Heads up April 2016 – Update! My Wahoo ELEMNT In-Depth review post is now available and published over here. Definitely swing over for all the details!
Wahoo has made their first entrant into the GPS bike computer world, with ELEMNT (it’s like the word element, but missing one ‘e’). You’ll remember their past bike computers (RFLKT & RFLKT+) which were driven by a connected phone and utilized the phone for GPS and control of the screens. With ELEMNT, it’s fully self-sustaining during a ride (no phone needed). Yet at the same time, it’s got much stronger phone integration than most other units out there.
I had a chance at Eurobike to go out for a ride with the unit, as well as poke at it a few other times this summer (and now have a beta unit to test). Of course all these units are/were prototypes/beta, and thus things are subject to change. Like any other pre-release product it may get better…or worse. As such, this isn’t an in-depth review but rather a look at the features and functionality. So…let’s dive into it!
Features and Functionality:
While the ELEMNT is first and foremost a GPS bike computer, it does more than just display data metrics. For example, the unit can display maps and routes, which are pulled from OpenStreetMap and 3rd party services like Strava. Additionally, it has a bit of a higher level of integration on the phone than most competitive units – allowing for features such as friend location display and complete configuration via the phone app. Plus, the pairing process is pretty cool and much cleaner than any other bike computer out there. Not to mention the sweet LED scheme on the unit for displaying intensity information.
When it comes to data display, Wahoo obviously displays your ride data. It can connect to both ANT+ and Bluetooth Smart sensors, such as heart rate straps, power meters, and speed/cadence sensors. As well as trainers and soon the GoPro action cam. But the ELEMNT arranges the data fields a little bit differently. For starters, you don’t configure each data page separately. Rather, you configure what is sorta a ‘list’ of prioritized data metrics. You can then increase or decrease the number of metrics during the ride on the fly. Higher priority metrics get displayed, and then lower priority metrics disappear. So you can see this below as I change from 1 field to 10 fields:
In the case of sensor-driven data, such as a power meter, the unit will automatically hide fields for non-connected data. So if I had a power meter connected normally, but on this one ride I didn’t, then it’ll hide those data fields.
You can create a number of custom data pages, it’s just that you can’t specify exactly where things will fit on that given page without doing a bit of a sizing Jenga puzzle. It’s certainly a different approach. I’m sorta half and half on it. I like the flexibility of increasing/decreasing data pages, and hiding non-connected sensors. But at the same time, sometimes I just want my data pages a certain way and don’t want an app thinking it’s smarter than me (even if it is).
When it comes to control, the unit has 6 buttons. Starting with two buttons on the right side. These are for increasing/decreasing the number of data fields, as well as changing options (like up/down).
On the face there are three buttons, these are context-focused in the menus, but during a ride they control the lap, pause, and page change functions:
And on the left there’s one button. This is for getting to the settings, and turning on/off the unit.
Speaking of settings, when you pair the unit to your iOS or Android phone it pairs very similar to an Apple Watch. This being that you point your camera at the QR code and instantly it’s paired. No funky relations with the Bluetooth control panel required:
Next in settings you can pair sensors – either ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart. For example, here I am paired to a Wahoo BlueSC cadence sensor via Bluetooth Smart, a power meter for ANT+, and a HR strap:
If indoors, you can rely purely on sensors for speed/distance, and turn off the GPS functionality. The unit is rated at 17 hours of GPS battery life – and will pre-cache satellite information to speed satellite acquisition times.
Within ELEMNT, almost all of the configuration is done via your phone with the ELEMNT companion app. This app acts as your hub for interaction with the unit. It stores your rides, allows you to configure settings on the device, and also allows you to setup Live Tracking and integration with 3rd parties like Strava.
Starting with the customization of screens, you’ve got the following main pages you can enable/disable:
– Lap Data
– Workout Data
– Climbing
– Map
– KICKR Control (when connected)
Then you’ve got custom pages you can add, each with their own data sets.
The data sets you prioritize from 1-10, thus allowing you to increase/decrease the data fields per page with a simple up/down on the unit. Any metric you like you can change:
Next, you can create ‘Profiles’. These profiles simply allow you to enable/disable various data pages in a predefined set. This is useful if you have different screens for racing vs training vs touring. For example, you may not care about a map screen during a race.
