Return to Home Feature [March 2021]

What's New? Zwift Game
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Hi Zwifters, some exciting news for you today.

Some of you eagle eyes noticed a little Easter egg in the latest game release. This Easter egg, an Exit Button on the home screen, was a nod to what we are slowly rolling out today: the Return to Home feature for PC and Mac platforms

If one session isn’t enough, the Return to Home feature will allow you to jump straight into your next activity. Or stop your current activity, discard it, and start your next one, without exiting the game.

This has been one of our longest-standing feature requests, and in an effort to better test new functionality roll outs, we’re evolving our feature deployment in a way that’s independent of a game client download. While we didn’t deploy this one perfectly, we are excited about additional capabilities to test features and functionality with smaller segments of our member base - this ensures better testing, better iteration, and a better final product for all Zwifters.

Now, back to the new feature…

We are rolling out Return to Home in phases. Today we are rolling out to Mac & Windows platforms. This feature will be released on iOS / Android / Apple TV at a future date.

How saving your session works:

Briefly: saving your session will return you to the Home screen. You will exit the Zwift app from the Home screen, or continue with the next session.
R2H_two

Discarding a session works the same way.
R2H_one

And lastly for that exit button… when you are ready to exit the game, you’ll find it in the lower left-hand corner of the Home screen
04_Home-Screen_Exit-Zwift_Confirm_720x405

If you end your sessions using the Zwift Companion app (for now - if the game app is running on PC or Mac), the Discard-then-Exit flow looks like this:

ZC_exit_3
ZC_exit_31399×909 233 KB

We broke this thread out specifically to discuss the new Return to Home feature, and solicit feedback on the feature. We feel it’s now an easier way to keep Zwifting, and we’re looking forward to your feedback!

Please see this Support Hub article. As this feature evolves over time, that article will be updated to reflect the latest changes.

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Christmas came early this year :partying_face:

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Nice! Just to note that I don’t seem to get the confirmation dialogue on the exit button as shown in the third gif above - it just closes. I didn’t actually do a ride though, so unsure if this plays a part.

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Good news :+1:

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The dialog will only appear if you press the ESC button while in the home screen. If you press the Exit button, you’ll exit without a confirmation since we’re going to assume you meant to press the Exit button. :slight_smile:

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Thanks for clarifying, makes sense. :+1:

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The Save dialogue now appears even with a ride shorter than the minimum distance (meaning you can hit save but it doesn’t actually save). I guess this is a necessity to prevent having an additional check and different screen within the flow.

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Oh wow, at this point I presumed we were just being perpetually trolled! This would have been clutch for achievement hunting and should make the new user experience much more enjoyable.

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What if I want to run after a ride (or vice-versa)? You know, the type of things Triathletes like to do from time to time… (basically, I have that need to be able to switch for one to the other after the pairing step is completed).

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Brief bit of testing (I picked a great time to break my trainer) and it works really nicely. This might be placebo but it also feels like the actual world loading happens faster than usual. Maybe this has been optimised at the same time.

I don’t actually see myself using this feature much because it doesn’t fit with how I use Zwift but it’s a major step forward in functionality that a lot of people will really appreciate. Good work!

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I’m quite sure that has always been an option, switching from bike to run in the pairing screen maybe? @Paul_Allen can explain better than me!

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Thank you!

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Does “End Ride” still work the same way regarding image uploads? There aren’t any shown in the GIF.

If it does, and we do multiple activities, does each one get its own set of taken-within-this-activity images to choose from?

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Kudos to everyone at Zwift who contributed to this feature! Take the rest of the day off!

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Hurray! Just posted about it: “Return to Home” Feature Rolls Out | Zwift Insider

Includes a quick demo video: Zwift's new "Return to Home" feature - YouTube

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Progress, well done… First of many requested features hopefully.

Now question, does this impact racing and entering a Race and leaving the pen early to warm up whilst keeping your grid position? Or does this fix\remove that what I presume was a bug originally.

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image
image1066×632 113 KB

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Yes, it gives you the same photo picker, as long as you ride at least 2km. And it seems to only show pics from the current activity!

(And there was much rejoicing!)

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Hallelujah!

Bet it feels good to put that one to bed.

Would love to hear more about the new feature deployment/beta/testing process. Will people be picked at random, or is it possible to join a beta program? How does this work exactly? Are certain elements moved to the cloud and synced to the client?