Wahoo Element Mini
 

Just saw on their web page about the release of the mini..... $99 and comes with the speed sensor. Looks like a cool little unit but needs your phone on and paired if you want GPS as it doesn't have that built in.
It will store ride data that can be uploaded via your phone. Battery isn't rechargeable and uses a CR2450. They say it can last 12 months.
It would be a step up from my little Sigma.... :)

It reminds me of the RFLKT that I had before, but it sounds like an improvement in some ways. The hassle factor of opening the phone, finding the app and getting it all started was one of the things I wanted to get away from however.

For $99 it's a good deal. Not for me as I want routing and other features the Bolt offers but @ that price and with a speed sensor included, it's a great option for those who only need the basics.

I had a rflkt & returned it, too slow & unpredictable. I've had a Bolt for about a month now & zero problems.

On first glance I thought this was just an updated RFLKt, but according to DC Rainmaker it's more than that. Sounds like the delay & connectivity issues may be resolved. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/08/wahoo-elemnt-mini-in-depth-review.html

I agree though that I'm confused as to who the market for this is. Sounds like a solid unit but not sure who would need it.

The RFLKt was just a remote display for your phone nothing more. This can run without a phone if all you want are speed/cadence/distance/heart rate (note HR and cadence would require sensors). The phone just tacks on GPS track data if you want to see where you were when you sync to like STRAVA. So in that respect I would expect this to be more reliable and less finicky than the RFLKt since it can work right away and you do not need the phone if you just want the basics.

Personally, I would have rather seen it have a GPS chip and remove the included speed sensor to keep the price similar to what it currently is. Had they done that, it could have been a Garmin Edge 25 killer.

Without GPS it's an instant pass for me. I can see where it may appeal to a commuter, beginning cyclist or someone who just wants the bare bones though.

There are a couple of really good videos on YouTube that covers the Mini and gives pros and cons of the device. For the price, it's not a bad computer if you are the type of rider that doesn't need GPS on every ride but would like to have it on certain rides. It's cheaper than Garmin's least expensive unit, the Edge 25, and has a bigger and brighter screen. The advantage the Edge 25 has is that it does have built in GPS, even though you still need your phone in order to view the map while riding. Depending on how you look at it, that isn't really much of an advantage, you're just using a different GPS system to track your ride.

The one major drawback that I saw with it is that it will only work with Wahoo dual band sensors. And from the few videos I've seen of it, it won't work with their BlueSC, even though it's a dual band sensor. You need both the RPM Cadence and RPM Speed sensor (supplied with the unit) for it to work. From what I have seen, the Mini uses the Ant+ band to connect to the Mini and the BTLE band to connect to the phone. A plus is that it is just as easy to set up pages and data fields as the Bolt and Elemnt, but you can only have three data fields per page.

The Mini is not rechargeable and uses the same battery as the RFLKT, which Wahoo claims will last approximately 300 hours or about one year. It was the same claim they made with the RFLKT but if you ride more than the average cyclist, as I do, you'll be changing batteries much sooner. I get 2-3 months on a battery with my RFLKT.

For most riders that use/ride multiple bikes, and before the introduction of GPS cycling computers we would buy a bunch of inexpensive cycling computers, Cateye, etc.... install on separate bikes, maybe get the same model for each bike so the controls are the same, then setup each computer for that particular wheel and tire size. A nice Cateye wireless might run you $25, so I'd be spending about $125-150 to equip my 5 bikes. Maybe a bit more.

Or option B is to use a GPS unit that doesn't care about wheel and tire size, then and as a result of the GPS being more expensive, switch the GPS from bike to bike.

The Mini can use GPS if it's BT connected to a smart phone, but can also use a provided speed sensor. If you don't want to use the smartphone for GPS and have multiple bikes, you need to buy extra speed sensors @ $40 ea. For me it's now $100 for the Mini plus a sensor, plus another 4 sensors @ $40 ea., so $260 ?. Hopefully the Mini can tell what sensor it is paired to when you switch bikes, or do you have to tell the unit that you switched to a bike with 26" mt. bike tires ?.

