I did my first Zwift ride in aaaages last night, an organised group ride and didn’t really enjoy it - too much gamification and I don’t get the messaging system and UI, you are supposed to ride and type/click on stuff at the same time?
I’d really like a virtual riding environment where I can arrange to ride with friends and there’s automatic zoom-style voice comms. In Quest VR apps you can talk to people who are “physically” close to you - and also make a setting so that you can talk to your friends, but other, non-friend, voices are garbled by the app. Something like that would be perfect for virtual group rides.
So… before I quit my job and create a start-up to do this myself, does something like this already exist?
Quite a few people use a discord server but I’ve never managed to be able to listen to my own tunage (using wireless earbuds) while also keeping a voice chat open.
Edit: also, there’s a new kid in town, indieVelo that is in beta development, currently free though you are welcome to financially support it. The developers are VERY responsive to suggestions for improvements and features and such.
@gwydion Some Zwift group events or teams promote the use of Discord to (optionally) have the ability to have a voice channel (and/or chat) going during an event. This means you need to install Discord on your phone or PC, have a Discord account (free), learn how to used the blessed thing (it’s not super straight forward but lots of help out there), probably pair a headphone to the PC or phone, and THEN ALSO discover that information for the event/team (what Discord Server to join to get into the voice channel(s)). It’s a lot of parts to bring together to execute it.
Many years back, I first created a Discord account for the KISS series on Zwift. It was OK. For larger events, except for ride leaders, you should set yourself up for push-to-talk, so that your mic isn’t hot all the time.
If you like to meet up on Zwift with friends, you should be able to find a Discord server where you can all join on a smaller sub-channel and just talk amongst yourselves. Something you have to coordinate on your own I believe.
Of course you could do your own thing with friends via Zoom, or MS Teams or Facetime, or whatever as well.
There are so many THOUSANDS on Zwift at any one time, I doubt that Zwift will ever incorporate voice into the app, especially since the hard core folks have been doing it via Discord or other avenues for years now.
Thanks, yeah I’ve done a zwift ride in the past with a WhatsApp voice call running in the background, that’s fine. Just surprised that it’s not more integrated in the ride app itself so that you can have a chat with the people around you, just the 3-4 closest to you, like a real ride.
