Virtual shifting Via USB Keyboard on a Pi Zero for Zwift on the QZ App

[ByronpZA]

Hi Roberto

As per your mail, putting my questions on here for the community to maybe help another user one day.
I will post my original questions here

Here is my setup

Single speed bike.
Magene T500 Smart indoor trainer.
RaspberryPi zero with switches to act like keyboard buttons.
Mywhoosh where the keyboard works.

Looking to race on zwift

I would like to know if your app can do this.
Any suggestions will help too

1: does your app support the Magene T500 for virtual shifting

2: can your app connect to a wired keyboard type device

3: will any of this work on your app

Here are images from connecting my Magene T500 to nrfconnect

[dosubot[bot]]

Hi @ByronpZA! I'm Dosu and I’m helping the qdomyos-zwift team.

QZ supports virtual shifting and can bridge this to Zwift, Rouvy, and Mywhoosh. To use virtual shifting, set your bike type to FTMS in QZ and enable the gear tile in the tiles settings. You can fine-tune gear changes using the "gears gain" setting, and all gear management is handled by QZ if you don't have a Zwift Play or Click device. There's a virtual gearing guide for more details on setup and customization, including gear sensitivity and direction adjustments.

The app is designed to be cross-platform and hackable, with support for external controls like keyboards, so your Raspberry Pi Zero setup with keyboard switches should work for shifting. There are hooks for USB input handling and keyboard-based shifting integration in the codebase, making this kind of setup feasible.

Magene T500 is not explicitly listed, but similar Magene trainers are supported, so it’s likely adaptable—though you may need to experiment with device selection or settings in QZ. If you run into issues with resistance or gear mapping, you can adjust these under bike/Wahoo options in QZ.

References:
Virtual shifting and device compatibility
Virtual gearing setup and customization
Enabling virtual gear shifting in QZ

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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[cagnulein]

1. Yes the trainer is supported by Qz, simply set it under the ftms bike setting in the bike options. And it has also virtual gearing

2. Yes on Linux supports keyboard

[ByronpZA]

So just to confirm, how do i connect the keyboard to the QZ App?

Let me explain it like this, the RaspberryPi is running OS Lite so no GUI, it basically boots as a Gadget and thinks it is a keyboard when plugged into a windows device.

Connected to it through 2 GPIO Pins are 2 tactile switches which correspond to an "I" and "K" Keyboard input.

Hope this helps

[cagnulein]

I can create a patch for this, just tell how you would like to have and I will do a PR.

So you have 2 pins for gear up and down?

[ByronpZA]

Yeah its Gpio 17 for up and Gpio 27 for down

[cagnulein]

Ok I will create a PR for this in the next days Roberto Viola Software engineer and open source enthusiast http://robertoviola.cloud Il giorno mer 9 lug 2025 alle 20:27 ByronpZA ***@***.***> ha scritto:

…

Yeah its Gpio 17 for up and Gpio 27 for down — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3534 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAALYWFPRAFG3LZSRH6Q5CT3HVNH5AVCNFSM6AAAAACBEZITKKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTGNZRGIYTMMY> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.*** com>

[ByronpZA]

Great, your a champion

[cagnulein]

I created a new PR for this #3537
Let's see if it will build!

[cagnulein]

it build https://github.com/cagnulein/qdomyos-zwift/actions/runs/16217490289/job/45790149100
go and test it!

[ByronpZA]

Hey there, thank you so much, i work 18 hour shifts so i will set it up tomorrow

You are awesome