I guess I could enable BT GPS, but does that run the phone battery down ?,

That starts to get pricy and at that point I'd rather just use a Bolt or Garmin.

None of the videos I watched mentioned multiple bikes, but if you wanted to use the Mini, on more than one bike, you would have to move the sensors from bike to bike, unless the phone app allows you to turn off each speed and cadence sensor with toggle. I have a BlueSC sensor on my bike and have two RPM sensors pared to my phone for when I ride my wife's trike. I have to turn off my BlueSC before turning on the RPM sensors or the phone app gets confused as to which sensor to use and ends up using none of them. Both the RPM sensors are easy to move from bike to bike since they don't need tie wraps to hold them in place. You should be able to change wheel size in the app, but I would verify that first.

The Mini does not have GPS, period. It connects to the sensors by Ant+, which is why you need the dual band sensors. It is basically a stand alone Ant+ computer. You do not need a phone connected to the Mini in order to use it. If it's connected to the phone, the phone app tracks the route using the phone's GPS and stores all the ride data. The phone app will also connect to the sensors via BTLE and use the data from the sensors to make the GPX file. When you send your ride to Strava or other site, via the phone, the complete GPX file is send, including the map and route. If you aren't going to use the phone to track your ride, the only reason to connect it is to change fields, add new pages and change parameters on the Mini.

As for the battery, if you don't keep the screen turned on, the battery should hold for up to 8 hours, depending on your phone. I can do a century without having to charge my iPhone SE that's connected to a speed cadence, heart rate and RFLKT sensor.

One of the nicest features of my Garmin 810 (and I assume other GPS units) is due to it using GPS, it doesn't care what bike you are using. All rides get tracked and instantly uploaded via BT. If I use a speed sensor, then I do need to go and switch to a particular bike profile that has that speed sensor, it won't detect and switch automatically, bui that setting is easy to get to, so quick enough.

Still, being able to easily swap between bikes and not have to futz with wheel sizes, etc... is useful to me. I do recall that a Cateye wireless unit I had also allowed 2 different wheel settings, bit I'm damned if I could ever remember how to do it.

I was excited until I realised that it needs your phone to work.

Guess I'll stick to the next size up (Garmin 500, Wahoo Bolt).

This is somewhat incorrect as the Mini does not need your phone to work. It's nothing more than a non-GPS, Ant+ cycling computer. You can use it with or without your phone. However, if you do want GPS capabilities and all the other neat stuff that some GPS computers do, you need to use the phone in order to track your ride. The phone does this independent from the Mini. Here's a YouTube video that may help you understand the way the Wahoo Elemnt Mini works.

OK Mr Smarty Pants, it doesn't need my phone to *work*. It does need my phone to do anything useful.

The drain on phone batteries is the main reason why I think a lot of the clever extras on the newer computers are not really that good.

I need (want) GPS.

The Garmin Edge 25 is almost perfect, but the battery life isn't long enough for some of the events I've done.

That was uncalled for.

I was going to say the same... The poster that was attacked simply stated the truth and facts and should not have been belittled for it.

Well I thought enough of it to order one. Should be here in a few days.... ordered it direct from Wahoo and got an email yesterday that it was shipped. I don't really need gps and what little I may need will be fine with my phone connected. I wanted a computer that I could track my rides plus the screens can be customized. I was about to buy another regular type of computer for almost as much. This came along so for $99 bucks with the speed sensor I figured I'd give it a try.

OK, it should have had a smiley on it, but clearly intended in a jovial way (use of playground language).

I'm guilty of a bit of 'mansplaining' myself, so getting ribbed a bit for some obvious 'mansplaining' is fair enough.

Calm down folks.

