The Deferred Update feature is now available with Zwift Launcher v1.1.10 for PC and macOS! Download today to try the Defer Update feature during next week’s phased rollout of Zwift 1.47.
The use case for Deferred Updates:
It’s 9:57am and I’m in a hurry to join a 10:00am race.
I put my cleats on and grab my water bottle, jump on my bike, open up my laptop, and open Zwift.
Zwift tells me that it has a new update available, and it gives me the option to update later.
Because I’m in a hurry, I click “Update Later”, drop right into the game like usual, do my race, and I’m happy.
When I wrap up, I exit Zwift, and the update is automatically staged and applied.
The next day, I open Zwift a second time, and I’m in a hurry again. But since Zwift already applied the update when I exited the game the first time, I dropped right into the game and made it to my race in time.
What’s required:
A PC or Mac to run the Zwift game app.
Launcher app v 1.1.10 (download here) Note: You must be logged in to the Launcher app in order to see the “Update Later” button.
We’ve been working hard to add useful features into the Zwift Launcher app. If you’re on a version older than v1.1.9 (here’s how to check) - download and manually install the latest version. It’s important that you start Zwift using the ZwiftLauncher file (and not the ZwiftApp file) in order to receive automatic updates.
Q: What about iOS / tvOS / Android users?
A: These OS platforms don’t force a game update like Windows and macOS. Individuals can already opt out of auto-updates in App Store settings for iOS / tvOS / Android at the cost of missing improvements if they don’t update manually.
Someone in one of the FB groups raised a possible issue with this. The people who are most likely to defer updates are the ones who complain about it taking an hour to update. Those people also may be the types to turn off their laptop as soon as they are done with their ride, and since they have excessively slow systems the update won’t get applied. Would it be worth adding a maximum number of update deferrals (e.g. no more than twice), and/or a constraint based on how many versions behind they are (e.g. if they’re on 1.46 and deferring when 1.47 is out, force an update once 1.48 is released), to prevent fragmentation?
I’d say it completes upon exit. I believe that during the activity it continues to do the downloading which is the time consuming part and then completes as you exit.
It shouldn’t, but this entire use case is built around people with inadequate hardware, unreasonable expectations, and poor update management procedures.
I seem to recall seeing that there is a facility to pause Zwift updates. It seems whenever I’m in a rush to get to a ride, there is an update! Did I imagine this pause facility? If not, how / where do I find it? I logged on this morning only to get yet another update and i could not see any pause option. I run Zwift on windows 11 tablet. Any advice welcome, thanks
The Deferred Update feature is now available with Zwift Launcher v1.1.10 for PC and macOS. You should be able to benefit from it when you have Zwift 1.47, which started its phased roll-out less than 24 hours ago. If that’s what you updated to today, then you should see the the optional deferral the next time an update is available.
@calfzilla
Periodically, we push updates of the launcher app itself so we don’t have some Zwifters using outdated versions of the launcher.
We monitor performance metrics, and at a certain point we’ll trigger the automatic update of the launcher app from the server end so Zwifters no longer have to download and install it manually. This will be coming soon because all PC and Mac users should have the option to use the Defer Update button if they want to.
