The latest Zwift update is now available on all platforms: Mac, PC, Android, iOS, and AppleTV.
Not sure if your Zwift install is up-to-date? Here’s how to check >
This update doesn’t include much that’s newsworthy, but Zwift assures us “… we’ve mostly been busy working on game features and behind the scenes technical improvements you’ll see soon.” Here are the details of today’s update…
New Bike Frames
Two new frames have been added to the Drop Shop:
- Chapter2 KOKO (Road): 639,000 Drops, Level 11+ required, rated 2 stars for aero, 3 for weight
- Scott Foil 2023 (Road): 816,500 Drops, Level 22+ required, rated 3 stars for aero, 3 for weight
While none of these new frames look to be top performers, we’re testing them now and will publish results when available.
OS Deprecation Update
Back in May Zwift announced they would be removing support for certain devices stuck on old operating systems. Today’s update makes this much more obvious, turning the game black and white while displaying a message at the bottom of the screen:
One interesting tidbit Co-Founder Jon Mayfield recently shared with us: while there are many reasons Zwift is removing support for older hardware and operating systems, one big reason is that certain devices (including the original iPad Air) shipped with only 1GB of memory (RAM).
With iOS only allowing apps to use a portion of the device’s total memory, this puts a hard limit on the size of maps such as Watopia. In summary: potatoes need to be tossed out so Watopia can be expanded!
New Encryption Protocols
This isn’t mentioned in Zwift’s release notes, but based on posts we’ve seen from ZwiftHQ and reports we’re hearing from some Zwifters, Zwift has begun rolling out a new data encryption protocol they announced several weeks ago.
More from Zwift: “In July we are rolling out a new encryption protocol that will affect all UDP and TCP communication between client and server, and also between client and the Zwift Companion app (ZC), in order to meet a new requirement from Google Play (they recently changed their user data safety policy). The rollout will span several days and you may see both encrypted and unencrypted clients running concurrently during that period. It is expected that by July 20th we will have all our communication fully encrypted.”
Essentially, Zwift is beginning to encrypt data sent and received in network packets by the game client. Once this encryption is fully enforced, popular community-developed apps like ZwiftMap, Zwift Activity Monitor, and the almost-released Zwift Sauce add-on will be nonfunctional. The only way they’ll work again is if Zwift sets up some sort of scheme to approve app developers and give them access to the encrypted data stream.
“Share to Club” Dropdown Fixed
A new dropdown menu was added to the End Ride screen in last month’s update, but it didn’t always work. Today’s update seems to have fixed it:
“Sharing” your ride with a Club essentially tags that Club in the activity, giving the Club “credit” for the activity.
Bug Fixes and Misc Improvements
With Jon Mayfield back at the helm, our release notes have become much sparser when it comes to the list of bugs fixed. For better or worse, Jon seems to prefer mentioning big bug fixes without listing every bug squashed in each release.
Here’s Zwift’s list of fixes and improvements included in this update, with notes in italic from us:
- Fixed Alpe du Zwift segment timing.
- Fixed issue where fit files could become corrupted.
- Fixed several locations where road surfaces weren’t joined up nicely: our guess is this includes the Makuri Islands intersection bridging Neokyo and Yumezi, among other things.
See notes on this update release in the Zwift forum >
Questions or Comments?
If you spotted any other changes or bugs in the update, please comment below!
As always, thank you for the heads-up!
So how is it the new Chapter2 bike is waaay more Aero in real life and less Aero compared to the Toa in game?
A little odd, right? I wasn’t going to comment on that until I finished the tests, but based on the star ratings themselves, Chapter2’s flagship aero bike is less aero than the TOA in game. Doesn’t really make sense.
Hi guys. It’s Mike Pryde here from Chapter2. I had the same thought too. In real life, the TOA is fast, but the KOKO is certainly faster except in the high mountains where the TOA performs better. We don’t get involved (not been asked) in the performance metrics for in game collaborations.
Sounds like Zwift may be updating the KOKO in the future if that’s the case, Mike. Might be worth reaching out to them…
if u checked chapter2 Rere & Tere, u will find that how ridiculous zwift put disc brakes and rim brakes on the same bike!
