Zwift Virtual Shifting: Which trainers support it now, and which trainers will support it soon?

July 17, 2024

LAST UPDATED September 24, 2024

Zwift’s virtual shifting is arguably the most popular innovation they’ve brought to the indoor hardware space. Ever since the Zwift Hub went on sale in October 2022, riders have been looking forward to virtual shifting capabilities being rolled out for other trainers.

Supporting Zwift’s virtual shifting is no small project. It requires adding support for Zwift Protocol, a Bluetooth protocol Zwift created to deliver a consistent virtual shifting experience for any combination of supported hardware.

I see questions every week from riders wondering when virtual shifting will be available on their trainer, so I’ve created this page to share what info I know about the current status of Zwift virtual shifting support for all the major trainer brands.

This page will be updated as new information is made available.

Wahoo

These Wahoo trainers currently support virtual shifting:

But I’ve just learned some bad news for Zwifters with older KICKR trainers. My contact within Fusion Media, Wahoo’s media agency, tells me, “Wahoo has analyzed the hardware and software capabilities of both KICKR v4 and KICKR v5. Unfortunately, these older models are unable to support the required protocols for Zwift Virtual Shifting and will not be receiving a future update for this functionality.”

Garmin/Tacx

I can’t get a meaningful answer from Garmin/Tacx apart from, “Unfortunately, this is proprietary information at this time.”

Speculation: Garmin must know it’s losing market share to more affordable trainers that offer an increasingly impressive list of features. Adding virtual shifting capabilities to its two premium trainers (the NEO 2T and NEO 3M) seems like the smart move, unless they’ve got a new trainer releasing in the next few months.

Elite

Elite announced their first Zwift Ready trainer, the Direto-XR with Zwift Cog and Click, in mid-September 2024. Elite tells me, “It’s looking like October here in Europe/UK and November for overseas markets.”

They also said, “We have a firmware update for the Direto XR / XR-Ts on our schedule, aiming to make them Zwift Ready by the end of the year.”

There appear to be no firm plans to roll out virtual shifting support for any other Elite trainers at this time.

JetBlack

Two of JetBlack’s trainers will support virtual shifting beginning September 2024:

JetBlack tells me, “We will be releasing virtual shifting on the Volt V2 in September to coincide with the availability of the Victory. Unfortunately, due to electronic technology, the V1 will not support virtual shifting.”

Saris

According to Saris_Karen, apparently a Saris employee, “Saris is actively working on updating smart trainer firmware for virtual shifting and Zwift hardware compatibility. It’s going to be a couple of months before it is released.”

This was posted on a Reddit thread on September 23, 2024.

Zwift

The Zwift Hub trainer was the first to support Zwift’s virtual shifting. Two different versions were sold:

Zwift Hub Classic (shipped with a standard cassette and no virtual shifting device)
Zwift Hub One (shipped with the single-sprocket Zwift Cog and Zwift Click for virtual shifting)

Both versions used the same trainer body and internals. The only difference was the included cassette and virtual shifting device.

If you have a Zwift Hub Classic, you can convert it to a Zwift Hub One using the Zwift Cog + Click Upgrade Kit. You can also simply purchase the Zwift Click or Zwift Play controllers and immediately have access to virtual shifting on a standard cassette.

Others

Zwift recently announced that the VAN RYSEL D100 trainer will be released this winter in a Zwift Ready version, meaning it will be sold with the Click+Cog. This is interesting because it’s the lowest-spec (and lowest-priced) trainer to get the Zwift Ready label to date.

There are other trainers on the market, of course. I’ve reached out to Saris and TrueKinetix to learn more about their plans, and will add details to this page once I receive a response.