Moving to other app-controlled functions, you’ve got the ability to automatically upload to various 3rd party sites. This is done via either your phone (meaning, the ELEMNT is paired to your phone), or, via WiFi when in range. The unit actually makes the direct connection straight to the 3rd party service – such as Strava or Training Peaks. The full list is seen below, but it’s easy for Wahoo to expand as other sites add integration points.
The unit also displays smartphone notifications. You can enable or disable these in three categories: Phone Calls, Messages, and E-Mail, as well as simply activate a ‘Do not disturb’ function so that you aren’t annoyed by texts from your boss wondering why you’re not back from your lunch break yet….again.
The ELEMNT also has the rather unique ability to leverage LED’s for zone/intensity information on the top and bottom. These are like gauges that can show you current intensity for speed, power, and heart rate zones. The side ones are for showing intensity, while the top ones are for more status-oriented options:
Here’s how it looks on the unit – it’s very sharp and pretty bright.
It’s a really cool idea that doesn’t take up data field real estate on the display itself.
Finally, the unit can control the Wahoo KICKR directly. It can either specify a resistance/wattage level, or can re-ride past activities or downloaded rides. I didn’t have a chance to poke at this feature yet, so here’s a few screenshots from Wahoo on how it works:
For now, it’ll just control the KICKR/KICKR SNAP, but in the future they’ll implement FE-C trainer control for 3rd party trainers.
Mapping:
The Wahoo ELEMNT includes the ability to display maps, routes, and even where your friends are currently riding. The mapping uses OpenStreetMap (OSM), and the unit comes pre-loaded with the entire world.
The ELEMNT has routing capabilities, based on either past routes you’ve ridden, or routes that you’ve created with 3rd party services. It’ll automatically download any routes you’ve created with Strava, RideWithGPS, and MapMyFitness. Or, you can open .GPX file routes (via opening an e-mail, from iTunes, or even a Dropbox share). Pretty cool integration.
These sites are pretty easy to create routes, so the process is rather straightforward.
Once you head to your unit, you can see it listed in the routes section:
Then while riding, it’ll show you the route on the screen:
As you can see, the screen is black and white – but looks surprisingly crisp, likely due to the high contrast. With the ELEMNT you do have to plan ahead a bit on where you’re going, as you can’t just do it on the fly – such as entering an address. The ELEMNT gives you a breadcrumb trail to follow, and then notifies you if you’re off-course. It also will give you turn by turn navigation for apps/routes that support it.
The unit includes Live Tracking as well. By leveraging your phone it’ll broadcast your position automatically to a predefined contact list of friends and family. You just pick and choose which people you want to add.
Then when you start your ride they’ll get a link to view your current location. Tied into that is the ability to see other riders that you’re friends with that are out and about. This is shown directly on the unit itself, which is very cool. Especially useful in group-ride situations where your little peloton may have broken apart. It’s not yet enabled on the beta unit I have, so here’s what it should look like once ready:
Pretty neat stuff.
Size & Mounting Comparisons:
When it comes to size, the ELEMNT isn’t exactly the smallest kid on the block. But it’s also not the largest either. Its somewhere in the middle. For example, it’s a bit smaller in length/width than the Edge 1000:
Yet, it’s also a tiny bit thicker (depth) than the Edge 1000.
It’s basically the same height as the Edge 810, but has more bulk around the edges making it a touch bit wider:
And thus of course, it’s larger than the Edge 520:
It is smaller than the Polar V650, but larger than the Polar M450.
When it comes to mount, it unfortunately does not use the ubiquitous Garmin quarter-turn mount system. Rather, uses something very similar but not compatible. That means you won’t be able to use the numerous 3rd party mounts out there for the Garmin units.
To try and soften that blow, Wahoo is including a flotilla of mounts in the box. This includes an out-front mount, a triathlon/TT bike aerobar mount, and a handlebar/stem mount:
They’re also working with 3rd parties like K-Edge and others to get insets made to allow you to easily adapt your existing mounts for these 3rd party products.