Another update with … nothing.
No, with less… They are removing devices and removing the functionality of community made sites… Devolution is the new evolution.
Zwift staff are too busy regurgitating talking points that they are “working on game features” and silencing longtime loyal customers raising questions in forums about priorities to actually make meaningful progress on bug fixes and enhancements. The community of riders is the product- something Zwift has never seemed to truly understand. It probably doesn’t help that most of the staff remaining after recent layoffs have been at Zwift far less time than the average customer has been a subscriber. The company doesn’t seem to value customer loyalty nor the free feedback frequently provided to improve the core experience. Without the… Read more »
I for one would join that initiative! So that is already 2 people and counting. Who else would want to voice support for a sunny and user focused future for Zwift?
left the platform in May when the update made my chromebook stop working in the game client, couldnt get past the loading page, to then be told it doesnt work on chromebooks even tho i had been running it on there since the start of the year!!
In the meantime, James Bailey is killing it with rapid iterations of Pace Partners, and soliciting and using feedback from Zwifters.
Hoping for more of this!
James Bailey is using feedback from Zwifters he agrees with. Those who offer constructive criticism about Pace Partners or raise reasonable questions about whether the effort would be better directed towards fixing core bugs are ignored or outright silenced by Bailey.
In my view, Bailey has become emblematic of the lack of regard Zwift has for its long term customers.
Bailey isn’t in charge of everything at zwift. He’s in charge of pace partners. So criticizing him for ignoring feedback outside of that scope is completely unreasonable. In fact, your message is one of the reasons a zwift employee would decide not to engage with the community. Bailey has engaged with the community in a totally reasonable manner, and now you are attacking him, whereas the zwift employees that don’t engage in the community (and they aren’t required too which is completely fair) are not feeling your wrath, so if your day job was at zwift, would you choose the… Read more »
Offering feedback that may be different then the majority opinion is not an “attack” and being direct with questions about development priorities is not “wrath”. As Zwift customers, we have a right to opinions about what we get for our monthly membership. No one should be made to feel that if they don’t agree with the status quo that somehow they are the problem or don’t have the best interest of the community in mind. I disagree that Bailey has engaged with the community in a reasonable manner. The opinions of Zwift customers who have offered feedback specific to Pace… Read more »
I still wish that the Zwift fairy would grant my only wish and let me disable visual shake on off-road routes. My eyes just can’t deal with the effect. It makes me feel ill, so I choose to avoid the jungle and half of Makuri.
I avoid the jungle because of the square pixelated ‘dust’ introduced a few versions ago. That route used to be one of my favorites.
If it’s square and pixelated, it may be time to upgrade your potato! 🙂
The dust in the jungle is square and pixelated on my AppleTV 4K. Last time I checked, that was still being supported by Zwift and not a ‘potato’. Didn’t have the issue until a few updates ago- so Zwift seemingly changed something in how this effect is rendered.
I have the Apple TV 4k as well (‘Argh’ the ‘potato’ assumption comment!). Sometimes the dust is squares, sometimes appears as it should. I have seen this problem since I joined Zwift last fall, and I can’t seem to find the rhyme or reason to it. And it doesn’t seem to have any bearing on how many Zwifters are active or not, nor how many are being painted on the screen. The only consistency I’ve seen is that it seems to Always appear as Squares on the dirt portion of Road To Sky
I wish share to club could default to a preset club, or same as latest ride instead of none every time.
Eric, have you tested the new Giant TCR BikeExchane-Jayco Team?
Why is Zwift deprecating the Companion App on older mobiles, though?
For no good reason. It makes it ever so slightly easier/simpler for them and they think the people who care are too small to matter.
