 Hello, Zwifters, and welcome to a brand new episode of How to Run on Zwift. A question we get a lot from people who are new to the Zwift platform and people who are thinking of joining Zwift running is, when I buy a foot pod to use on Zwift, can I also use it outdoors? Well, that's the question we're going to answer today. And the answer to that question is an unequivocal yes. Any foot pod that you buy to use on Zwift can also be used to run outside. But let me explain how and why. There are two different kinds of foot pod that you can use to run on Zwift. Two different protocols that are used to send the information from the foot pod to whatever device is receiving it, be it Zwift or a watch or a phone, for example. We have ANT+, ANT+, or we have Bluetooth. Bluetooth is, in fact, the older of those two protocols, but we tend to think of it the other way round, that ANT+, is the old guard and Bluetooth is the new kid on the block. The only really ANT+, foot pod that you will get these days, you might find some old Sun2 ones knocking around, but the main one that people use on Zwift and outdoors is the old Garmin ANT+, foot pod. Most foot pods these days are Bluetooth 4.0 or Bluetooth Low Energy Smart foot pods. The exception to that is the Stride foot pod, the most expensive and arguably the best foot pod there is. That is both Bluetooth and ANT+. So which foot pod can I use with which device? This might be a bit confusing. However, bear with me and let me try and explain. Your Bluetooth foot pod will work with your phone. Now if you are used to using Strava, the Strava app on your phone for running outdoors, Strava used to be able to connect to peripherals like a heart rate monitor or a foot pod, but it no longer does. So the app that I recommend, if you're using your phone to run outdoors, you can, in fact, use the Zwift app, because you can connect your Bluetooth foot pod to the Zwift app, open up the Zwift app on your phone and you can actually run outside and connect your Bluetooth foot pod to the Zwift app and run in the Zwift game whilst running outdoors. Not advisable to look at your phone screen whilst running outdoors though. Put it in your pocket or in a backpack or something. The other app I recommend is the Wahoo Fitness app. Now that is a standard running or sports fitness app that you can download, certainly on iOS, and you can connect your Bluetooth foot pod or your Bluetooth heart rate strap to the Wahoo Fitness app and go running outdoors. If you own a GPS enabled sports running watch, like a Garmin running watch or a Sunto running watch or any of the other makes of GPS enabled running watches, they should all support ant plus peripherals, so ant plus heart rate straps and plus foot pod. So if you have an old Garmin foot pod that should connect absolutely easily, no problem at all to your running watch. Now if you have a Bluetooth foot pod or Bluetooth heart rate strap, there are some running watches, some GPS enabled running watches from Garmin, particularly that will connect to Bluetooth peripherals. Specifically if you own a Garmin 245, a Garmin 945, and certainly the Phoenix 6 range of watches, they will be able to connect to your Bluetooth peripherals. Now can I connect my old ant plus Garmin or Sunto foot pod to my phone? Well the answer to that is yes and no. If you own an Android device, some Android phones are ant plus compatible. In fact it might be all Android phones. I don't know, I don't own an Android, but I know that Android do have built-in ant plus connectivity, so it may well be that you can connect your ant plus foot pod to your Android phone. If you own an Apple device, an iOS device, an iOS iPhone, then essentially no, but yes if you have what's called a bridging device. So there is the Viva 4i heart rate strap, there is the North Pole engineering cable device, or there are the Garmin watches, the Phoenix 6, the Garmin 245 and the Garmin 945 watches. They can act as bridges for your ant plus foot pod. So you can connect your ant plus foot pod to your cable device, or your Viva heart rate strap, or your Phoenix 6 245 945 watch, and then those devices will rebroadcast your foot pod in Bluetooth to your phone. So that's how it works with your iPhone. So there we are, long story short, you can connect any foot pod that you use to run on Zwift indoors to some device, either a watch or a phone, outdoors. Happy running, see you on Wotopia, take care, till next time, bye bye.