Cheese Head

https://www.wahoofitness.com/

Wahoo?s new GPS bike computer?ELEMNT: Hands-on first look | DC Rainmaker

Will this be able to compete with Garmin's computers? I have been considering purchasing a dedicated bike computer. I have been using my phone which has worked fine but I have thought about stepping up to a bike computer. The more I research the Garmin options the more I read about bugs, crashes, bad customer service ect. There really doesn't seem to be any competition with Garmin though. Until now (maybe). THe link to dcrainmakers review has a lot of Garmin users looking to jump ship to try this Wahoo Elemnt. The responses from Wahoo in the comment section is definitely refreshing and somewhat reassuring that if there are issues with the Elemnt that Wahoo would actually stand behind their product. Something I haven't read too much of from Garmin.

Has anyone else looked into the Elemnt yet as a serious contender to Garmins options?

Seattle Forrest

Garmin actually has pretty good customer service, but some of their products have historically been buggy and occasionally prone to crashing. You wouldn't know it from reading the specs on the box or even from a DCR review. (In fact one of Garmin's new offerings has been poorly received due to bad GPS quality and the in depth review said nothing about this.) So it's really too early to say about the new Wahoo unit.

HkC01

I don't know how it'll compete with a garmin as I've never had a one, but I ordered the elemnt sight unseen and will post anything interesting when it's released.

What works for me is that it covers a lot of needs - take my route from ridewithgps, provide turns, record my data (replaying the ride on a kickr is a plus,) get phone notifications, and export/import easily to Cyclemeter. Will be good if it works as advertised.

John_V 

I read a few reviews on the Elemnt and it looks like a very promising GPS computer. I really like Wahoo products as I am using their RFLKT+. For what they are saying it does, the price is a very good selling point. Apple has a long standing reputation of not making any of their products backward compatible when it comes to their hardware. I hope that they don't leave us BlueTooth users stranded when the next latest and greatest version of BlueTooth comes out. If so, I'll be looking at the Elemnt and the Garmin line a lot closer.

Cheese Head

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

largefarva

This past weekend I was having some issues with my Garmin Edge 500 and Garmin Connect uploading my ride information to Strava and started to read reviews on Amazon about the Edge 520. One person who wrote a review mentioned the Elemnt and it peaked my interest since I currently use the blue speed & cadence sensor by Wahoo. So I looked it up and read DC Rainmakers review and a few other places about the Elemnt....and I have to say that I'm definitely interested in it when my Edge 500 goes tits-up. I have zero interest in a color screen that you can barely see in sunlight (i.e. any of the newer Garmin units) and I've been very underwhelmed by what I've read about anything newer than the Edge 500 from Garmin anyway. I was surprised to see that there wasn't any discussion of the Elemnt here....well until now. So I plan on keeping an eye on this thread for sure.

trainsktg

?? The Garmin 520 color screen is highly visible in bright sunlight. It's not buggy either, at least not in these first few weeks that I've been using it.

Keith

gracehowler

The big question is whether or not it does what they are writing about. I'm certainly in the market too as my old Garmin 705 is getting tired, but it still works!
R

HkC01

I hope it does... I don't need best in class, but I do need the battery drain of both data recording and gps off of my phone. So a good first edition device should be fine. Main concern is if the elemnt will require the wahoo fitness app to get call/text details, since my experience is that app has poor battery efficiency. And it's not that good in general - I'll probably still export/import files to cyclemeter for safe keeping.

chaadster

I'm excited about the Elemnt, too, mainly for ease-of-use reasons.

I use a Garmin 500 now, and have always found the GUI clumsy, and the menu structure nonsensical. Just looking at the Elemnt pics, I really like the way info is displayed, and the DCRainmaker "quick look" makes it seem as though navigation is pretty good.

I haven't used some features on the 500, or been inclined to upgrade the unit, because it's so damned clumsy to get things setup. I feel the same about a Garmin car unit my company uses, and even the Connect website; user interface is very weak at Garmin.

A friended wanted to sell me her 810 recently so she could grab a 1000, but a few quick clicks revealed the same stupid, labyrinthine structure that marks other Garmin products.

gios

What's a good (iphone compatable) cycle app to use with the wahoo?

