On Friday July 14the I Zwifted and used my Play controllers without issue. Saturday July 15 (2023) I opened the companion app on my phone and saw that there was a firmware update available for the Play controllers. So in the afternoon before my Zwift session I updated the firmware on the controllers. Now only one controller will work in game. I paired both controllers, but the game only seems to respond or recognize whichever controller was paired up first. I know this from attempting to troubleshoot it.
I am running Zwift on a Samsung Galazy S7 tablet with Android 13 and all software and apps are up to date.
I am convinced that Zwift needs to hire more competent Android programmers. I’ve experienced about a 50% fail rate on your frimware updates - where a new update causes some considerable gameplay troubles.
ZWIFT, PLEASE ROLL BACK THE PLAY FIRMWARE TO IT’S PREVIOUS VERSION, AS YOUR LATEST RELEASE DOES NOT WORK ON ANDROID!
How do you repeatedly release firmware without testing it and verifying that it functions properly???
Same here, my Zwift Play controllers received (delivered) 19 June, todays update crashed and RH unit would not switch off (orange light) now totally dead. These never worked properly from the get go, crashing virtually every ride and RH unit forever dropping out. Today is 17th July, less than a month after receipt, yet the interface won’t allow me to return as the order expedition date was 15 June. I stopped using the units after the first week because of the crashes, and now they are good for the bin!
As I stated in my original post, the firmware was updated on Saturday morning to the latest and not so great version. According to the companion app, I have firmware 1.1.1
I tried to update my Play controllers through the companion app. My phone lost connection, but the left controller’s light stayed on orange and the right controller flashed blue. I could not get the controllers to connect again so that I could continue the update. I tried to switch off the left controller, but it would not switch off. I held in the start button for 1 minute and then it switched off, but now I cannot get it to start again. It does nothing when I press the start button and the light doesn’t come on. The batteries are fully charged. When I plug in the charger it also does nothing and the light still does not come on. Please assist in how to switch on the left controller again.
Shuji at Zwift HQ here. Not all the symptoms in this thread point to the same root causes. For one-on-one assistance, please contact my Support Colleagues to work through your issue.
@Trevor_Holdsworth_AS in your case, please try the following and let us know if this resolves it? It sounds like your controller is hanging in a state where this steps may help.
I am still using firmware 1.1.0 and the play controllers are working perfect. Are there any new features in the new firmware? Is zwift publishing release notes of the firmware? In my opinion you shouldn’t fix hardware if it ain’t broken.
I gave up on the Zwift Play controllers and threw them in the garbage bin a few months ago. I was an early adopter, I bought the controllers right after they were announced and in beta form. Over the course of roughly one year of use, I had both controllers replaced 3 times each due to complete failure of the controller(s).
The failure modes I experienced fell into two categories:
A controller would start applying the brake in game, and a calibration would not correct the issue. When the controller applies the brakes due to an internal failure, then you cannot ride in game.
The second form of failure was a power switch failure. Upon finishing a ride, the power button would not turn off the controller. The controller would not power off on its own, as it should, so it would stay on until the battery died. The next day I would plug the controller in to recharge it, but the power button was dead and the controller could not be powered on.
These 2 failure modes happened to me on 8 separate Zwift Play controllers: the 2 I originally purchased, and 3 replacement units for each controller. After the last failure, I threw my hands up and realized that these controllers simply are not well made. I’m guessing Zwift chose low price over quality when they selected the supplier who manufactures these controllers.
My final parting words are that I would strongly advise Zwift users to NOT spend their money on the Zwift Play. While they do have nice functionality, the failure rate is so high that they simply are not worth buying in the first place.
Everyone will have their own experience with Zwift Play. That experience will be affected by the usage rate. I use Zwift 10-20 hours per week for the 6 cooler months of the year, and easily 5-10 hours per week the other 6 months of the year (keeping the streak going for bonus XP). @Rich You state that “I’ve had pretty much zero problems since getting them”. Zero means zero, anything else is not zero. “Pretty much zero”, “almost zero”, “nearly zero” all mean not zero. So while you may have had better luck with your Play controllers, I think anyone in my shoes who had 8 controllers fail would come to the same conclusion I have: people should not buy these, as they likely will fail and disappoint you.
Only issues I’ve had are the odd time one of them wouldn’t connect or random disconnects, but one never had a faulty controller that needed to be returned, the fact you’ve time thru that many to me puts you as an anomaly
