadence sensors. As well as also do the Zwift Click/Play controllers if updated (I didn’t pair those in via USB-C on this ride). But as noted, you cannot do heart rate via USB-C, however JetBlack will still funnel that via WiFi and Bluetooth if you’ve got that setup.
With the technical bits done, it’s as simple as completing your ride.
I had no issues with the data at all, and everything worked just fine (including control of the trainer power).
As for whether other trainer companies should add USB-C support? Honestly, I’d rather they adopt it for USB-C power, than anything else. That’s far more useful to consumers (on the whole), than USB-C data connection (especially since most newer trainers offer WiFi and ethernet adapter options anyway). And before someone says that USB-C won’t work for trainers, it’d work just fine. After all, Peloton’s been using a simple USB-C power cable for their newer smart bike models since 2020 (and that has to power a full smart display/TV as well).
With that – thanks for reading, and looking forward to Eurobike next week! Albeit, I don’t expect a lot of new sports tech there this year. Companies continue to shift announcements away from Eurobike (both in the sports tech realm, and otherwise).
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