BreakAway: Indoor Training App Now with Intervals.icu Calendar integration (Workout Of The Day)

Dear App4g,

I’m an everyday user of your App and I’m very much happy with it! Recently I tried to use SLOPE mode but my trainer do not react to the command. The app shows the x% slope but the trainer remains at minimum resistence; I tried a ramp 1% to 9% in 2min and nothing changed.
In ERG mode it works perfectly and resistance is modified to keep the Watts. Traner is Elite Direto, App on IPhone 13 (and no other devices w/ BT around).
Any suggestion?

Thanks

Your Elite Direto, is it connected as FTMS or as ANT+FEC?

for FEC, I can confirm that it’s working (cos that’s my trainer), for FTMS, I believe that some have tried on the Zwift Hub and it works. I think @Toshiro also uses the SLOPE mode and it works on his trainer as well. Not sure what his trainer is tho.

Just to verify,

  1. you went to SETTINGS
  2. Change to SLOPE Mode
  3. you go to TRAIN Tab
  4. you start a Free Ride workout
  5. You went from 2% grade to 9% (clicking the +/- button)

And there was no changes?

Next days I will better check. What I did is:
I made a workout plan in intervals.icu and I put a line such as:

  • 3m ramp 1%-9%

The rest of the wo was in ERG mode (i.e. with % above 50%). So I try to mix ERG and SLOPE. Ideally I wanted to do FTP test with the hard part (either 20m or 2 x 8m) in SLOPE mode and the rest (i.e. warm up, few sprints and cool down) in slope mode.
So I did not change anything into the settings page (that is normally in ERG mode, but I thought it would change based on the wo command from intervals).
Thankyou for your support

Oh… you’re doing an ERG+SLOPE structured workout, yes, the goal is to change from ERG to SLOPE mode using <10% Power requirement in the workout builder.

I will test it out and see if anything has changed from my side. But please also do a SLOPE mode (only) workout and see if there are any resistance change just for confirmation.

In the new beta version:66(8)
Tap me (To Intervals),some times no “close” or “Menu” button

You need to rotate the phone twice to close.

Iphone6S IOS14.6

I tried it last night, it works perfectly .

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Thanks for the report.
i had thought that this was fixed.

The reason for this is to enable the “interval data” to have a wider/larger viewing area by hiding the “Workout Title/Description and Close/Menu”. Looks like some quirks when it comes to detecting the phone is in placed faceup (portrait) on the table vs held up (like selfie portrait mode)

I’ll see what can be done. Maybe will have to revert to having to show the “close/Menu” button anyhow.

How did you get a Dist-Remain of -6.64km… interesting… I’ve got to find a way to test this out.

May I know what trainer is yours? FTMS? Brand/Model?

@Alessandro_Cella’s trainer is an Elite Direto

The trainer is Magene T300 (Made in china)


ANT+, ANT+ FE-C, and Bluetooth (I don’t know if it is FTMS)
I didn’t pay attention to the “distance” data. Later, I changed to“ load“ and “NP”
I’ll try again later
In addition, the power is shown in red. I accidentally loaded a recovery workout.

Thanks… My Trainer is also Magene (Gravat 2)
You can tell if it’s FEC or FTMS on the SETTINGS Page (Paired bluetooth)

if it’s FEC, then it’s the same as mine.

New Feature that will have Power +/- 10% from Target (if available), but looks like there is a bug when NO workout is loaded (Free Ride)

Tx for report.

SOLVED. It was an interference with my Garmin 255. Even if the watch was in watch mode (not doing any activity) it did something on my Direto. When I switched off the BT of the watch, magically the slope mode started to work properly. This was not the case with Rouvy or Zwift (they worked properly regardless my watch was on and even recording the activity), but also Whoosh had the same problem (it work if I do ERG mode, it did not work in riding mode unless I switch off the BT on the 255).
@app4g yes trainer is Elite Direto (1st release), Watch is Garmin 255, Direto is connected to your app as FTMS Smart Trainer

This is strangely weird. I don’t understand how the BT from Garmin would interfere…

I can understand if somehow your Garmin is Connected to the Trainer and sending commands, but not when it’s NOT connected. (Can you please verify that the Garmin watch does not have any ANT+ or BT connection to the trainer?)

