Zwift just released updated versions of their Companion app on iOS and Android which bring a crucial feature to Meetups: the ability to hide everyone who is not in your Meetup!
Why is this important? Simply put, it’s very hard to keep track of your Meetup participants in a crowded virtual world. Hiding all Zwifters outside of your Meetup means you can pay attention to those in your event. It also means no interference from outside Zwifters – so you can hold what is effectively a “private race” and not worry about some riders getting an unfair draft advantage from outside riders.
Creating the Meetup
Meeting creation works the same as before, but there is one option added near the bottom of the setup screen – a toggle switch for “Meetup-Only View”. Tap the toggle to enable this view, and it clearly explains what this option does:
In this Meetup, you will only see other Zwifters attending the Meetup. Everyone else in the world will be hidden.
Creating your Meetup This is the view Meetup participants will see
How It Works
We just tested the new feature, and it worked perfectly! As soon as you click to join the Meetup, you are transported to the Meetup start point, and all other Zwifters are hidden. All Zwifters outside of your Meetup will remain hidden from view until you exit the Meetup, or the Meetup ends.
There are a few details worth noting:
- In-Game Messaging: messages sent from within a Meetup are only visible to other Zwifters currently in that Meetup. This is true whether the “Meetup-Only View” option is enabled or not. Oddly, you will still see messages from non-Meetup riders while you’re in your Meetup-View Only event. Hopefully Zwift will change this soon, as it is distracting to see continual messages from Zwifters who aren’t even visible on screen.
- Zwifter Visibility: non-Meetup Zwifters can see you riding/running in your Meetup whether the “Meetup-Only View” option is enabled or not. Meetup-Only View simply hides all other Zwifters from your view.
Want To Ride Alone?
Although we don’t encourage persistently antisocial/asocial behavior 🤗, Meetup-Only View makes it easier than ever to ride alone on Zwift.
Simply create a Meetup on whatever map/route you desire, invite one other person (which is required in order to save the Meetup) and enable “Meetup-Only View”. Voila! You can join your own Meetup by yourself.
Questions or Comments?
We believe Meetup-Only View will quickly become the default setting used by Meetup organizers. What do you think? Share below!
Love the meetups! There times when it’s nice to have the course to yourself and other times to be part of a crowd! Just wish they’d add Meetup Workouts! 😉
You can do a workout within a meet up now. Press E when you’re roadside in meeting, select workout then when you go the without starts automatically…
I’m using ATV, what is the equivalent of E there?
There’s no simple aTV shortcut. You have to click the “menu” button on your remote then fumble with the trackpad until you make it to the “workouts” button.
Since all non-meet-up rider are “hidden”, are they still part of the game…meaning are you still drafting from them?
“It also means no interference from outside Zwifters – so you can hold a “private race” and not worry about some riders getting an unfair draft advantage from outside riders.”
If you don’t see them, you don’t draft them.
@eric, this makes sense, but the question is fair and the answer is not clear. Even if other riders are “hidden”, can they still “influence” a meetup? If inadvertently, a meetup rider would end up a few meters behind a hidden rider (without seeing it), would the draft feature kick-in? Due to the “sticky draft” feature, this could happen more frequently as Zwift is becoming very crowded. How about the opposite? Can a meetup rider be drafted by others (non-Meetup Zwifters can see you riding/running in your Meetup whether the “Meetup-Only View” option is enabled or not)
I just saw the another reply to the question: “If non-meetup riders can still see you – does that mean they can draft you, but you’ll have no idea it’s happening?” and since the answer is yes, then it only makes sense that hidden meetup riders can draft (inadvertently) non-meetup, and invisible to them, riders.
No. Drafting is computed on the client side, and in a private Meetup, the game hides all other riders. So your client sees no riders, and therefore doesn’t compute any drafting.
On the non-Meetup rider’s side, they’re seeing those in Meetups. Their Zwift client sees those people. And thus computes drafting.
Drafting is computed on the client side, I did not know that, interesting. Thanks Eric!
Could
Could you that this ? I have had fanview open to sheppard a mixture of in Meetup and out of Meetup riders using a private. Meetup and everybody seemed to be riding without a break in the draft
If you are late to the meetup, can you select “ride with” and be visible to meetup riders?
You won’t be visible to the meetup riders if Meetup-Only View is enabled.
If non-meetup riders can still see you – does that mean they can draft you, but you’ll have no idea it’s happening?
Yep. Just like the way most group rides/races work.
Ah – I never thought about it and how it works before – not that it really matters for either side – it’s just a funny virtual asymmetry.
We were waiting for this for years. I wonder if Pro Teams asked for this…
I would love to see Zwift would allow late joiners to be part of the meet up. And also allow fence for meet up as well.
Excellent, now all we need are results at the end, for all meetup participants, that can be seen after you close the app (on your activity feed on zwift.com) and we are set.
Exactly what we need
We had a huge issue with a meetup this past Saturday, at different points in the ride we were throttled down to 10 mph. -4% downhill both of us over 2.4 wkg…10 miles an hour. At other points in the ride, things were normal but on some climbs our speed was up over 20mph for a 7% grade. No, that is not happening in real life or ever before in Zwift. What gives? We rode 63 miles and the pace and time were pretty accurate for the overall ride.
Was it a banded meetup as this happens if you make a breakaway downhill
This also happens if someone in a banded meetup does a workout while in the meetup.
Great feature !! Deffo will be 100% used by default
I run a weekly meetup and none meetup riders mixing in the rider list has always been a problem , If Zwift can add late join now to meetups life be bliss
Awesome !!! Option to enable doubledraft and custom powerups would also be great for more fun in meetups.
