Hue zone lighting beside the app you already train with

How Zonal fits in

Zonal is its own app. It reads your heart-rate monitor over Bluetooth and sets your Philips Hue lights to your training zone. It doesn't connect to Zwift, Peloton or any other app, and it never controls your trainer or treadmill, so it works the same beside all of them, or with no app at all.

Put your iPhone where you can reach Start and Stop. Once a session is running you can lock it: your zone stays on the lock screen and in the Dynamic Island, and the lights keep following you.

One heart-rate monitor, two apps

Zonal and your training app both need your heart rate. Many monitors can hold more than one Bluetooth connection at once, so both apps can read them. Some allow only one. If yours does, connect your training app another way, for example over ANT+ where your monitor and setup support it, and keep Bluetooth for Zonal. Your monitor's manual says how many connections it supports.

Zwift and Hue lights

Run Zwift on your TV, computer or tablet as usual, and Zonal on your iPhone. Zonal's zone colours are tuned from the ones Zwift riders already know: green for endurance, gold for tempo, red at the top. The room reads the way your ride screen does.

In a structured Zwift workout, the block colours are power zones, and Zonal follows heart rate. Heart rate rises more slowly than power, and Zonal waits 8 seconds for a new zone to hold, so the room changes a little after a hard block starts. It shows what your body is doing, not what the block asks for.

Peloton

Keep the Peloton screen for your class and put your iPhone within reach. If you follow Peloton's heart-rate zones, set the same max heart rate in Zonal so the two line up. The apps may still draw zone boundaries a little differently, so a reading right on a boundary can show a different zone in each.

Rouvy

Ride Rouvy's routes and workouts on the big screen while the room shows your heart-rate zone. Long endurance routes are where it helps most: stay in the green, and let the room tell you when a climb has pushed you into gold.

TrainerRoad and structured plans

TrainerRoad workouts are built on power targets. Zonal adds your heart-rate zone to the room alongside them. That's a useful cross-check on long endurance rides, when heart rate drifting up into Zone 3 is easy to miss on screen.

Zone 2 training by the room

Long Zone 2 sessions are where a lit room earns its place. Hold the green and you're in Zone 2. If the room turns gold, you've drifted into Zone 3. Because Zonal waits 8 seconds before stepping up a zone and 20 before stepping down, the room won't flicker between colours while you sit near the line.

Zonal's Zone 2 is 60–70% of your max heart rate, or 68–84% of your threshold heart rate if you set one. If your coach or plan defines Zone 2 differently, check the bpm ranges in Your zones against theirs before you rely on the colour.

Treadmill heart-rate zones

Zonal works the same on a treadmill: monitor on, lights ready, Start. A room you can read from the corner of your eye means fewer glances down at a screen while you're moving.

• Put your iPhone on the console or somewhere you can reach Stop without breaking stride.
• If running is your main sport, set your max heart rate from a hard run. It's often a few beats higher than on the bike.
• A chest strap or an armband both work. Choose one that stays put at running pace.

Indoor rowing heart-rate zones

Rowing uses the same five zones. Place the lights where you can see them while you face the rower's monitor, and wear a chest strap or armband that stays put through the stroke. Zonal only reads your heart rate, so it works with any rowing machine.

Spin bikes and unstructured rides

No training app needed. Pair your monitor, tap Start and ride by the room.

Setting up your pain cave lighting

• Use the lights in your line of sight. Choose only the lights around your bike, treadmill or rower. Zonal starts with none selected, so it never takes over the rest of the house.
• Light strips work well behind a screen. A gradient light strip shows each zone as a two-tone blend, or, with Zone meter, fills band by band from Zone 1 to Zone 5 as your zone climbs.
• Set a brightness ceiling. Max brightness (25, 50, 75 or 100%) caps every light. Zones 4 and 5 run at full brightness up to that cap.
• Test before you train. On Home, open Your zones and tap Show on any zone to see it on your lights. Close the sheet and they go back.
• Your usual lighting comes back. Stop returns every light to how it was: on or off, colour, brightness, even a running effect.

What each colour means

• Zone 1 · Recovery: blue, low. Under 60% of max heart rate.
• Zone 2 · Endurance: green, medium. 60–70% of max.
• Zone 3 · Tempo: gold, medium-high. 70–80% of max.
• Zone 4 · Threshold: orange, full. 80–90% of max.
• Zone 5 · VO2 Max: red, full. 90% of max and up.

Before your heart rate settles into a zone, and if the signal drops for more than about 30 seconds, the room shows a soft warm white that doesn't match any zone.

Questions