12 Dec Can FTMS Bluetooth Actually Control Your Treadmill Speed? App Limitations & How QZ Fitness Changes Everything

One of the most common questions we receive about FreeSync™ FTMS Bluetooth is whether fitness apps can actually control treadmill speed during workouts. The short answer might surprise you: the technology absolutely supports it, but most apps deliberately choose not to use this capability. Understanding why this happens, and how some users are working around it, reveals an important truth about the fitness equipment industry and the choices manufacturers and app developers make on your behalf.

What FTMS Bluetooth Can Actually Do

The Fitness Machine Service protocol, commonly known as FTMS, is an open international standard created by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group specifically for fitness equipment communication. Think of it as a universal language that lets your treadmill talk to virtually any compatible fitness app, regardless of brand. This protocol was designed from the ground up to enable comprehensive two-way communication between your fitness equipment and any compatible app on your phone, tablet, or computer. The specification includes explicit support for controlling treadmill speed, incline, and even decline on equipment that supports negative gradients. The control is handled through what the specification calls the “Fitness Machine Control Point,” a characteristic that allows apps to write commands directly to your equipment.

When you dig into the actual FTMS specification, you find support for target speed setting, inclination target setting, resistance level adjustments, power targets, and even heart rate zone targets. The protocol allows apps to tell your treadmill to increase speed to a specific value, adjust incline to match virtual terrain, or respond to instructor cues in real time. Your 3G Cardio equipment with FreeSync™ FTMS Bluetooth implements this open standard fully, making it compatible with any app that speaks the same language, including popular platforms like Zwift, Kinomap, and iCardio.

What Popular Apps Actually Control

Here is where it gets interesting. While FTMS supports full speed control, most major fitness apps only implement automatic incline control. When you connect your 3G Cardio treadmill to Zwift and run a virtual route, your treadmill incline increases automatically as you approach a hill. The same applies with Kinomap, where your equipment responds to every hill and descent in their extensive library of real-world filmed routes. iCardio offers similar integration, allowing your workout data to flow seamlessly while the app adjusts your incline to match the programmed workout. But the speed? That stays manual across all of these platforms.

Why would apps deliberately ignore a capability that the protocol supports? The answer comes down to liability and safety concerns. Imagine running at 6 mph on your treadmill when an app suddenly commands the belt to accelerate to 10 mph because you entered a virtual sprint zone or your avatar started running downhill. The potential for injury is obvious, and no major fitness platform wants that legal exposure. These companies have made a calculated decision to limit their control capabilities rather than risk lawsuits from users who might fall when their equipment responds unexpectedly to app commands.

Zwift avoided implementing any automatic treadmill control for years, despite constant requests from their running community. When they finally introduced incline control in September 2024, they limited it exclusively to users of the Wahoo KICKR Run treadmill who also maintain paid Zwift subscriptions. Their official statement emphasized being “focused on making it a great and safe experience for Zwifters before scaling with other partners.” They built in safety features like automatic disabling when users interact with the treadmill’s physical controls, demonstrating just how cautiously they approach this capability.

The irony is that these apps are making paternalistic decisions about what you can and cannot do with equipment you own. Your treadmill is perfectly capable of accepting speed commands over Bluetooth. The FTMS protocol supports it. But the apps themselves have decided you should not have access to this functionality, regardless of whether you want it or understand the risks involved.

What About Decline?

You might notice that while apps can control incline going up, they do not send your treadmill into a decline. This is worth understanding because it involves both protocol capability and hardware reality. The FTMS protocol fully supports decline commands, meaning the software side has no limitations when it comes to sending negative gradient instructions. The limitation exists on the hardware side. Most treadmills, including the current 3G Cardio lineup like the Elite Runner X and Pro Runner X, are engineered with incline capability only. The motors, frames, and mechanical systems are designed to elevate the deck but not to create negative grades. This is a common design choice across the industry because decline functionality adds significant mechanical complexity, weight, and cost while serving a relatively narrow use case. So while your FreeSync™ FTMS Bluetooth connection could theoretically receive and process decline commands, the treadmill hardware itself would not respond because that physical capability is not present.

QZ Fitness: The Open-Source Solution

A cross-platform application called QZ Fitness, also known by its technical name qdomyos-zwift, has emerged as the solution for users who want full control over their fitness equipment. Developed by Roberto Viola and available as open-source software under the GPL license, QZ Fitness acts as a bridge between your FTMS-compatible equipment and workout platforms, but with one critical difference: it does not artificially limit the control capabilities that FTMS provides.

