Companion app Bluetooth pairing issues? [Android] [2022]

Bugs and Support
1

Are there any known problems with pairing via the Companion app at the moment?

There have been several threads in the past, with issues in those cases reported to be solved, but I have having fairly regular problems.

These aren’t solely with my Play controllers, I often find an issue with my HRM (Wahoo Tickr).

For example, today, Companion could see my HRM:

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But my Apple TV couldn’t see it:

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Other times the Apple TV might say it’s connected; but no HR is displayed:

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Or it might say there’s no signal:

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The HRM is paired (using ANT+) to my Garmin head unit at the same time, and that’s working fine.

Sometimes when I was on my PC and pairing over Companion, the PC would crash mid-ride. Then when I restarted the PC and Zwift, I couldn’t connect the Play controllers; or it would fine one but not the other:

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Restarting the controllers wouldn’t help.

In most cases, I couldn’t resolve it by closing Companion (even a force stop), but restarting my phone would usually help.

It just seems that Bluetooth pairing over Android might still be a bit unreliable, as I’ve had problems with two different platforms (Windows PC and Apple TV) and devices (Zwift Play and Wahoo Tickr).

So far I haven’t had any problems with my Neo connecting over Bluetooth though; that would be much more of a showstopper.

2

We’re taking a look.

1 Like
3

After yesterday’s ATV update, I could no longer direct connect to my TacX Neo 2, Zwift would could not find it searching. I was only able to connect to it through BT in the companion app. I restarted Zwift several times but it made no difference.

4

@Daren @Paul_Denison

We’d like you to try again and report back if the pairing behavior on Apple TV is back to normal. We disabled the new pairing wizard feature and would like to know if that’s made a difference to people who’ve reported pairing issues on the Apple TV in the past 2 - 3 weeks.

1 Like
5

@shooj
I posted on your new thread, the rollback fixed it for me. One suggestion, the radio button for selecting how you want to pair, BT or Phone, should offer both choices, it only lets me select what is there on game start up, maybe a drop down would work better. I mistakenly selected pair with phone and I could not get back to a screen to let me change it to pair with BT. I had to restart the game a couple of times to get back to where it offered me the option to select pair through BT.

6

When using Bluetooth - it’s an either / or situation. You can pair BLE natively to the device running Zwift, or bridge the BLE signals via the Companion app, but not both.

ANT+ muddies that situation with a lot of variables - IF your laptop has a USB ANT dongle, IF your smartphone supports ANT (which Apple never did, and most Android smartphones dropped ANT support years ago), etc. In the interest of a clean UI design, we’re focusing on the user experience for the vast majority of Zwifters who pair over Bluetooth.

7

Sorry, I haven’t had an opportunity to try this yet. It sounds hopeful though, and I’ll try to do my own test this evening or tomorrow.

8

Right, I understand that. I’m using an ATV. Some races don’t allow steering so I don’t turn on my players and just want to connect directly to Zwift with my Neo. Zwift seems to sometimes default to connect through the phone (only option available to click). It doesn’t give me an option to connect directly without a few restarts.

9

I wonder if you’re misunderstanding the Pairing screen options, which are certainly presented in a very confusing way IMHO.

When there’s a blue box saying “Pair With Phone”, that means you can hit that button/box to swap screens and then pair via your phone (Companion). It can easily be read as if it’s the title of the acreen you’re on but it’s the opposite - it’s a button to switch screens to then pair by phone.

So when you say the only option to click seems to be to pair via phone, I suspect that what’s really happening is you’re at the normal scteen to pair directly with the ATV - it just happens that this screen has a button to switch screens if you want to pair via phone.

10

Sorry to say this has not improved things for me.

I’m still having problems pairing both Play controllers and my Tickr at the same time.

Here are a few videos covering my experience. They’re all similar; variations of my trying different combinations to get things paired. 3rd one is probably the most useful though. The HRM was woken up at least a couple of minutes before I turned on the Apple TV etc.

Essentially it seems I can have any combination of two out of three items (Play L, Play R, Tickr).

I tried nRF Connect, but it wasn’t too helpful for me as I don’t know what to look for.

I could see that the unconnected Play controller was broadcasting (Not Bonded), but the connected one didn’t appear in the Bonded list anyway, despite working fine.

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Nor were my Tickr or Neo though, so I guess things paired through Companion don’t appear in this list anyway.

AppleTV 4K, Android 14 (Pixel 8 Pro)