Extremely short battery life of Zwift RunPod

Running
21

Hi Michael, apologies for the length of this post. I am convinced this is not a battery issue. We have two Runpods in our household. Mine (in appearance) needs constant battery change. I have also removed the battery and re-inserted it and only on one occasion this helped the Avatar move. My husband’s runpod never an issue. Both runpods were bought, received and are used at the same time, so we would expect to see almost identical behaviour and battery drain. We recently contacted Zwift support and asked ‘how do we tell if the battery level is low’…and this is their response. ‘Thanks for contacting Zwift support. I’d be glad to help you with determining the battery level of your RunPod. If you tap the RunPod the color of light will indicate the battery level. If the light is:

  • Green - 60 to 100% full
  • Orange - 30 to 60% full
  • Red - <30% full
    Please reach back out to us if there is anything else we can help you with.’

My runpod flashes green, pairs and looks like it is properly connected but then the Avatar doesn’t move. So, I change it to a new battery (adding it to the ever growing stack of ‘supposed’ dead batteries) and then my Avatar moves. The other day my HRM required a new battery (shows in their app plus does not pair/connect if battery is below 10%). So I used one of the ‘supposed’ dead batteries which had been sat on a shelf since last year August in the HRM and it displayed 97% battery level. Incidentally, one of these supposed dead batteries has been working fine in my husband’s runpod for ages. Oh also, my husband’s runpod flashed red about 4 runs ago and his Avatar still continues to move on every occasion…and he receives an email from Zwift telling him that his battery is low (I have never received this email). We have no idea how he got on this email listing. From a user request point of view it would be helpful to be able to see the battery level either in the companion app or game itself…or a firmware update to fix these faulty runpods.

3 Likes
22

Run Pod Runners. I may have a suggestion. I have been having similar issues. Short precevied battery life aka green indicator but poor syncing with Apple OS (latest on Iphone 8). After reading this while troubleshooting a poor Bluetooth sync ( It says its synced but does not track steps/strides) I was about to replace battery again but then noticed the battery door was not flush to the pod. If I pushed on the door there was a bit of spring to it so it was not completely closed tight. I re closed it and my Pod was able to sync and record steps/strides again. I remove the Pod each time after running so that it can rest and not wake up. It is possible that running, removing pod from sneaker or not closing the battery door is the culprit, the battery door was closed enough to give the pod power/initial sync but not enough to record steps/stride or that the play in the door was negating the step/stride tracker some how. Either way check your physical connection and seal around the battery door, resealing it solved this issue for me today.

1 Like
23

Same issue here. It doesn’t matter what kind of battery brand I use. I experience this issue the last few months…

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