QZ Fitness can control the resistance level setting on bikes and both incline and speed settings on treadmills that have the capability to change these settings digitally via FTMS Bluetooth. The app works by positioning itself between your equipment and your training application, intercepting the data and commands that flow between them. This allows QZ to enhance the communication with features the original apps deliberately left out.

When using QZ Fitness with Peloton classes, as your instructor calls for an increase in intensity, your treadmill responds instantly by adjusting both incline and speed without any manual intervention from you. The app interprets and translates signals from Peloton’s treadmill features and ensures your equipment keeps pace with the dynamic nature of instructor-led classes. For Zwift users, QZ can automatically adjust your treadmill’s incline to match the virtual terrain you are running on, and with the “Treadmill Speed Forcing” option enabled, speed adjustments follow as well. The same capabilities extend to Kinomap routes and other FTMS-compatible platforms.

How QZ Fitness Works with Your Equipment

The technical approach QZ uses is elegant in its simplicity. The app connects directly to your FTMS-compatible equipment using standard Bluetooth Low Energy protocols. It then creates a virtual FTMS device that your workout apps connect to, effectively becoming a translator between your equipment’s native capabilities and the limited expectations of mainstream fitness platforms. This means your equipment receives the full range of control commands that FTMS supports, even when the original app would not have sent them.

QZ Fitness is available on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and even Raspberry Pi, making it accessible regardless of your preferred platform. The app includes features like automatic resistance adjustments based on virtual terrain, speed control following instructor cues, GPX file support for following recorded routes with both speed and incline adjustments, and even heart rate-based training where the app adjusts your equipment to keep you in a specific heart rate zone automatically.

For treadmill users, the app provides auto-incline functionality that mirrors the gradient changes in Zwift, Kinomap, or other virtual running environments. Every time the gradient changes while running in game, that information is transmitted via Bluetooth, and QZ captures it to send appropriate commands to your treadmill. With auto-speed enabled, your treadmill can also respond to pace requirements from workout programs, creating a fully automated training experience that mainstream apps simply will not provide.

Understanding the Risks and Rewards

There is a reason mainstream apps avoid speed control, and users considering QZ Fitness should understand what they are getting into. The developers themselves include warnings about automatic speed changes, noting that users should test carefully and ensure they understand the implications of having their treadmill speed change without manual input. This is not a criticism of the software but rather an acknowledgment that safety is ultimately your responsibility when you choose to unlock capabilities that commercial apps have deliberately disabled.

The development team at QZ has built in various safety considerations, and many users successfully integrate automatic speed control into their training routines. The key difference is that QZ puts the choice in your hands rather than making the decision for you. If you want the immersive experience of having your equipment respond fully to your virtual training environment, you now have that option. If you prefer to maintain manual control over speed while allowing automatic incline adjustment, that configuration is available as well.

FreeSync™ FTMS Bluetooth and Your Options

When we designed our FreeSync™ FTMS Bluetooth implementation for 3G Cardio equipment, we built it to the open FTMS standard without proprietary restrictions. This means your equipment speaks the same universal language as any other FTMS device, which gives you choices about how you want to use it. Whether you prefer the safety-first approach of mainstream apps like Zwift, Kinomap, and iCardio that only control incline, or you want to explore full control through applications like QZ Fitness, your 3G Cardio equipment supports both approaches.

Our equipment does not lock you into any specific ecosystem or force you to accept limitations that others have decided are appropriate for everyone. You purchased your treadmill, bike, or elliptical. The capabilities are built into the hardware. What you choose to do with those capabilities, and which apps you choose to use, remains entirely your decision. This philosophy of equipment ownership rather than equipment rental extends beyond subscription-free operation to include freedom in how you integrate technology with your training.

The fitness equipment industry has spent years building closed ecosystems that limit what customers can do with products they have purchased. FreeSync™ FTMS Bluetooth represents our commitment to the opposite approach: open standards, full compatibility, and respect for the fact that once you buy our equipment, the choices about how to use it belong to you. As apps add new features or change their control implementations, your FreeSync™ FTMS Bluetooth equipped 3G Cardio equipment will be ready because we built it on the universal standard rather than proprietary limitations.

Pay with Your HSA/FSA

3G Cardio fitness equipment qualifies for HSA/FSA payment for eligible customers through our partnership with Flex. Use your pre-tax healthcare dollars to invest in the fitness equipment your doctor recommends. Learn more about HSA/FSA payment options.

When you’re ready to experience the 3G Cardio difference, call us directly at 1-888-888-7985 for immediate assistance from our team.

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