Thank you!!
Now we just need the race summary at the end of the Meet Up…. and for everyone to have the same start line. Meet up riders can be spawned as far as 200m from each other, haveing different distances covered after the ride…
I checked on my Companion App and the new option is not showing, any suggestions ? Thx
Pull down on the update list screen to force a re-check. Always brings up more apps to update for me!
I had the same issue, refreshing the apps list in the App Store and then updating the Zwift Companion app did the trick, I see the new feature now. Thanks Eric!
Yes! I updated the app from Google Play library and the option appeared. Thanks!
Love meetups and this is a great option. Please put workouts option in the meetups so everyone will automatically do the same workout without having to select it.
I don’t see that option on Android Thank you
Wow that’s very good function, please implement for meetup result to make it very perfect.
Great feature for meet ups on popular routes and times.I wouldn’t use it on longer group rides like Uber Pretzel where the presence of others is motivating. Does it improve the graphics fps refresh rate?
This is fantastic!!
so with the meetup only view, do you get the drafting benefit form riders outside the meetup, even though you cant see them??
Whats the maximum time you can do a group ride for?
This is a good step in the right direction. Hopefully next you can select what type of meetup it is, i.e social ride, race etc. with some added features based on type, like results etc.
How does one organize larger meet ups? I already know how to create meet ups and invite everyone on my growing “followers” list; however curious from a social engineering standpoint to create 50+ groups.
Eric,
Do you know if there is a similar feature for group rides? (non-group riders tend to rip apart D pace group rides.)
If not it seems like a good idea rather than trying to get all group riders in a meetup.
JWR
This feature is for everyone? Because I’m trying to create a meet-up only for me and my friends and I don’t have the meet-up only option. It’s not there where it supposed to be.
They also fixed the ability to use the rideon-circle effect in meetups — if you aren’t all by yourselves, you can splash out the rideons as your meetup rolls through the crowds.
How do the KOM/Sprint leaderboards work within the meet-up? Is it just the meet-up members or the general, invisible riders included?
the meet up only view is not there when i try to create an event, my companion is up to date as well
When invited for a meetup and accepted. Is there an automatic world swap when the meetup starts? Or do I have to change to the world where the meetup is held?
World swap is automatic. Easy peasy!
Hmm, yesterday this didn’t seem to work. No popup on companion or in game. Missed my meetup.
I did was riding in a ride. normally it would popup a reminder.
maybe I was kicked form the meetup?
Good to know that worldswap should also works for meetups
This is glorious. Thank you!
Just tried this an hour ago in Watopia and it didn’t work. We could still see all the other riders and runners! Organised the meet-up this morning and was very pleased to see the meet-up only view. Has anyone else tried this yet? I have another meet-up tomorrow so we will see what happens.
I used it to create a ride this evening and it worked exactly as described.
I hosted a meetup tonight too with the feature enabled. Some of us in the group could see everyone and others in the group only saw us.
I wonder if it is dependent on whether people have their apps (Zwift and Companion) updated to the latest version.
Both mine are latest version!
Did another meet-up last night and worked perfectly!
Not working for me this morning. I can still see others. I have checked and it’s set correctly. Anyone else?
It worked for me and all other riders last night, but not the night before. Hopefully not one of the many Zwift intermittent bugs!
Thanks neil. Lets see what happens tomorrow 🙂
Didn’t work again this morning! Another annoying Zwift intermittent bug!!!
Used Meet Up Only Riders for the first time yesterday and absolutely loved it, we done a group training session and was so good to work and see everyones W/KG. Thank you for doing this.
I’ve got group chat disabled, but when riding in a Meet Up Only route I still see chats from – get this – riders not in the meet up. Anyone else?
Hi Eric, is it possible to create a Meetup on a custum route?
I would like to ride only Titans Grove for two rounds in the meetup.
Would it be possible to realise that by choosing “Keep every-one together” and than me as Leader take the right roads at the road-sign? (Will the group automatically follow the leader in that case?).
Greetings Albert Woortman
Nope!
Hi Eric, this morning for the first time I soo a picture on the map of one of my followers and was very nice try to get together. was a coincidence? is normal? or you required some adjustment on setting?
That’s normal. People you follow should show up as little orange circle son the map.
Not sure why this can’t be automatic for all events, meaning to only see those that are part of the ride/race. So frustrating to try to race and have hundreds of other people on the course making it hard to distinguish who’s part of the race and who isn’t
Eric, I understand that you have to keep pedaling to keep together, but can you all stop for a quick break without the meet up ending? Thank you and appreciate your work.
Absolutely you can. It all has to do with keeping close to one another.
I’ve been setting up meetups twice a week for a few months. I’ve had issues where the people that were late to join are just riding in the water, completely off the road with nothing in site. I’ve also had the issue where I would be going 45km/h on the 10% uphill and 20km/h on the downhills (using the band). I’ve read that this might be because I was doing a workout within the meetup? The second issue isn’t as bad as it does end up averaging over the whole rid but the first issue ruins the meetup for a… Read more »
Hello all. I’m a year late commenting on this, but I was wondering if you can invite those that have previously had an account, but have stopped paying the monthly membership. Thanks.
Yes, you can. If you stop paying, your account still exists, and you can ride 25km per month free (and run as much as you want). So those accounts can still be found in Companion and invited to Meetups.
Hi Eric,
I do not find the “keep everyone together “ in the Companion app anymore, when I try to create a meetup, neither if I create an event in my club?
I only find “race results“ or “none”?
Have you any info, whether it has been dropped or a bug/Zwift has removed ?
thanks for your reply.
Rgds
Jens