Affordable and simple: Zwift’s new smart trainer

Online platform aims at the broader market with its new trainer, writes Simon Smythe

- Simon Smythe

Zwift has launched its first smart trainer, the Zwift Hub. Priced at £449, including a pre-installed cassette, the global online cycling platform has decided that what the current economic climate needs is an affordable, user-friendly direct-drive trainer and not the super-sleek smartbike it was originally planning.

Zwift’s mission, it says, is to make more people more active more often.

Clearly, as well as taking the cost-ofliving crisis into consideration, Zwift has looked at the total integration of hardware and software of the likes of Peloton, and realised that if it’s to make itself accessible to fitness enthusiasts as well as cyclists it has to simplify its set-up.

Eric Min, Zwift CEO and co-founder, says: “When we started on our hardware journey, it was important that the hardware served the primary purpose of accessing and elevating the core game experience. Getting set up on Zwift hasn’t been an easy process. It can be hard to know exactly what equipment you need to Zwift, and that equipment can be costly.”