Product Comparison Tables:
I’ve added the Wahoo ELEMNT into the product comparison tool/calculator, which allows you to compare features of the ELEMNT to all other products I’ve tested. For the purposes of below, I’ve compared it against the Garmin Edge 810 and the Polar V650 (simply because both have mapping) – but you can customize which products to compare against here in the full tool.
| Function/Feature | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 |
|---|
| Copyright DC Rainmaker - Updated April 9th, 2021 @ 10:29 am New Window |
| Price | $329 | $399 | $253/€220 |
| Product Announcement Date | Sept 15th, 2015 | Jan 7, 2013 | January 26, 2014 |
| Actual Availability/Shipping Date | March 1st, 2016 | Jan 2013 | March 2015 |
| GPS Recording Functionality | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Data Transfer | Bluetooth Smart, WiFi, USB | USB & Bluetooth | USB |
| Waterproofing | IPX7 | IPX7 | IPX7 |
| Battery Life (GPS) | 17 Hours | 17 hours | 10 Hours |
| Recording Interval | 1-Second | 1-Second or Smart | 1-second |
| Alerts | Sound/Visual/LED's | Sound/Visual | Sound/Visual |
| Backlight Greatness | Great | Great | Great |
| Ability to download custom apps to unit/device | No | No | No |
| Acts as daily activity monitor (steps, etc...) | N/A | No | No |
Music | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | Can control phone music | No | | |
| Has music storage and playback | No | | |
Connectivity | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | Bluetooth Smart to Phone Uploading | Yes | No | Not yet |
| Phone Notifications to unit (i.e. texts/calls/etc...) | Yes | No | TBA |
| Live Tracking (streaming location to website) | Yes | Yes | No |
| Group tracking | Yes | | |
| Emergency/SOS Message Notification (from watch to contacts) | No | No | No |
| Built-in cellular chip (no phone required) | No | No | No |
Cycling | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | Designed for cycling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Power Meter Capable | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Power Meter Configuration/Calibration Options | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Power Meter TSS/NP/IF | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Speed/Cadence Sensor Capable | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Strava segments live on device | Yes | Q3 2015 | No |
| Crash detection | No | | |
Running | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | Designed for running | No | No | No |
Swimming | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | Designed for swimming | N/A | No | No |
Triathlon | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | Designed for triathlon | No | No | No |
Workouts | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | Create/Follow custom workouts | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| On-unit interval Feature | No | Yes | No |
| Training Calendar Functionality | Sorta | Yes | No |
Functions | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | Auto Start/Stop | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Virtual Partner Feature | No | Yes | No |
| Virtual Racer Feature | No | Yes | No |
| Records PR's - Personal Records (diff than history) | No | Yes | No |
| Tidal Tables (Tide Information) | N/A | No | No |
| Weather Display (live data) | No | Yes | No |
Navigate | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | Follow GPS Track (Courses/Waypoints) | Yes | Yes | Planned |
| Markers/Waypoint Direction | No | Yes | No |
| Routable/Visual Maps (like car GPS) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Back to start | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Impromptu Round Trip Route Creation | NO (BUT CAN CREATE ONE-WAY ROUTES FROM PHONE APP) | No | No |
| Download courses/routes from phone to unit | Yes | Yes | Planned |
Sensors | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | Altimeter Type | Barometric | Barometric | Barometric |
| Compass Type | Magnetic | GPS | GPS |
| Heart Rate Strap Compatible | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ANT+ Heart Rate Strap Capable | Yes | Yes | No |
| ANT+ Speed/Cadence Capable | Yes | Yes | No |
| ANT+ Footpod Capable | No | No | No |
| ANT+ Power Meter Capable | Yes | Yes | No |
| ANT+ Lighting Control | No | Q3 2015 | No |
| ANT+ Bike Radar Integration | Yes | Q3 2015 | No |
| ANT+ Trainer Control (FE-C) | Yes | No | No |
| ANT+ Remote Control | No | Yes | No |
| ANT+ eBike Compatibility | No | No | No |
| ANT+ Gear Shifting (i.e. SRAM ETAP) | Yes | | |
| Shimano Di2 Shifting | Yes | Yes | No |
| Bluetooth Smart HR Strap Capable | Yes | No | Yes |
| Bluetooth Smart Speed/Cadence Capable | Yes | No | Yes |
| Bluetooth Smart Footpod Capable | No | No | No |
| Bluetooth Smart Power Meter Capable | Yes | No | Yes |
| Temp Recording (internal sensor) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Temp Recording (external sensor) | No | No | No |
Software | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | PC Application | N/A | Garmin Express | Polar Flowsync |
| Web Application | N/A | Garmin Connect | Polar Flow |
| Phone App | iOS/Android | Garmin Connect (iOS/Android) | - |
| Ability to Export Settings | No | No | No |
Purchase | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | Amazon | Link | Link | Link |
| Competitive Cyclist | Link | | |
DCRainmaker | Wahoo ELEMNT | Garmin Edge 810 | Polar V650 | | Review Link | Link | Link | Link |
Again, you can make your own product comparison table here, using the full tool.
