Kind of absurd to expect people who were successfully using it to be OK with it breaking. Dropping support for it wasn’t communicated in any meaningful way. I’m surprised that it worked for so many people but not surprised that they are angry about the change which appears to be unintentional.
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But the thing is it was never supported. This was communicated years ago. So those who got it working had a raised level of expectancy.
Admittedly the situation worsened with a recent update but Zwift are reversing this issue ahead of one day offering full support.
Whilst i accept that a lot of people will be aggrieved that the watch isn’t working they’re directing their anger at the wrong people.
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This is the central problem. It was not communicated. That would mean at least sending an email to everyone who had ever paired it. A forum post is not communication to the user base.
I do recall it being communicated elsewhere other than here but it was some time ago.
I can see issues with the email idea.
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It would only cover those who had ever managed to pair it, there are plenty of people who have tried and failed to even pair it so wouldn’t get an email.
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I’m not sure Zwift can identify users in this way. If a user paired 3 years where would a record of that be kept? I doubt server logs are kept for that long.
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Morally it would cause problems as people would panic that Zwift were able to identify them in this way and wonder what other data Zwift capture.
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Legally i don’t think Zwift could do this from a GDPR perspective.
Maybe I’m more rational about the situation than others.
There is a sense of irony in that people who own watches that cost many hundreds of dollars/euros/pounds and probably have matching phonest that cost equally as much don’t just spend 20 euros/dollars/pounds on a chest/arm strap based monitor.
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I’m not going to say they can’t do better at communication, for every issue you ‘can’ be better. But they did communicate it the same place they discuss supported operating systems, in fact on the same thread.
Maybe they could have sent emails out, or maybe there’s some technical work required that’s harder than we would think to detect who that email should go to and to avoid spamming everyone for something they communicated here already - if they did do that tech work some folks might have gotten the email, but most probably wouldn’t have read it, the emails wouldn’t have helped new users, or folks who were still able to keep connecting the watch anyhow. Those same folks would be here complaining that something ‘new’ was broken - which is what happened here, they were relying on something that was technically not supported and are upset.
I mean, they could have done the technical work to put up an in-game warning every time you try to pair an apple watch, telling you ‘there be dragons’ - which might be effective, but that would also take technical effort to implement, test, and maintain for something that isn’t supported.
I have an apple watch, and I’m not happy it’s not supported right now too, hopefully they release full support so it can move to being a supported feature rather than one that ‘sorta works’ for certain people who happen to be lucky.
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I’d be fine with a warning in the Companion app or in the game. My point is it’s completely unsurprising that people are showing up here shocked that this happened and completely unaware of the lack of support for it. That’s a miss.
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Today, I successfully reconnected my Apple Watch to Zwift on Apple TV, a feature that had been completely dysfunctional for several months, as many of you have experienced. The process was somewhat tedious; I had to repeatedly disconnect and reconnect the watch and restart the companion app on the watch, which was quite frustrating.
Following the recommendations mentioned previously, I installed the HeartCast app, and it has been working flawlessly. HeartCast transmits the Bluetooth signal, including the heart rate data, from my iPhone. Therefore, instead of using the companion app for connectivity to the Apple TV, I directly connect the trainer via Bluetooth. For the heart rate data, I select my phone as the source.
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Had same issues with Apple Watch Ultra not connecting HRM on companion iPhone 15 connecting to Zwift on PC windows 11.
Make sure you install latest companion app on Apple Watch. Not Zwift.
Reboot iphone, noticed Apple Watch app on iPhone wasn’t updating apps. After reboot of iPhone companion app installed.
Paired straight away and PC Zwift added HRM to ride connections.