I’ve been having some difficulties connecting my wahoo kickr (v5) to my iPad Pro in the zwift app. Tried connecting to zwift through the iPhone app and it works flawlessly so I don’t really know what the issue is. The wahoo is not connected to the iPad in the Bluetooth settings (I tried before and it didn’t work and other people said not to do that). I’ve tried resetting the app, restarting the iPad, disconnecting from my phone, disconnecting from the wahoo app. Nothing seems to work.
You are correct - you want to avoid pairing the trainer’s Bluetooth signal to the iPad as you would a pair of Bluetooth earbuds. Instead, you want to pair the signal to the Zwift app.
Since most Bluetooth devices create a 1:1 connection, you should check if some other app (or device) is stealing the signal from your iPad. For example - is it already connected with the Zwift app on your iPhone?
Is there another app (Garmin Connect / Element / Strava / etc) running on one of your devices that’s stealing the signal?