Also, if your Garmin is connected to the trainer(via BT), then BreakAway won’t be able to connect to it (trainer) as well. (only newer trainers have multiple bluetooth connection capability - like my Polar H10, it has 2 BT connections, can connect to Phone + iPad if wanted)

Unless Garmin is connected as ANT+ to the trainer.

BTW, when I do indoor rides, I dual record using my Garmin as well. (cos VO2 max etc are all in-watch calculation)

Tho I am glad that it’s working, it’s just weird.

SLOPE mode updating.
I did more testing with slope mode and with workout from interval with mixed erg and slope mode. What I reported previously is not true. Garmin 255 does not interfere with Elite Direto.
Elite Direto works perfectly in ERG but do not react to slope commands coming from BreakAway. Exactly the same happens with Whoosh. After hundreds of test (switching on and off everithing, pairing, disconnecting and pairing again) I discovered that when run the Zwift App and I wait Zwift connects with Direto, then Direto start accepting and controlling Slope mode also from BreakAway and Whoosh. Note that my Zwift account is expired, but I do not need to start a ride, it’s enough to connect the Direto with the App.
After having done this Direto works perfectly even if I close Zwift, switch on and of Bluetooth and the like. It works until I switch off and on again the Direto itself: if I do so I have to re-do the Zwift procedure.
Still quite weird to me, but my Elite Direto is quite old (first release) and possibly newer trainers will never suffer from this issue. Today I spent one hour to discover this but now I eventually know how to use BrakAway in slope mode.
Might be useful to other old Direto users.

Thanks for the detailed investigation and I would have to say, wow… this is really interesting… I do wish I can figure out what / why this is happening.

Yours is a FTMS trainer, and usually FTMS trainers need an “unlock” procedure to get it to accept commands. This “unlock” procedure is AFAIK, the same between ERG/SLOPE or x mode. (Essentially it’s supposed to be 1 command to unlock and “get control”)

So, if BreakAway is able to unlock and control the Trainer for ERG, I dunno why it doesn’t work with SLOPE mode.

Let me research it… for now, I’m trying to code up the “Resistance” mode that was referenced a few posts back. (98% done)

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Is it this?

this article says it has/is using a Elite specific “smart control” vs FTMS (tho in BreakAway it’s connected as FTMS)

do you know if Zwift is using FTMS? (i’m not sure if it says anywhere)

@app4g yes the trainer is that one.
As far as how Zwift manages the connection, I will try to check tomorrow when I will be in my pain cave if the app specify something about it.

EDIT: unluckily ZWIFT does not provide many details on how it connects to the Direto

Thank you for your support on the matter

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I just finished the maiden ride using the suggested “Riding in Resistance Mode” while still showing the Ride Workout Graphic.

I’m not sure if I’ve gotten all the quirks out but the initial testing does seem like it’s behaving the way it should. I can switch from ERG to RESISTANCE mode and subsequently ride some intervals in ERG and some in RESISTANCE Mode. (I can also switch to HR Target mode)

The unfortunate thing is, there’s no clean cut way to change from ERG → RESISTANCE or vice versa per specific intervals automatically and to have the switches sync up to the interval times.

eg: you have 10s left to next interval and you want to switch to RESISTANCE mode, currently you would have to manually change it and if you want the switch to be correctly at the interval start, i guess you would need to time when you press the (resistance mode) button.

How does TR resolve this? Are you able to do an automatic switch from ERG->RESISTANCE on a per-interval basis on TR? (something like the ERG+SLOPE Structured workout mode)

@SaSha1103 / @maamen I’ll post up a BETA version if you guys are open to testing it out.

let me know…

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Fixed… TX

In TR, you have to manually adjust the resistance % to match the intervals.

I’m on iOS, do you have a testflight app so i can test this? There is a threshold session scheduled tomorrow, I can test this feature then.

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