Last October, we shared a post introducing Sauce for Zwift (S4Z) to the Zwift community. Since then, creator Justin Mayfield has continued to improve the app, and its popularity has increased greatly among PC and Mac users. (Justin tells me there are approximately 4,000 active S4Z users today, up 571% from a year ago!)
Ever since S4Z arrived on the scene, I’ve heard complaints from Apple TV users along the lines of “If S4Z helps you in races, then it’s unfair because it doesn’t work on Apple TV!” But did you know Apple TV (or for that matter, Android or iOS) users can also use S4Z? You’ll need a PC or Mac to do it, but it doesn’t have to be a high-end machine.
Here’s a recording of me Zwifting on Apple TV while using S4Z in a recent race:
How It Works
The big caveat is that you’ll need a Windows, Mac, or Linux box to use S4Z, even though you’re running Zwift on Apple TV. So this solution isn’t for everyone, but if you have a laptop or desktop available (even if it’s not very powerful), you can install S4Z on it and use it as a “second screen” to enhance your Zwift experience.
Read our intro post to learn how to set up Sauce for Zwift >
How can S4Z display your live Zwift data when it’s not running on Apple TV? When you set up the S4Z app, you enter the credentials for your Zwift account plus a second “monitor” account. These logins are used to query Zwift’s servers, grabbing your data in (near) real time.
So as you ride on Apple TV, your data is being sent to Zwift’s servers, then S4Z on your computer is grabbing and displaying that same data. Fancy, right? One might think the data would be laggy, but S4Z is using Zwift’s high-performance custom UDP-based protocol, so there’s no discernable lag time.
(It’s worth mentioning that this is how S4Z works for everyone, even those running Zwift on a PC/Mac with S4Z on the same machine. S4Z emulates a Zwift game client and grabs your real-time data from Zwift’s servers to display on screen.)
Streaming AppleSauce
For my video above, I used free OBS software on a PC to combine audio from my microphone with several visuals: the Zwift session from Apple TV, S4Z windows from my PC, and a live camera.
How is that done? That’s outside the scope of this post, but I’ll write about Zwift Streaming with Apple TV soon. Stay tuned!
Questions or Comments?
Ever used S4Z with Apple TV? Or maybe you’re planning to try it now? Share below!
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