Awesome! We will need a full report from an actual user rather than a review that may/may not be biased on YouTube. My RFLKT, that I purchased in 2014, is starting to drop connections with my iPhone more often lately and I'm looking at changing it sometime soon. I really love the RFLKT and don't really want to get rid of it but ...... For me, the Mini would be no different than using my RFLKT except that I will loose data fields on my screen pages. The Mini is limited to three data fields while the main page on my RFLKT is set up for 6 but will hold 7 fields. The nice thing that I like about the Mini is that the GPS is totally independent from the computer so I can still use my favorite cycling app and will only need the Wahoo app to change settings on the Mini.

Ordered one today for my extra bike. I'll compare it to my Bolt after it arrives.

I wonder how hard the phone battery is going to get hit? I usually ride about 2 1/2 to 3 hours a day.

I think that totally depends on your phone and how old the phone is. I have an iPhone SE and I recently did a century ride with a friend, who's not that fast a rider, and the phone battery lasted me over eight hours. If I recall correctly, I had something like 35% battery life left at the end of the ride. I have a Wahoo BlueSC, Tickr, and RFLKT connected to the phone. On my daily 40-60 mile rides, I usually have 70-75% battery life left.

On thing you can do to extend your battery life is to go online and search for hacks for your specific phone. If you have an iPhone, turn off Notifications and Location Service for all the apps that you don't care if they know where you're at and don't care to be notified of anything. Force kill all your running apps except your cycling app before each ride and turn off WiFi. That will extend your battery life quite a bit.

+1 depends on the phone/OS/age etc. etc.

I discovered that Strava will work even when I turn my phone on airplane mode. It will still track the ride with GPS, but obviously won't have any map data or anything and won't upload until you reconnect to the network. That's useful for long rides when I know I'll be out of the coverage area; so my phone isn't using up juice looking for a signal.

No idea if that will work on the Wahoo app or not, but it's worth a try.

Still a little confused
 

So I don't need a phone to track my rides? But I need a phone to use GPS? Tracking rides and using GPS are two separate things?

Is the GPS primarily used for route directions?

Once the Mini is set up I don't need my phone to track speed, cadence, HR, and map my route? Is there a function for inclination or temperature?

Thanks

You will need phone with you if you want to see the tracked / mapped route of your ride. Without a phone, all you will get is speed and distance that is logged from the included sensor. If you have a compatible cadence and HR sensor then you will get that data as well without a phone.

Correct! There is no GPS receiver in the Mini so GPS route tracking is done with the phone app. Once you have set up your pages for the Mini using the Wahoo Elemnt app, you can use any BTLE compatible phone app you want to use. The only thing is that you will not be able to get text and phone call notifications on the Mini unless you are connected to the Wahoo Elemnt app, which can also do GPS tracking.

I'm thinking that folks are expecting this to be a small version of the Elemnt or Bolt but this isn't the case. As previously mentioned, it's nothing but an Ant+ cycling computer that does not require a phone for basic functions. But because the sensors are dual band, you can use the BTLE signals from the sensors to connect to your phone and use an app to do GPS tracking, live tracking, turn-by-turn, etc.

I got mine in the mail about an hour ago.... already opened a ticket with tech support. I probably should wait for them to respond before posting this just in case (I doubt it...) its me.
Very frustrating.... The problem I'm having is with customizing the pages of data I want to see. It came preset up with two basic pages and a couple fields and would work right out the box. But here is my issue:
I want to setup a new page with a couple different fields. So far so good. I save the page. But I want to go back in my page and delete one of the fields and add a new fields. Just like clock work EVERY TIME it deletes ALL pages and ALL fields and I'm left with a blank MINI with the prompt saying "No Pages" It deletes them off my MINI and the app. So I have to recreate all the pages (I have three) This has happened four times already.
I'll wait to hear back..... but obviously I'm a bit put out.

UPDATE: Brad from Wahoo just contacted me.... we will see.

UPDATE part 2: Brad says hes able to reproduce the issue following my instructions of how I was adding the pages... go me. So what this means I guess is this is an issue for anyone. I'll keep adding to this post.