First easy guess is simply that testing costs money, so supporting quite-old devices and OS versions is a burden on the development process. The level of moaning about every release on Zwift is pretty striking. Personally I would prefer they didn’t officially support old OSes but allowed people to keep running them, rather than forcing updates to the latest. But this is iOS 12 we’re talking about discontinuing — which affects devices like the original iPad Air, which was released *almost 9 years ago.* This policy isn’t extreme stuff. It’s not unusual, and doesn’t reflect some sort of sneering disregard… Read more »
I am making the argument that supporting some of these old OSes isn’t a burden. So just coming out and saying “it is a burden” is not a counter-argument. Provide some details otherwise you’re just wasting everyone’s time. You are right there is a lot of moaning about “zwift didn’t add anything i wanted” but this is different, this is “zwift is forcing me to spend a lot of money to upgrade”. Their stated reason for deprecated these old OSes is “Upgrading your OS will ensure your device is best equipped to run Zwift’s 3D game graphics”. Which makes no… Read more »
Good gravy. “Otherwise you’re just wasting everyone’s time” is such a decent example, here, of the tone I mean. I work at an agile development shop. To test older OSes and devices for new releases takes time and money — a “burden.” Whether that testing is automated or manual, you are spending time and money in order to deliver new software on a tree of OSes going back into the past. There’s nothing complicated about that basic calculation, but hey, you want more depth to the outline. Companies stop supporting older OSes when something ages out on them. That something… Read more »
Any thoughts on how likely is it Zwift will open up a channel for Zwift Activity Monitor to work again? If so what’s the likely timeframe?
I know some people were using this for legitimate purposes, but there were an awful lot of people using it for “cat management”. Would have been nice for there to be a way for it to have been disabled in races rather than lost altogether.
You can still monitor average w/kg using a headunit, so there’s always a way.
Is this why the functionality was broken?
does anyone else feel like Zwift could do better with bike offerings. Why not retro super bikes, etc? Seems like they just take manufactory’s money to put their bikes on and users are really considered in that transaction.
More bikes is literally the last thing we need given how there’s no point riding all but a handful of the top performers anyway. Much prefer to see new roads, routes, maps and for them to fix the dozens of major bugs that remain unaddressed
Are they even taking ad dollars to add these bikes? I thought there was some official denial of that. If I was a manufacturer and saw my best bikes showing up with bad group sets that nerfed their performance, I would definitely not feel any advert money was well-spent. (There is clearly a messed-up physics model happening about our bikes. Simple variables assigned to each bike would seemingly do a better job of modeling real life *and* delivering a game experience with a meaningful range of frames. I’m sure the reasons for things like the Dura-Ace bug a while ago… Read more »
Ian. I can’t speak for other bike manufacturers, but CHAPTER2 has never paid Zwift or been asked to pay anything in order to be on Zwift. There’s a team within Zwift that sets out the in game performance characteristics of each model and we have never to asked to participate in that.
zwift should publish a free api for third party add-ons. (Or free personal license so i can write my own addon on my data)
Will the planned data encryption changes prevent Zwift Hack Preferences from working?
I don’t think so, since those are just based on the preferences.xml file.
The encryption of UDP connections is real bad news, but not really a surprise since Zwift has never shown much love for the community-developped third party apps so many passionate zwifters rely upon to augment their Zwift experience and, frankly, compensate for the atrociously slow rate of new features and bug fixes of Zwift HQ. Personally, this will make Zwift significantly less attractive to me so I will give a shot to its competitors next winter, unless they reverse their course on the closed nature of their API (which they will probably never do, since Zwift is all about big… Read more »
They’re saying it’s being done to remain compliant with Google’s requirements for their Android app… Hopefully arrangements can be made with developers to provide access to their data.
I think an extensible version of Zwift is important for the community, so hopefully they balance this, but they seems to be closing things off more than opening them up
With the latest update, I found that the Apple tv 4k remote doesn’t scroll whilst in your garage or in the drop shop.
Noticed a heat haze effect on a ride through the lava lakes in Watopia (Ocean Lava Cliffside Loop) has that always been there or a new release feature?
Like the stupid “workout distortion effect” at the end of a hard interval in a workout?
At least they added the option to disable that a couple of years ago.
I contacted Zwift about a bug in their Android version, about a week before this update dropped. When you are done with your ride and save it, photos/in-ride screenshots/manual camera photos taken, get send to Strava as just plain black. Empty, black, “photos”. I’m using an Galaxy Tab A8, Android 11. The bug remains.
Please stop with all these updates!!!! It is taking forever to download and is extremely annoying.. if you have to update, please do this once every 6 months instead of every [email protected] week… come on. Horrible
When will chromebooks be a compatible device?