When you long press the notification, you should have the options to “Disconnect” or “open Zwift”. If you choose “Disconnect” does the notification go away?
[The above was my original reply to Weiwen_Ng, however, I’ve add to this post to elaborate on that answer and this feature.]
A better answer is that Zwift notifications on iOS can be acknowledged by going to the iOS Notification Center, and, depending on your exact iOS version, either long pressing on the notification to make the options appear, or simply press the “Disconnect” option (if visible). Doing so disconnects any Bluetooth devices from Zwift, clears the notification badge on the app, and removes the notification itself.
But let’s be clear. The notification is expected behavior and there is a reason.
In May of 2020, Zwift took advantage of a new iOS feature to maintain real-time Bluetooth communications while the Zwift app is suspended. Previous to this change, Zwift responsibly disconnected all Bluetooth devices immediately when suspended to preserve battery life and then upon resuming the app would automatically restore all connections.
There is nothing wrong with this approach, and if the Zwift community would rather return to this previous behavior, I personally, see no reason why we can’t. But please consider that with this previous behavior, every time the app was suspended and resumed, reconnecting devices took a few seconds and by the time connections were re-established an avatar could have already come to a complete stop, which was perplexing to many users who had maintained a consistent pace during this “auto re-connection” time. It could take up to 5 seconds before the avatar (and UI) matched the user’s current performance.
With the new change, Bluetooth communications continue in the background whenever Zwift is suspended, so when users suspend and resume the Zwift app, the devices are still connected and the current pace/speed/watts values immediately match the user’s actual performance.
Bluetooth communications take additional power, so we felt it was our responsibility to notify users if Zwift remained suspended for a long time while Bluetooth comms are running in the background, hence, a notification. So you can see this notification behavior is completely normal if Bluetooth devices are still paired to Zwift when the app is suspended. Leaving your iOS device in this state will needlessly consume battery power.
For reference, a typical Zwift flow is:
- Open Zwift
- Choose user account (Login Screen)
- Pair devices
- Perform Activity
- Save Activity
- Back to user account (Login Screen)
It is very important to note the Zwift app automatically disconnects Bluetooth devices when returning to the Login Screen. If the Zwift app is closed at this point, no devices are paired, so no notifications will be received by user, and no power is consumed by Bluetooth communications with Zwift.
However, if a user closes or suspends the Zwift app from any other point, a notification is received about 10 minutes later. Again, this is intended as explained above.
I hope this helps users understand why they are receiving notifications and which scenarios generate notifications and which don’t.
You can see in one of my other posts on this thread how you can disable notifications from Zwift altogether.
Recently, through this forum post it was brought to our attention a possibility the Zwift app thinks Bluetooth devices are still connected after the user has returned to the login screen. We are grateful for this report, and after some investigation, we did discover some logic that could account for this behavior and we addressed it in the 1.8.3 update (1/5/2021).
We think we have addressed the issue mentioned by the original poster (Weiwen_Ng), but if after the 1.8.3 update, you encounter these four conditions:
- Complete an activity
- Return to the Login Screen
- Close/Suspend the Zwift app
- Receive a notification 10 minutes later
(please note that all four conditions must occur), then such notification behavior is not intended and we would like to know about it. So in that case, please do post in this thread and please mention the following:
- Game version
- Bluetooth devices used during your activity (please include watch devices, if used)
- Whether or not Zwift Companion was used to pair Bluetooth devices