Availability & Pricing:
The ELEMNT is slated to be available by Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving in the US, so November 27th), but could also ship earlier. Meanwhile, ordering will open up tomorrow (Wednesday, September 16th) for the unit.
It’s priced at $329US, so more expensive than the Polar V650, but cheaper than the Edge 810. Note that this does include all three mounts I listed above, within the box.
[Update note: Nov 20, 2015 – Wahoo has announced delayed shipping until January 2016]
Summary:
Overall the unit certainly looks very promising – and it’s great to see more competition in the GPS bike computer space. Wahoo obviously has a history of disturbing various athletic segments they’ve entered, starting with sensors, then trainers, and now GPS bike computers.
The ELEMNT has some new and unique features not found elsewhere, such as the LED bars and friend tracking (on device), as well as far more comprehensive integration with 3rd parties around saved routes. On the flip-side, it currently lacks a lot of the structured workout capabilities of its competitors, or the more advanced on-the-fly destination input that other companies have as well. There are also some areas, such as Strava Live Segments, that are on the roadmap for enabling in Q1 2016.
Once the unit starts shipping I’ll do a full in-depth review. But obviously at this point it’s in the beta stage (though fairly stable in most areas), so it’ll be a bit of time until their expected shipping timeframe in November January. Nonetheless, expect to see me using it here and there over the next few months within various posts. So keeping an eye on the weekly ‘5 Random Things I Did This Weekend’ posts is probably a good idea.
—
With that, thanks for reading! If you’re looking to burn a bit of time, here’s all my Interbike 2015 posts!
Hi,
As one of the lead developers on this project and a active participant in this forum I wanted to personally reach out about the latest delay. There isn’t anything in the world I would love more than to start shipping units out to customers. We had hoped to start shipping units this week but had to make the difficult call to delay until everything is 100%.
I understand it might be frustrating that the updates might be a little vague, its really hard for us to give you facts and dates when we our self don’t know. I/We are working really hard to fix the remaining issue and once that is resolved, things should happen fast.
So personally, I apologize, it’s really exciting to see so much interest in what we are making and I am sure those of you who can wait will be very happy with the end product.
Sincerely,
Wahoo Murray
Hi Murray,
We admire your work in creating a real Garmin competitor. I have seen how difficult it is (former Bryton user).
Personally, I think you can do better by:
– not giving a date which cannot be met: only communicate a date when you are really ready (including production & logistics). People can decide on that, and it makes you trustworthy.
– not being secretive about why things are postponed. The world is full of examples where openness pays.
Keep up the good work!
Hi Robin,
The hardware game is a hard business, while it would be great to wait until we have stock in the warehouse before announcements its just not possible with all the work that goes into marketing and distribution of hardware devices. We do our best to make best estimates but sometimes the stars just don’t align.
Sorry that you think we are being secretive, thats not our intention, I though I have been extremely open here on this forum, i’m by fair the most active engineers from any company on Ray’s blog.
Thanks for the feedback and I will definitely pass it along to the team and I will see if we can get some more information in our notices.
