I can get my sensors to work fine with the Zwift app on my Samsung Galaxy S8, but not when pairing the same sensors using the Companion app (and using Zwift on a PC). Has anyone else seen or had similar issues?
I’ve worked through my previous issues with ANT+ sensors connecting to Zwift running on my Samsung Galaxy S8 by purchasing a 4iiii Heart Rate Monitor (and bluetooth bridge). I’ve paired my ANT+ speed/cadence sensor to the HR monitor, and have been using both with Zwift fairly well for 4-5 weeks now.
When trying to use the same sensors via Zwift on a PC, but connecting the sensors through the Companion app on the same phone that runs Zwift just fine, it doesn’t see all the sensors. It sees the HR monitor, and the cadence portion of the speed/cadence sensor, but not the speed sensor. Obviously that’s a non-starter (and that little squirrel constantly popping up telling me to enable bluetooth while trying to debug the Companion app is a little annoying, but that’s beside the point!).
Is there a difference in setup for the Zwift app vs the Companion app when talking to BT sensors on android?
Maybe specifically ANT+ to BT bridges?
Or even specifically ANT+ to BT bridges with multiple sensor types in a single device?
Have you tried unpairing the sensors from the Zwift app on your phone and making sure that the Zwift app on your phone is closed properly (maybe restart the phone) before trying to get it to connect to the PC?
I did fully close out (and force stop) the Zwift app before switching over to Companion, but I did not restart the phone. I can try it, but seems unlikely.
Doesn’t seem to make sense it’d pick up 2 of the 3 sensors coming out of the same bluetooth bridge, regardless.
Tried that and it still seems like there’s some difference between the two apps. All sensors are detected via bluetooth on the main Zwift app, but using Zwift Companion with a PC running Zwift does not detect the speed sensor.
It does not. I already have a workaround in that I currently run Zwift on my phone and cast to a Chromecast on a bigger screen. Not as ideal since the video stutters more than I’d imagine it would if the PC was connected to the screen, but works ok enough for now. There just seem to be a lot of these “non-ideals” that just work ok.
I was mostly just checking to see if others had similar issues, or even if a Zwift rep could just confirm or deny that it works. I understand they’re likely a small team and spread thin right now, but even just a “yes, that’s a known bug and we’re not sure what release a fix will be in” or a “that feature just does not work on Android, yet” would be fine. But I didn’t get a response to my support email either (for similar reasons, I imagine). Oh well.
I don’t know why they don’t just add their ANT+ implementation from the main Zwift app on Android into the companion App, and enable the possibility of “Bridging” your phones ANT+ connectivity to your sensors. That would remove the need for getting an ANT+ dongle for your laptop, and remove the flaky BLE connectivity issues that Bluetooth seems to have.
Chromecast introduces a significant lag to the video signal from the laptop to the screen. If you’ve ever given a Powerpoint presentation over Chromecast, you’ll know it takes few seconds after you click the button before the next slide appears.
Chromecast works great to view a predictably linear data stream that’s buffered 30 seconds ahead of time (e.g. watching Netflix). It’s not as great for uses like Zwift, when data changes in real time second by second.
Yeah, the chromecast isn’t perfect, but I already had it and I’m trying to invest minimally in getting this to work. Features advertised to work that don’t seem to don’t really give me enough confidence to want to invest a bunch of money in this beyond what I already have…just to potentially have IT also not work, you know? I find it funny that a question in the Android-specific forum generates a lot of “but have you tried not using Android?”-type answers, haha!
As I said, it works fine enough for now to get my workouts in. The drop-outs to the chromecast are more annoying than any lag, really (I actually haven’t noticed a huge lag on my setup).
I’m more curious about a feature that SHOULD work, that isn’t. Even if the answer is “that doesn’t work, here are the workarounds until it does”, that’s fine. I’m a developer and know how it goes.
I’ve found Chromecast to be pretty good, I’m using cast desktop from chrome on my PC to a standard Chromecast in my garage. I get slight compression and a delay somewhere between 500ms and 1second. For zwift it’s not a really issue