I’d like to propose a new social feature for group rides: a shared music queue that allows riders to enjoy music together during an event.
The idea is to let participants connect their preferred music app (e.g. Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer) through the Zwift Companion App and join a synchronized listening party. Each rider would stream music from their own account, but the playlist would be shared — think of it as a group queue.
To keep things smooth and avoid misuse (e.g. trolling tracks), Zwift could introduce a simple voting system to elect 1–2 queue moderators for the session. These moderators could curate the playlist, accept or skip songs, or even allow limited song suggestions from others.
This feature could really enhance the group ride experience — like riding with friends in real life and sharing your favorite beats.
Bonus ideas:
Playlist themes based on ride type or intensity
Emojis or reactions to songs in real time
Would love to hear what others think — and whether this might be something Zwift could explore!
I have seen a lot of people riding with those bone conducting headphones that will keep the ability to hear your surroundings and still banter. So even in real life you can choose to have both.
Just want to clarify because my original post didn’t reflect it: This Idea was born out of a longer zone 2 group ride in Zwift. I don’t think anyone sits for 3+ hours on their Zwift setup without listening to something.
Had it multiple times that I was chatting with other people over the companion app about what music we were listening to at the moment. Found myself “curating” some sort of shared queue manually for myself based on what others were listening (and the fellow group riders told me they were doing similar).
It was such a nice community feel and made the time so much more enjoyable, because music is something people are passionate about and I am certain it would add a lot of good community interaction.
I was on that ride with Michael, and I second his feature request and the sense of community that he felt. Being able to share music with each other would be great. Some people were talking about bands I had never heard of before, while others were talking about some of my favorites. Given that we all have different backgrounds and come from different places, it would be a very enriching experience.
This would be a good solution for group riders who are part of a club or know each other already.
Two Problems with that:
I think Zwift Community Feel is not only coming from riding in your clubs and/or groups you might all already know. I’m not even sure if sending a discord or spotify invite link into public chat is allowed. And for me personally clicking on links from strangers is the fastest road into getting scammed or shady stuff. That’s why I wouldn’t want to share links either
By going over to Discord you would direct people away from Zwift itself. Personally I wouldn’t have a problem with that (as I apparently can also write in the forums while riding ) but for most users simplifying stuff and making it easier to stay in game with all its awesome features should be the way to go. Most people who are chatty have the companion app anyway…
For example I find the reloading time to the current session in Companion already as it is annoying. Now when I have to go to a different app to do stuff and then jump back and forth this increases this by a lot.
Then a media control panel with a shared queue or something to that style would be way better
The Trick is that you or in this case the Zwift implementation is not the one actually sharing the music.
The implementation would only be using well established APIs to the streaming service of the users choice (like Spotify, Apple music).
They take care of the copyright, music licenses, age restrictions, local restrictions, etc.
That’s how Discord does it as well btw.
Its basically a glorifierd Audio remote control that makes sure everyone is listening (if available) to the same thing at the same time.
There are plenty of services (like aforementioned Discord) who use those APIs for exact stuff like that.
Another example would be how those smart speakers connect to your streaming service. (They are running the application on their speakers as well. But from their app you can completely control the “media player”). So in our case the actual streaming would still need a music app installed and running by the user (and on his preferred device. Wouldn’t be the one that is running Zwift). But I think the reality is that most people nowadays have a streaming service subscription anyways…
If a user has a paid Spotify or Apple Music subscription, and they are sharing their audio stream over the internet, is that a violation of EULA for that service?
I’m not sure, but it sure seems like it would be.
There is no sharing of an audio stream through Zwift.
The API of Spotify for example just gives you the name of what you are streaming and were you are at in the stream. It also gives you the ability to play, pause, skip, jump to a track, put something in the queue as commands to control the stream between Spotify and their user that gave you API Access connected Spotify to your service.
I’m not talking about running a stream through the Zwift App. I’m talking about controlling your already existing stream between you and the streaming provider. Not routing any of that through Zwift. All the licensed music is between the User and the streaming service.
Regarding EULA:
That is an interesting point and comes down to the streaming service we are talking about.
Regarding Spotify this is my understanding of the Spotify Developer ToS, Policy and Guidelines:
Each user must connect their own Spotify Premium account via OAuth.
Apps can only control playback on the user’s own device using Spotify’s API.
Group music features are fine as long as everyone plays the music individually through their own Spotify session.
Shared playlists or voting systems are okay, but each user must stream personally.
Using Spotify’s Web API or Playback SDK is allowed with proper user consent.
Of course I know there is a lot of compliance work behind this feature request but I don’t think it’s something outrageously new. Features like this exist plenty especially those that are directly integrated with for example Spotify and they don’t seem to break EULA either.
If you have a different understanding of EULA in that regard I am happy to hear about it
That happens all the time, though in my experience most ride leaders share a Spotify playlist name and tell people to search for it (eg, “Escape Collective Zwift Ride”).