Thanks for your support
Hi
When the first delay was announced in November one of the things I found disappointing was only being told at the last minute, when I was looking forward to it arriving. For a while after the first delay we got progress reports but these petered out and once again we are only given an update more or less on the day when we were told they would ship. Murray – I appreciate your contributions to this forum but please could you (either here or via an email update) give some info on what the problem is, how difficult it is to solve and the best case / worst case timescales for solving it?
The $20 voucher is not much of a gesture! Surely there are few enough pre-orders that you could look after us a bit better? At least with $50 I could get close to a tickr or a Reflkt.
Thanks
I agree a $20 voucher is useless for someone one like me who already has a KICKR, KICKR Mat, TICKR, RFLKT and Blue SC. I’m left wondering when it will eventually arrive as in the last email there was no mention of a revised date. It doesn’t help when Wahoo get you to pay in full when you order the ELEMNT rather than debit your account when they despatch it. Over promising and under delivering!
Hi Steve,
We have left the announcements until the last minute because we were very optimistic we would be able to ship this week. As for whats wrong, its related to sensor connectivity, something we want to ensure is rock solid. I really can’t give dates, we have all our resources working on it but for cases like this its like asking how long is a piece of string, we could have it resolved tomorrow or it might take longer… its the hardest thing about hardware development. We hope the wait won’t be much longer.
Muz
I’ve held my tongue, but decided I shouldn’t.
I am NOT in the same camp as all the complainers about shipping delays. I’ve built hardware before. The startup I founded built some of the first Ethernet-attached phones on the market. (Google “pingtel xpressa”, and look at the images.) We used contract manufacturing to build our stuff.
Building electronics products is NOT easy, as Murray has said. And as a vendor, you do NOT always know what you and cannot, predict. Examples:
– Containers can be left behind on a dock in China for random reasons, and it may not be predictable when the next ship will leave that has room to take the container – so you simply don’t KNOW when they’ll leave China. Once they leave, it’s a 30-day trip dock-dock.
– Palettes of your parts might end up sitting in USA customs for days (weeks!) for no explainable reason.
– A full run of printed circuit boards may come off the line, and fail electronics tests. The manufacturer may not have parts to do a new run, and be unable to obtain them for an unpredictable amount of time. (Or, the parts themselves simply might be flawed, and you need to source a second vendor)
– A shipment of displays may fail cold-chamber tests, even though the *spec* says they shouldn’t (forcing you to find a vendor who can scramble & build to spec fast)
– etc., etc.
NONE of these things would be predictable – either in happening in the first place, or in predicting how fast you can adapt / recover from the delay.
And I would *NOT* want Wahoo giving us the blow-by-blow. I can tell you (from painful experience) that a) telling your customers makes you sound like your manufacturing is out-of-control (particularly if more than one kind of delay appears), **despite** the fact that b) though *unpredictable*, these are *commonly-experienced* delays.
So, shut the f*** up, cut Wahoo a break, and let them do their job. They’ll tell us what they can when they can. They’ve proven to be a reliable, fantastic vendor. If you need a computer before they ship, then just go ask for a refund and buy a (crappy) Garmin. Otherwise, stop complaining.
And IMO, even though I’m not sure I can use the $20, the proactive gesture by the company is even more evidence that they’re the vendor you want to hang your hat on. (Can you imagine Garmin doing this?? Never.)
Dear Jay,
I have not been in hardware development, but have owned several Brytons, so I know how hard it is to build good and reliable hardware (they did) and gain enough marketshare, acceptance and compatibility (they managed this less well). And I fully sympathize with Wahoo (owning a REFLKT+), so I am mainly disappointment – not angry – with them for not making their own date.
As for the ‘blow-by-blow’; no need for that, but you are not helping them either by trying to make up excuses for them, I think they are capable enough to tell the customers what is needed. And experienced enough to not just throw a date at us.
Personally I needed something now with full navigation, so I bought the Edge 1000 and will use it until the ELEMNT proves to be as good or better (hoping it eventually will manage to do full navigation as well, meaning to (re)calculate a new destination while on the road).
As I said, keep up the good work, WAHOO!
Well said Robin. I think it’ll be worth the wait…and when did we all get so spoiled and prone to tantrums over consumer electronics??
