I might have jumped the gun here a bit.
Last couple of rides i’ve had loads of drop outs again. Might have to go back to using the bluetooth dongle which is a bit annoying.
Zwift Play controllers on the latest firmware, Kicker Core on the latest firmware. Everything has been working for about a month. Last night, after I finished a workout where the intensity adjustment worked, I had no shifting or gear display.
Today, while just riding around I also have no shifting. I’ve tried with the companion app and bluetooth and neither works. Also tried restarting and rebooting. Steering, menu, braking and ride bombs all work. If I start a workout, the intensity adjustment works. It’s just shifting that’s absent. Luckily I left my cassette on, so I could at least do my ride.
Disregard, unplugged and rebooted everything…again and shifting works now. Who knows. 
Yesterday I had another issue that I’ve experienced before. The power was registering super low, so much so that I switched to the highest, 24th, gear, stomping on the pedals and still only registering like 150 watts when it probably should have been 400-600 watts. Finally, unplugging the Zwift Hub and powering it back on came back online registering the power correctly. I think I’ve seen this one other time but I can’t remember if it ever happened before getting the Play controllers.
Zwift Play Controllers will not connect after controller update to 1.3
When in the search screen both controllers show up with bluetooth strength at 5 bars. After closing the “search” screen and returning to the pairing screen, the controller section stays orange and says “connecting”. It never connects and turns blue. I have restarted the computer a couple times, the controllers are fully charged, and even hooked up to a power source. Very frustrating
I recently purchased the Play Controllers and posting here because things didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped. The first issue (at least I think it was an issue) was the older BlueTooth USB adapter struggled connecting to multiple devices so I replaced with a new TP Link device that supports 5.3 and put it on an extender attached to the bottom of my Wahoo desk, placing it within a few feet of the Play Controllers. This appears to have helped, but I found that it takes 3-5 minutes for them to actually connect and stay connected. In the pairing screen, the controllers would bounce back and forth between the orange connecting and the blue connected box. Then after several minutes, they would settle down and I’d be OK. I saw here that there’s been a new firmware which I did just install and they now connect right away. Fingers cross that the connection is more stable. I’ll post back letting all know today’s ride goes.
… Update … 3/15/2024 …
For today’s ride, pairing was almost immediate. The controllers connected right away and stayed connected throughout the 90 minute ride. I’m happy to report that there were no issues during the ride.
On a side note, in the companion app, one must wait between ride-on bombs. Holding the z button on the controller drops ride-on bombs. I can now drop 2x the ride-on bombs than before 
A solution that works for me (a Windows user of Zwift)… perhaps similar to Glen’s
I had terrible frequent disconnection issues with my play controllers but I wondered if the USB receiver in my computer might not as capable as what the Play controllers use. I purchased the following and after installing and many rides and miles later I have not had a single disconnect since. I had Bluetooth 4.x in the PC at it came from the manufacturer but now with this I have Bluetooth 5.3. It says it’s for Windows so I don’t have a similar answer for Mac users.
TP-Link USB Bluetooth Adapter Bluetooth 5.0/5.3 Dongle Receiver (UB500)
Follow installation instructions and disable existing internal Bluetooth function before attaching and installing UB500 and downloading/installing their driver software for the device.
I can’t insert url’s but it seems you can go to Amazon and search for: B09DMP6T22
Hope this is helpful for others.
David
For Mac the addon dongles for Bluetooth won’t work. You can only use the MacOS supported ones, which are limited to what Apple builds into their machines.
This is Apple being intentionally nasty, just as they refuse to support newer than RX6900 GPUs for Intel Macs.
The latest @zwiftalizer video explains how to get macOS to prefer the dongle
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this also explains what you need to do to use the dongle on MacOS
Excellent - I will try that.
I successfully updated to version 1.3.0 last week. Now both controllers do not work. Zwift recognizes them (recognizable also by the symbol while riding) and the controllers also light up blue. Even after switching the controllers off and on several times, they do not work. I use Win 10 and internal BT-Connection.
Hello @Ge_Ka, welcome to the forums. Are you still experiencing this issue on the latest version of Zwift? Your most recent activity appears to show recorded button presses on the Zwift Play. If you are still having issues, could you confirm what the Controls tile in the Paired Devices screen shows for your Play controllers? (e.g. Does it show battery level for each device? Does it say “Connected”?)
Now it seems to work. I unpaired both controllers from my Win10-device and paired it again (in Win system settings). But sometimes it takes a long time for the controllers to be found/connected within the app.
I love the ZWIFT play. Bought it as a “stupid gadget” but it ends up being super useful for choosing route direction, controlling intensity during workouts and when you have a kickr v6 you can even stop shifting with your “real gears” and completely use the virtual shifting as if you had a ZWIFT COG which is amazing!!!
however I had some connection issues yesterday that even after a restart wouldn’t go away.
I uploaded a screen recording here that shows the flickering, somehow can’t include a link though in this post: youtube /shorts/vndZIrm03fE?feature=share
This morning it’s gone but I couldn’t fix it last night and was wondering if anyone knows what the bug was and how to go around it. It kinda negatively effected my workout last night…
I haven’t installed the latest firmware (for obvious reasons) but with the update before that (February 2024) and one of the Zwift updates, the connection is way more stable than it was with the October 2023 update. It took you guys a lot of time but I think you did a good job. Still not as stable as before the October update (where I had a connection drop maybe once a month), with a drop out of one of the controllers every 20-30 minutes, but vastly improved from what we got between October and February.
Ive just encountered what you guys have been talking about. I’ve used mine maybe a dozen times and have always worked but today noticed they were constantly connecting and disconnecting.
Also in the brief periods they where connected if i went to shift a gear it would move through the entire gear range until the end.
Had to turn it off and use the Click i luckily had otherwise my kickr with the hub would be useless.
Disregard. Just found the firmware update and seem better now. Wish i knew that before the race i just finished.
Which firmware? I too have the issue, they just keep connecting and disconnecting on the devices screen. If I start riding it’ll go through all the gears or drop out completely. I’m using Zwift on an iPad. Software on both iPad and Zwift app are up to date. Really annoying issue, I’m ready to throw them in the bin.
You should contact Zwift support and troubleshoot it with them.