Will Zwift work on the new Chromecast with Google TV?

Any ideas if the Android Zwift App will run on the new Chromecast with Google TV that’s getting released this week? I currently use an Apple TV 4th gen purely to run Zwift on my TV.

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The rumor is that the new Chromecast will be a 32-bit OS. The available versions of Zwift for Android seem to be arm64-v8a only. So most likely it will not run.

For what it’s worth, even on a compatible Android TV device, it’s a pain. You can install Zwift on an Nvidia Shield TV… but not through the Play Store. Which means you need to sideload not just the APK but the OBB file (which the easiest way to do is transfer from a phone). And you have to manually update the OBB for every update. Then, because Zwift doesn’t have an Android TV banner, you have to go to the settings menu to open the app. Or you need to create an Android TV shortcut app, that will at least make it seamless to launch.

Then, once you launch the app, you need a mouse to navigate. Or if you don’t have a USB port or don’t want to plug in a mouse, you need to use the Shield TV remote app on your phone as a touchpad to navigate. But then eventually once you’ve used the mouse to navigate, it should work (but to be honest I ended up giving up and switching to my PC instead of dealing with all of this so I’ve never tested it myself).

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Thanks for the info :+1:t2:

Wow, didn’t realise there were that many hoops you need to jump through to even get it working on the Shield :slightly_frowning_face:.

Think I’ll just stick to using the Apple TV.

Trevor, what Joe says above is all true but it’s not so much of a headache and it’s all caused unnecessarily by Zwift.inc.

I run Zwift on my SHIELD. Ok it’s sideloaded but I use the APKPure app and repository which has taken care of the last two Zwift updates automatically and I use TV Apps Drawer to launch Zwift. I also use a compatible gamepad (actually the SHIELD game controller in my case but others can be paired - even PS4 with the touchpad I believe). Natively the SHIELD supports BLE but is dead easy to set up for an ANT+ USB dongle. Currently I mostly use ANT+ for my Garmin watch HR and the power and cadence sensors on my smart trainer but use BLE for controlling my smart trainer resistance because Zwift doesn’t yet support ANT+ FE-C in the mobile apps (Apple or Android). When FE-C is supported I’ll kick BLE to the kerb completely. The Zwift companion app on my phone works just fine and maintains the social element close to hand.

In short, the SHIELD runs Zwift really well (I prove it twice every day and the graphics are really good even on a 50" TV!) and there really wouldn’t be much work needed to make it fully supported - I just wish Zwift.inc would JDI and that would get rid of the sideload and banner issues.

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I would guess (educated guess though!) that Google TV will install anything from the Google play store which includes Zwift. I do this already to my Samsung galaxy S10 Android phone and it works great. As long as the hardware is capable I doubt Google would make us jump through hoops. Fingers crossed!

Really annoying that Zwift hasn’t updated the app to work natively on Google TV, not only is this a Smart TV OS is also widely used on Dongles and Boxes to update old TV sets. You can buy a simple TV w/ Android/Google TV and be done with it

So, can anyone confirm whether Zwift works with Chromecast with Google TV?

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As mentioned, the Chromecast with Google TV only runs ARMv7 (32-bit), and Zwift is only available in ARMv8 (64-bit). So no.

Chromecast will not work to cast zwift to the TV, but you can install google home on your phone to mirror the app to your tv. Of course mirroring is not as convenient because you will have to move the zwift screen out of the way to use any other function on your phone. I need to hit the side button on my samsung s20 I can switch screens on to text or look at the companion app then I can swipe back to the zwift screen and it continues to run the whole time.