The thing is Jay, all you are doing is proving why people are upset about the delays. You say delays can be down to containers being left, palettes laying around blah blah blah…well if thats the case then why, as in Wahoo’s case, would you market a product well over 6 months before you’ve even built the thing for testing? thats what people are fed up with.
I have no doubt that some of the reasons you give are valid, but thats not the point. If a product developer knows these things can happen then don’t build the buyers hopes up for over 6 months giving them release dates. Its not rocket science. Its fine if a product slips by a month because of some of the things you mentioned but over 6 months is taking the piss. If you booked a flight and it was late by 6 months would you be happy, despite being told its leaving on a set date and having bought your ticket?
The other gripe people have is that its ok to promote a product for the future, but don’t show whizzy 3D graphics and images with what looks like a fully built up system. That gives the impression its all done and dusted.
Telling us to shut-the-f*ck up doesn’t make you right either. You may know something about building things but you certainly know sweet-f*ck-all about buyers. Its no wonder your hardware products never sold, nobodies heard of them. Prick.
Let’s keep it civil folks.
As for marketing things months in advance, I’d point out that many brands do that – including companies like Apple (the Apple Watch, was announced roughly 8 months prior to shifting). Heck, and even they cut features out of the unit in order to make that ship date.
Telling people to STFU and stop complaining doesn’t cut it and is wahooasslickerish.
It is different when money has changed hands.
If a company can’t bring their product to market as promised, that is not the customers problem. The company shouldn’t have put a date to when it was going to be released, and they shouldn’t have taken people’s money. Many people would not have been as bent out of shape if they were charging them when the unit shipped verses up front.
Many of us want an alternative to Garmin products, but at the same time Wahoo Fitness kind of put their own foot in it as well. That’s on Wahoo Fitness for how they run their business. The same as their representatives coming here and talking is also representative of their customer service.
Many of us have probably dealt with newly released products and understand delays. Again the delay really isn’t the issue as much as that money has changed hands. Kudos to Wahoo Fitness for the offerings on 20 rebate/certificate. It would be nice to add that on to anyone who has prepaid the Elemnt and made the price that much better for them.
That would have went further in my view.
I think cc merchant rules typically prohibit pre-charging credit cards for preorders, only for out of stock items.
As someone who has preordered, I saw my cc statement charge back in December. It’s more a disappointing business practice than anything. Don’t take money unless you can deliver on a written promise. It says to me that either wahoo is greedy or having cash flow issues.
Um, can you say “Kickstarter”? Vendors commonly use paid pre-sales (pre-orders).
A Kickstarter is NOT a preorder. It’s a payment to back a project with no expressed guarantee of product, just that a delivered product as a target. That’s how they get around these merchant rules. That’s also why project failure and loss rates are ridiculous.
I suspect the actual reason is less nefarious than you think. It’s simply that the pre-auth on the credit card expires. So either they have to go back to you for a credit card prior to shipping, or, they have to charge in advance (or, they permanently store your CC info, which very few companies want, and even fewer people want companies to do).
I imagine that there could be some irate customers if Wahoo didn’t charge until it shipped, and those customers might have forgotten about ordering, and didn’t have room on their card for the purchase, and it was declined, or the customer incurred an overage fee on their card.
Or here’s a thought, how about not offering a ‘Pre-Order’ on something that hasn’t been built yet?
It’s like buying baby clothes for someone who isn’t pregnant.
Every consumer can choose whether or not to buy something that’s on pre-order. But, the very nature of the name implies it’s before – inclusion of ‘pre’.
Pre-orders are good for lots of reasons. Both consumer and company.
It offers the consumer the opportunity to hold a place in line without getting into bidding-war type purchases that you see on eBay.
Meanwhile, for companies it allows them to better judge manufacturing requirements as they approach shipping. Thus ensuring units available for the market.
Ray,
I agree with your comments — but in this case, it feels like the product was *not* close to shipping when the initial pre-orders were accepted. Certainly hindsight is 20:20, and maybe unexpected things occurred. Nevertheless, Wahoo was very quick about my order cancellation and refund. I now have a Garmin 1000 fitted, and am happy.
I wish Wahoo the best of luck with this product and will continue to purchase their (commercially available!) cycling gadgets.