John_V 

With Wahoo,what? The Elemnt doesn't need a cycling app in order for it to work. If you are asking about other Wahoo devices, like speed/cadence sensors, heart rate monitors and display unit (RFLKT), the best one out there, in my opinion, is by far Cyclemeter. It's also recommended by Wahoo as the 3rd party cycling app of choice. Of course they are going to highly recommend their Wahoo Fitness app over all others, but it seriously lacking in features and user friendliness.

largefarva

According to wahoo's website these things are supposed to be shipping this month. Anyone hear of any rumors of when this month they're supposed to start shipping?

Bogey99

Black Friday, I believe.

lardo20

I checked Wahoo's website today and they've changed their expected ship date from November to January.

largefarva

Wow, you're right. I just checked yesterday and it was still saying November shipping, so this changed sometime today. That's not good news at all...sounds like they hit a road bump if they're pushing the shipping dates back by two months this late in the game. Damn, was kind of hoping to get one for Christmas. Oh well.

JohnJ80

I don't understand what Wahoo is seeing to try and get into this market. They aren't doing anything different than anyone else and all the price points are pretty much covered by the existing suppliers. What is the attractiveness of this device over what already exists? What am I missing?

J.

John_V 

This is just my opinion but I think the difference is the Elemnt is more user friendly and has more user customization than a Garmin (from what I've read) and the Elemnt supports Bluetooth and Ant+ sensors whereas the Garmin only supports Ant+, which is a much older technology. Wahoo doesn't seem to be the only player in this market. Polar, Sigma, Cateye and several others are getting into GPS cycling computers but are adding more and more phone integration than what Garmin currently has. At least this is what some of the online industry rags are saying.

JohnJ80

Good points you bring up.

1. Garmin antiquated UI
2. BTLE *and* ANT+ support

That said, these are easily remedied by the competition (Garmin). Hopefully this pushes them to figure out their crap UI and take some lessons from what is going on in the smartphone side of things. The BTLE thing is very easily remedied even with their existing hardware (EDGE 1000 has BT hardware support) but it's going to depend on how unwilling Garmin is to look beyond ANT+.

So there are no real technology hurdles, it's largely psychological on the part of Garmin.

J.

Seattle Forrest

People don't realize the wealth of customization and phone integration that's available for Garmin systems.

Anyone can guess why this one is useful to cyclists in rainy places like Seattle:



There are a bunch like that for air quality, allergen level, etc. Might have been useful this summer when half the state was on fire and the air filled with smoke if the wind blew in from the east.

I've used this one for a while, also the version that does power:



When I go backpacking, sometimes I use the one that draws on the compass and GPS to identify stars and constellations.



I don't care about Strava integration but a lot of people do, so I'd count that as an example as well.

JohnJ80

Not available on the Edge 1000 yet, correct?

Seattle Forrest

I don't have an Edge 1000 so I'll let someone who owns one answer that.

I can say with absolute certainty that all those and many more work on my Garmin, the one I use to record my bike rides and to tell me when I've set a new 20-minute power record.

Glad I was able to help educate you.

JohnJ80

Looked this up, and it's only available on the watch style products. It's technically called "Connect IQ" from Garmin. So in reality, it's not germane to this discussion about the new bike computer from Wahoo since that is more in the domain of the Garmin bike computers (i.e. Edge product line).

Garmin announced support for the EDGE units on 9/30. If history is a guide, the earliest that will be available then would be January. So, at this point, vaporware.

J.

dr_lha

I'll add that another thing that the Elemnt adds over Garmin is that the unit has built in maps for the whole world, so you don't have waste time managing map uploads with the laughably small amount of free memory that the Garmin 520 has (51Mb).

Another thing is that it supports WiFi, so your Elemnt can upload to Strava via your home WiFi when you put your bike in the garage, which I think is pretty cool.

Competition breeds innovation, I hope Wahoo have some success in this area, as I've been a great fan of their other on-bike products.

JohnJ80

Me too. Competition is a great thing.

I just wish they would hurry up and come out with their accelerometer based speed sensor.