Can you believe we need to actually go through all of this trouble just to use an Apple Watch?! I’m so upset that this is not fixed.
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Fiddled around for several days and believe I’ve established a routine that works. I could connect 4 times in a row and when changing the routine it failed. I believe hence the sequence is of the essence: (1) start Zwift (on Mac in my case), (2) select course and start pedalling, (3) start Zwift Companion (in my case on iPhone), (4) start Zwift Companion on Apple Watch, (5) go back to Zwift and select ‘Menu’ - unpair and then pair Apple Watch, (6) continue with course - patience, heart rate will appear after 10 - 15 secs. Final word to Zwift programmers: what a shame to force users to have to come up with such a complicated workaround.
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I just installed HeartCast based on your comment. I’m going to try it today and cross my fingers it works. Do you still need to have Zwift companion open on your phone to use it?
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David - I put HeartCast on my watch and phone. Im hopeful that it will work like you said in your post. The only think I’m uncertain of, do I still need to open my companion app as well for it to work?
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I tried Heartcast this morning. Not quite sure what I did but it worked flawlessly. And yes I did start the Companion app on my phone after I connected with Heartcast
Found this thread after having issues. Heart cast is working great and no more trial/error with opening/closing the companion ap and it never working.
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i’m using ECHO Heart Rate from the Watch on the App Store now and it connects fine to my Wahoo Roam and Hammerhead Karoo 2. it has less analytics built in than Heart Cast 
this will be a backup to my main HR belt setup failing… and solve this POS zwift watch implementation issue which failed to work the last time i tried.
Interesting to note how old this thread is and that it is still active, that the issue persists.
What seems unclear to me and to the tech support at Zwift is how this the zwift app/game and the companion work, how wifi and bluetooth are used. The devices involved in my setup would in a 10 foot diameter circle so distance is not an issue, nor is interference, at least not so much that anything else is affected.
So my setup is a Kickr Snap, a Wahoo cadence sensor on my shoe, a generic wifi router, an old AppleTV to mirror to a large screen TV, a MacBook Air, an iPhone SE and the zwift iOS apps. The Snap connects to the MacBook instantly and the cadence sensor takes a little longer. I have to have bluetooth on the MacBook for that to work. The Snap connects over bluetooth, not Ant+ whatever that is. The watch connection is intermittent, mostly InOp. Sometimes it can find it and not connect, sometimes it connects w No Signal, and even if it works, it often drops by the time I get on the bike.
I can use the zwift iOS app on the handlebars and mirror at that as well but the images and navigation are too small to be useful. It seems to be computer-sized but displayed at a fraction of the size. I can also use the Companion but this is where it gets muddled. I just turned bluetooth off on the phone and the companion pulls wattage/power and cadence from the laptop. if the laptop gets a good connection to the watch, I’ll get bpm on the companion as well. I just did two rides, and on the second, I continued fiddling with the companion on the watch and it eventually connected and displayed/logged bpm. The phone showed a request to allow new BT connections and that seemed to be the signal it was trying to connect.
I tried the heartcast solution mentioned about but it didn’t keep the connection. It dropped before I could get on the bike.
So in my scenario and maybe yours…I need the laptop to connect to wifi and bluetooth to both run the game and connect to the trainer and sensors. I know the Zwifties think the companion will connect to all of that but there is no pairing screen, no way to request connections. It works or doesn’t…there is no way to re-pair devices. I was told to turn on Airplane mode on my phone to eliminate wifi and permit just bluetooth…why? How would that work? As I discovered today, there may be a kernel of truth to that, that forcing the watch app to request a connection helps but why is it having to re-do the pairing operation each time?
Of all the bluetooth connections I use, it has never been my experience that a known device has to be re-paired each time. My earbuds? No. Cars I have used? No. My watch? No. Pairing is persistent everywhere but here. So what is Zwift doing to break this? Also, Ride W GPS has a watch and phone app combo that does this flawlessly. You can start and end a ride from the watch and it can track/map your ride through GPS, track cadence and heart rate, all without any of this foolishness. And that’s at their free tier…not $15/month for frustration.
2018 was several versions of Zwift and watchOS ago. Seems like they’re not really trying.
What other setups do people have that work (or don’t)?
Have had same issues and only way I can get heart rate linked to rest of ride is to use my phone. Can’t get iPad to connect Apple Watch and Kickr. In addition was less than half mile from end of Stage 3 The Queen, which was my last segment of TOW to complete all 5 segments and Zwift kicked off! Did not get credit of finishing and when I tried rejoining the app took me to another course… Very frustrating as this was a long climbing ride. Any idea if I can get the credit for completing? Not sure of best way to solve connection issues.
I take it there is no solution to this. It should just work. Everything proposed above is way too complicated and not working. I got it connected a few times tonight, but seamed to disconnect as soon as I flip my wrist down. I am curious if both Zwift and Companion need to be installed on my watch. Both apps look identical, unless I am missing something. My watch would connect after picking one or the other, but only for a minute or less. Maybe they are conflicting with each other, but I did try installing one then the other. I am pretty disappointed that my rides are now missing my heart info. Worst part is I will probably have to dump about 6 months worth of Zwifting into another device, for an issue that appears to go back years. If not for this, maybe we could all afford to Zwift year round instead of few months in the winter.
So frustrating that this thread hasn’t seen a solution. My Apple Watch pairs maybe 60% of time. It really shouldn’t be this difficult. Setup is Zwift Hub / ATV / iPhone with ZC / Apple Watch with ZC. All latest versions and WiFi and Bluetooth all are fine. I’ve tried every combo of sequencing when to start each app and can’t find anything that consistently works. Asking Santa for a Bluetooth HRM to take the Apple Watch out of the equation. We’ll see…
It’s terrible that Apple Watch still doesn’t work as a HRM for Zwift after all these years. I wasted so much time trying to figure out if there was a sequence of events that caused it to work sometimes. I gave up in the end. So annoying that an expensive and popular watch can’t be used for Zwift…it can’t be hard to get this fixed.
After giving up a long time ago, I bought a CooSpo arm band HRM for about £20, which works flawlessly every time.
Update. Gave up using Apple Watch with Companion for heart rate. Got a Garmin BT HRM and paired it to my Zwift Hub. Works seamlessly. Only issue now is my Move ring doesn’t update even though Companion updates Apple Health data. Workaround is to start cycling workout on watch. Duplicates the workouts but interesting to compare Companion vs Apple data. Guessing it’s an issue with Companion’s Apple Health integration
Any news on this topic? I still have issues with the heart rate to companion an ipad App
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Niente da fare con Apple Watch Ultra, sempre lo stesso problema di segnale assente o unpairing… Penso di passare ad altri simulatori per questa cosa, è grave che non mettano a posto un problema così semplice…
Heart Cast solved the problem for me. HC first, Companion second, Z third.
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