True, probably not nefarious; but not good consumer-facing practice either to charge if the product has to line of sight with release. (I’ve worked at a few of these companies)
1. Is the map screen customizable? I’d like to have heart rate and/or power visible for pacing while navigating on long rides in unfamiliar surroundings. The Joule GPS will do that on its navigation screen, but only does bread crumbs without maps.
2. If so can I get two fields there?
The ridewithgps android app does a lot of data fields plus a map, but battery life is insufficient for long rides in unfamiliar surroundings where navigation is necessary
After 20,000 miles the buttons are starting to separate from my Garmin Edge 500 and I need a replacement.
To quote Murray’s answer to my question – the map screen can currently display two fields.
We are revisiting this, I think we will go with unto 4 fields, any more than that and the map gets too small.
Will the unit display power as a 3 second moving average? Thanks.
Yes we have a wide range of options (instant, 3,5,10 etc)
I am curious if you would be willing to open yourself up to more mis-directed anger by commenting on if the nature of the remaining issue(s) are hardware or software related? Meaning, do you need to get the sensor issue solved before units can roll of the assembly line and then float over from Asia for 10 days, or are you be able to ship to customers a day after you lock down the code?
Also, can you give me a ballpark release date for the upcoming Wahoo ENRGY™ Power Meter?
It’s just software, we have production running at full capacity. Once we verify the software we will start shipping units within a couple days. (we have stock in our warehouse)
To be honest, I doubt you will ever see any power meters from Wahoo.
Make it happen
“Start shipping in a few days” – as in a few days from NOW, or a few days after verifying the software?
Hi Wahoo Murray,
I noticed the Android app isn’t available just yet? Any word on that? I was assured that I wouldn’t be left out in the cold. You guys released yet another YouTubr video, but still no update via email to customers who have pre-ordered after not just one but two delays.
A few days after we verify the software.. I will keep everyone posted.
Android App is ready but since we don’t have the same review issues like we do on the Apple App store we are just holding it until we start shipping units.
Thanks for the reply. In that case, you guys can ship mine being I’m rocking on the Android platform, hehehehe (only half-joking)
Funny….! If they ever did develop one with the crank-arm design, they’d have to put the crank arm mounted speed/cadence sensor somewhere else though.
I really like what I’ve read about the ELEMNT so far. I was going to upgrade my 500 to a 520, but am seriously considering this one now. I really think Garmin could use some stiff competition and this might be a good start.
STP
What KR15 says, but with Campagnolo (Chorus) logo’s!
I’ve downloaded the ELEMNT iPhone app but can’t do anything with it because I haven’t got a unit to pair with. But the quality of the app is a major selling point in it’s own right and I would like to have a play with it to see if it’s any good before purchase.
I noted that as well, in post #486. I’d really like to see some of the capabilities of the app without having to pair it to an ELEMNT.
I could understand someone thinking that the app itself is a GPS tracker, but hopefully Wahoo will change it so that pairing is not the first thing that happens when you open the app.
Even if we let you past the fist setup there isn’t anything in the app that you can play with. It really needs a ELEMNT connected as all the settings and configuration are done in real-time. The best you could do is sign in to the accounts you have setup.
I will discuss the in our next meeting about maybe having a option to have a demo mode, but right now its not something the app supports.
Not to be snippy, but does that mean that anytime you want to make a configuration change in the app, the ELEMNT has to be nearby and powered on?
Once it’s paired, does the app need to be connected / in communication with the ELEMNT to be used? If not, I can’t see a reason why the app can’t be used without being paired.
I understand if you want to SEND the configuration to the ELEMNT, that’s perfectly logical.
You can browse your workouts but configurations are done on when connected. Some settings are be configured on both the ELEMNT and the phone, it makes it very hard to send the configuration changes “later” as the user might have already made changes on both sides. While it may be possible to resolve these conflicts, in order to simply this interaction we have only allowed for configurations to be changed while the device is connected.
Thanks Murray,
I’ve put an order in. Now don’t let me down ;)
The iOS app was just updated. I see this as a good omen.
