The Stages SB200 is the first hardware with OpenBikeControl built in

From App Protocol to Real Hardware

When I started OpenBikeControl, I wanted controllers and trainer apps to share one open protocol, with no licence fees and no lock-in. Until now it only ran in software: BikeControl on one side, trainer apps like MyWhoosh, TrainingPeaks Virtual, and others on the other.

Today that changes. The Stages SB200 smart bike has OpenBikeControl built into its firmware. It's the first piece of hardware to ship with the protocol, and TrainingPeaks Virtual is its launch partner.

The SB200 is available from today for $2,399 / £2,199 / €2,399. For a full hands-on, read DC Rainmaker's in-depth review.

What That Means on the Bike

The SB200 has full shifters that feel like real bike shifters, brake levers, and 10 customizable buttons, five on each side of the handlebar. Instead of inventing another proprietary protocol for them, Stages implemented OpenBikeControl, using both of its connection methods:

• Bluetooth: the bike exposes the OpenBikeControl service next to its regular trainer services.
• Wi-Fi: the bike announces itself on your network, so apps on a PC, tablet or Apple TV find it without any pairing dance.

You decide in the Stages app what each button does, separately for each trainer app, with presets for apps like TrainingPeaks Virtual. The bike then sends standard OpenBikeControl actions, so apps that implement the protocol natively understand them directly, with no custom integration per bike and no extra app in between. TrainingPeaks Virtual does this over both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and MyWhoosh over the network.

For trainer apps that don't implement OpenBikeControl natively (yet), BikeControl fills the gap and turns the bike's buttons into controls for those apps.

TrainingPeaks Virtual: Supported from Day One

TrainingPeaks Virtual already had the deepest OpenBikeControl integration of any trainer app (see the partnership post). For the SB200 launch, the team added even more actions and now supports 37 buttons, including:

• Front and rear gear display: the bike reports its gearing, including front and rear for 2x setups, and TrainingPeaks Virtual shows the gears exactly as the bike sends them
• Direct gear selection: jump straight to a gear instead of shifting one step at a time
• Steering left and right
• Brake strength: the brake levers slow you down in-game, scaled by how hard you pull
• Cruise control
• Home button

Built in the Open

The best part for me was how the integration came together. The firmware team at Stages built the SB200 firmware from the public specification alone. Their feedback went to GitHub as public issues, so everyone could follow along. TrainingPeaks had sent similar requests from the app side, so together we shaped the next protocol revision:

• Front/rear gear reporting (0x04 / 0x05) for 2x drivetrains, alongside flat gear selection (0x03)
• Analog brake strength (0x1A), with room for two brake levers
• Cruise control (0x3C), optionally with a target power
• Steering, Home and Screenshot actions

Every one of these changes is in the public spec. The next hardware maker or app developer gets them for free. That's the point of an open protocol: one company's integration work makes it easier for everyone who comes after.

We're also discussing an optional button configuration extension (issue #25). With it, a trainer app could read which buttons a device has and assign actions to them directly. That would make button setup work the same way across every OpenBikeControl app, and manufacturers without their own app wouldn't need to build one just for this.

Why This Matters

DC Rainmaker put it well in the SB200 review:

The new Stages SB200 bike is very unique in one aspect: It’s the first piece of hardware to support the new OpenBikeControl protocol, which is an emerging standard to allow apps and hardware makers a single open standard again. Previously, that was ANT+ FE-C, then Bluetooth FTMS. But these days with Zwift and their Zwift Protocol, the openness in the indoor cycling indoor (or the entire cycling industry for that matter) is falling apart. Of course, this is mostly due to Zwift and their pushing the Zwift Protocol (which drives trainer/bike companies to support it), but ultimately, these same companies are kinda part of the problem, due to them being unable to formally agree on anything.

Indoor cycling controls are mostly locked behind proprietary protocols today. Your controller works with the app its maker chose, and with other apps only if they get a licence. OpenBikeControl offers an alternative: an open, documented, royalty-free protocol that any device and any app can implement.

Trainer apps have adopted it for a while now, and several told me they were waiting for hardware. With the SB200, that hardware is here, from an established manufacturer, built entirely from the public specification.

Thank You

A huge thank-you to the team at Stages for going with an open protocol instead of building their own, and for contributing back to it in public. And to the team at TrainingPeaks for once again being the first to implement new protocol features and for the close collaboration on this launch.

Building Hardware or a Trainer App?

If you're building a controller, a smart bike or a trainer app, everything you need is at openbikecontrol.org: the full specification, example implementations and the certification program. Open an issue on GitHub or write to me at support@bikecontrol.app. I'm happy to help.