I am actually surprised about the price point. I thought Zwift was pretty smart on their pricing of the Zwift Hub, for which they don’t have to make a ton of money because many folks who bought one would then become Zwift subscribers - since really you needed to know about Zwift to even know there was a Zwift Hub. So, I figured if Zwift came out with other new hardware it would be with the primary intent of adding new subscribers, or making the current subscribers stickier rather than making money off the hardware itself.
If they want to be able to justify deep investment in steering experiences, then steering devices have to become much more prevalent, so there’s a bit of a chicken/egg thing here, so I would think Zwift would want more people to be using these style of devices, meaning a lower price point option.
The $149 price point is going to price a lot of people out of it, particularly folks who already have a setup that allows them to easily access their buttons (i.e. iPad users probably don’t benefit as much from this hardware in the short term as Apple TV users do - until much more engaging experiences are built with steering in mind).
That said, I could see them giving a heavy Zwift Play discount to people who are willing to lock into a 1 or 2 year Zwift subscription, as a way of using this hardware to drive people into annual subscriptions, but it looks like that’s not the current plan at least until they get out of this initial phase.
Great to see Zwift trying something new.
Dont think id ever buy it as ATV… as bad as that is, is enough for me to get by.
Dont get why you’d want braking in Zwift tho
I guess its time to buy an Elite Sterzo smart steer since Zwift has now confirmed support for steering, and you can also buy the Sterzo in Canada unlike the play.
That also seems way overpriced to me, and personally I would not pay that much for Wahoo’s plastic tray. One thing to note is that Wahoo does bundle the Kickr Steer with an annual WahooX membership which comes out to about $22/month for the subscription AND Kickr Steer for the first year. So my guess is most people do the annual subscription model with Wahoo vs. pay $140 for the plastic plate on its own.
ah hadn’t realised that maybe some thought for Zwift to bundle subscriptions into hardware purchases seems like a win win for Zwift more hardware sales and ties users to the platform for a period of time.
i suspect after the initial surge of orders they will review if sales continue to then adjust pricing. really hoping the higher price never becomes a thing as that is too much.
I think at €100 it’s not badly priced considering, the additional features you’ll get from Zwift.
Heck I would pay that if it enabled the SB20 buttons and gear info as some ‘unlock code’.
Let’s hope that now we have some standard protocols in theory the smart bike makers can upgrade their own protocols to send the button, steering info in the desired format.
Never said they won’t last long but I’ve toasted numerous electronic devices which were “sports oriented” so yeah I’m curious. Sweat is a lot different than water. There’s also more entry points than the top pad.
Stages SB20’s factory gear button locations are where the Zwift Play mounts. As Richard notes - it is possible to reposition the Stages buttons, but we do have a list of compatible / not compatible situations outlined on the Play product page.
Since it’s not compatible with the tacx bike, will braking at some point be implemented for the tacx bike? It does have brake levers that affect the resistance applied to pedaling.
Shimano and Microshift also have drop bar shifters with a thumb lever on the inside of the drops (eg, ST-3400 and similar). I assume those are also not compatible. Microshift is still selling that type of shifter.
Not available in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Asia, Africa, South America (yes, I know the last three are large regions and not small countries).
I certainly hope they’ll never make this device mandatory or beneficial in events…
This photo gives you an idea of how Zwift Play will mount under your brake levers. Please use your best judgment if it looks like if it might interfere with your integrated thumb levers.
The only functions that are unique to the play are steering and braking.
If a couple of keyboard buttons were mapped to steer left/right, that opens up a gazillion opportunities for all of those that can’t or won’t buy the play.
(I like the design - it just makes sense to allow steering via a keyboard too).
looks as though you’d be pressing all the the buttons with you wrist if riding on the hoods, and what’s wrong with using the companion app for stuff during the ride
