UPDATE: Zwift has extended this promo for another week, through October 14.
Zwift has just announced a limited-time promotion to celebrate their big Birthday Weekend: buy a smart trainer, get Zwift Play controllers free (regular price $99USD)!
This applies to every trainer in Zwift’s online store:
- Wahoo KICKR CORE Zwift One ($499)
- Wahoo KICKR CORE Zwift One with 1-Year Zwift Membership ($649)
- Wahoo KICKR CORE with Cassette ($499)
- Wahoo KICKR CORE with Cassette and 1-Year Zwift Membership ($649)
- Wahoo KICKR with Zwift Cog and Click ($1049)
- Wahoo KICKR Move with Zwift Cog and Click ($1349)
- Wahoo KICKR Snap ($299)
The promotion runs through October 14th.
To get the free Play controllers, add both the trainer and Zwift Play controllers to your cart. You should see the Play controllers discounted to $0 before completing checkout.
Note: purchasing through the links above will help support Zwift Insider, as we receive a small affiliate commission. Thanks for your support!
Play Controller Capabilities
Zwift Play controllers easily mount on most road bike drop-bars (see above) and unlock various capabilities for Zwifters, allowing you to interact with the game without needing a keyboard or remote. Game interactions include:
- Steering
- Braking
- Virtual Shifting (see note below)
- Menu navigation, including the Action Bar
- Powerup activation
- Ride On bombs and easily returning a Ride On
- Minimap view changes
- Quick rearview camera in events
- U-turn
- Intersection navigation
- Workout interactions: change intensity and skip workout block
For more info, read All About Zwift’s Play Controllers >
Virtual Shifting Note
Virtual Shifting is a popular innovation Zwift has brought to the indoor cycling space. Zwift Play includes buttons for virtual shifting, but you must also have a virtual shifting-compatible trainer in order to enjoy this feature.
All of the trainers listed above support virtual shifting on Zwift, except for the Wahoo KICKR Snap.
Learn all about Zwift virtual shifting >
Questions or Comments?
Share below!
This is smart and something I’m surprised they haven’t done sooner. Since the play controllers only work with zwift it’s something on the hardware side to bundle with cassette trainers that are normally software agnostic to keep them on zwift. It’s far better than the force bundling of an annual subscription they were doing before since most people know they’re not going to be zwifting all year round and feel like it’s wasting money. I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns into a long term thing even it means they never make a profit on the controllers themselves just because of the extra player retention it generates.
What about the jet black victory?
Not sure if Zwift will be selling it directly or not. But it’s not yet in their store.
This is all a bit annoying for those who bought Wattbikes under the initial pretence of Zwift advertising them as ‘supported trainers’ yet for several years now, they’ve purposely held back on adding steering to these trainers. They implemented steering for Wattbike users around 2 years ago, then a week later revised the update. I raised a support ticket a year ago and was promised it was coming very soon as Wattbike had signed the exclusive steering support contract or something daft like that, and still – no steering on an officially supported trainer that costs several thousands of UK pounds! Now Zwift are giving the daft controllers away to people who buy a KickR snap for 299?
What’s more annoying than having possibly the best trainer money can buy and is capable of steering with a software company that won’t allow it to work? Being forced to either buy controllers to make it work, or now enter races against riders who use them against you and not allow you to draft them because they keep steering hard left or right.
Give the damn steering update to Wattbike users already, or ship us a set for free! It’s laughable.
Sweet! But can I use the zwift controllers with a wahoo V6 and my own cassette for virtual shift? Or do i still need the zwift cog & click to make it work?
All you need for virtual shifting is:
1: a trainer that can do Zwift virtual shifting and
2: a device to do the shifting
So yep, a KICKR v6 plus the Play Controllers will work just fine!
Shame that Zwift geoblocks the store, so here in Norway (and anywhere else outside of EU/UK/US, I guess) you won’t even be allowed to open those store links, much less purchase anything. I’d love to try the cog or the controllers, but I guess that’s too much to ask for from Zwift.
The Zwift forums are packed with users griping about their Zwift hardware troubles. There are so many that the support wait time stretches into days or even weeks. I will avoid to buy anything from a software company that has zero experience with hardware.
Still a huge drawback that Wahoo did not upgrade the Wahoo v5 while updating an older, lower end device to be compatible with this stuff….. Very disappointed by this attitude.
Anyone else get the free play offer when you hit level 85. All I had to pay was postage Available in the UK
I hit 85 yesterday and got the email about the free Play Controllers, with just postage to the US.