When I started riding in Zwift and read here on Zwift Insider that putting a fan in front of you is a good idea for cooling, I immediately saw the potential of combining my two hobbies, cycling and tinkering. Building a fan that emulated the wind associated with your speed in Zwift seemed quite possible, so I set out to build such a device.
Creating the Solution
I found an open source project online that exposed the Zwift metrics I could make use of. So I went to my cardboard box full of components and got hacking! Not being a great coder I asked for help from a friend in writing the program. And it when it all came together, it worked!
Then I saw on the Zwift forums that other people also discussed the possibility of having a Zwift controlled fan, so I decided to write a manual. And here it is, hosted on Instructables.com.
Zwift powered fan from Just Vervaart on Vimeo.
Only the Beginning
I also read comments online of people who don’t want their fan to mimic riding wind, because they want more wind riding uphill, not less. So in the manual I explain how to link the speed of the fan to your power output or heart rate.
Also, I am thinking about adding a drafting function, so the fan slows down if your are behind another rider. Now that would be a more realistic simulation!
It would be nice if this was only the beginning of this project. I hope other people with real programming skills will add to it! For example, right now the manual works for people with a Mac laptop, because I’m not familiar with Windows machines. And if someone would make something of a settings menu that makes it easy to change at which speeds the fan switches, without going into the code would also be nice.
To make collaboration possible I put the code on github for anyone to calibrate on: https://github.com/justusvervaart/zwift-fan
Finally I would love to hear from people building the fan and get feedback on the manual and the project to make it better. You can reach me at just@justvervaart.nl.
Greetings,
Just
Cool !!! I thought about myself but with the ANT + protocol. Your idea is ingeniously simple.
It was not a good idea to reduce the wind force behind the cyclist. Because the power of pedaling does not decrease so much.
Jakie jest połączenie z systemem MAC? Nie widzę kabla USB?
Połączenie wentylatora z Zwift odbywa się za pośrednictwem Wi-Fi i Internetu.
thanks :), dzięki
I want to use a fan not for driving simulation. I want to use it for good body cooling, but not freezing my body because it is a quick disease. That’s why automatic control is my goal. Thanks for this project 🙂
I’m releasing a new version of the script today that supports this more easy.
super !!!
The new version is on GitHub. https://github.com/justusvervaart/zwift-fan It’s new real easy to use speed, power or heart rate modes.
This is great would love to see this run without the need for a server or computer to execute the script. Could it be done on a raspberry pi in place of the photon?
Thx Fitz. I agree that not having to use a computer or server run a script would make things far more easy.
I see three options;
1. Zwift builds a public API. But thats not going to happen soon. I recently asked them about it and it is not on any roadmap.
2. Someone ports the Javascript library to an Arduino (C/C++) library. Raspberry Pi can run C/C++ as well. So we can call the Zwift servers direct from the device.
3. Someone builds an API on top of the current zwift-mobile-api Javascript library.
I’m not a programmer so can’t really judge the impact of option 2 or 3. I will ask the people involved in the zwift-mobile-api what they think.
In hindsight; there really has to be only one endpoint. One that returns the riderStatus for any given rider which you can call with the Zwift credentials once per second. You then get everything you need to build smart fans, incliners, vibrating steers, whatever. I there is anybody in the community that can build this, i would love to hear from them!
Really really cool. Great work!
I’ve got a rather simple but fantastic blower fan with a simple on/off. I also have a 240v fan controller which has a 470k manual potentiometer. Is there any way I could replace the pot with a digital pot and do a gradient? Alternatively I can cannibalise a 3 or 4 step fan and use your method as above!