Oops… Maybe I spoke too soon It crashes my iPhone 6s on launch. I tried restarting my phone. no luck. It crashes 100% of the time. I guess I will buy the SHAKR instead.
here the updaded app works, now it’s possible to edit some settings and add your accounts (strava etc.)
Its designed to crash on your phone.
It auto-updated on my iPhone6. I was able to get into some areas of the app. When I went to the profile section, and created a Wahoo Cloud account, it crashed. When I opened it up again, it was the same as before – can’t see or do anything unless it’s paired.
Kind of figure they are letting folks register an account then booting out since there is nothing else to do until Elemnts ship.
BTW Wahoo was letting folks upgrade their Kickrs to FE-C compliant beta firmware. Now that has been disabled. Just reading tea leaves and rune sticks.
We are just waiting for QA to finish testing the latest release and we also needed a new Android update to handle some other new features, once they have done we should be going live with the FE-C firmware.
I deleted the app and re-downloaded it from Apple and now I can watch a sweet intro video. Crisis averted. Does the SHAKR just count reps, or is there a heart-rate monitor in the handle?
I see BSX have added support for the Elemnt :-) C’mon Wahoo, get my pre-ordered Elemnt to me please :-) link to bit.ly
This is fun… I tried to pair my app with the ELEMNT in this video when it shows the code: link to youtube.com
Can somebody at wahoo find the device used in the video and click “pair” for me to complete the process?
Thanks.
Hi,
I was wondering which sensors are included with the elemnt?
– speed sensor?
– cadence sensor?
– heart rate?
Do you have the purchase them separetely?
BW
Anne
The details are on the Wahoo website.
Looks like the screen is 2.7 in!
What is with such small screens?
Is it that expensive to add a 4 to 5″ screen? Useful, esp with maps.
Primary reason for inclining towards smartphones.
I think most cyclists actually don’t want a gigantic thing on their handlebars. If they did, they’d just buy a case for their phone.
IIRC screens are a big drain on the battery as well so big screen plus always on (which is needed on a bike GPS) will probably add up to lousy battery life.
Last thing I’d want is a 5″ screen on my bars! You want it small and unobtrusive. 2.7″ seems a nice size but what you need to so is minimise the overall size of the device vs the screen. Which isn’t something Wahoo have done at all here, the thing is huge.
Oh jeez. It’s smaller than the edge 1000. When you’re out on the road, especially when you’re doing a big effort, the last thing you want is have to struggle to read the data on your computer. Wahoo have done a very good job at making it easy to read. Both in terms of screen size and the high contrast. Also the screen to overall unit size ratio is very comparable to the Garmin Edge units. The 520 may be small, but it has a lot of bezel around the screen.
The Edge 1000 and 520 are also rather large in comparison to the size of their screen.
I’d be happy with my 142mm x 72.5mm phone atop my 120mm long stem.
Unfortunately, battery life can renders my Samsung Galaxy S5 Sport useless as a bike computer and almost non-functional for navigation. I can’t get through a long ride (8+ hours) keeping it in a pocket and only pulling it out to turn on GPS and fire up ridewithgps when things get ambiguous enough printed cue sheets become insufficient. With Google Maps I got down to 5% driving less than 2 hours to a ride, and only had my phone available for potential emergency use because I charged it at a coffee shop.
Reviews evaluating how phones and apps work with bikes could be very useful – if others aren’t that bad I’d have happily settled for a smaller screen or slower CPU when I spent $600 on mine.
A dynamo front wheel is an imperfect workaround few cyclists accept. You pickup at least 200g if you’re not running lights (although with you can come out ahead, swapping 200-400g of battery pack for 200-400g of hub), have to integrate one into a wheel, and need a separate power supply on longer rides because lights with built-in USB ports make you chose between illumination and charging.
I pre-ordered an ELEMNT so I could power and heart rate for pacing on the same screen as maps without dealing with those phone problems. The Joule GPS was the closest I otherwise found to meeting those requirements, providing two fields plus navigation by bread crumbs. Garmin should also be able to do that with simple software changes, although their bike GPS group doesn’t seem to include a product manager who rides enough to make that happen.
My Garmin Edge 1000 does just that: I can configure a screen which shows a navigational map, with for instance heart rate and speed on the bottom.
I missed that perusing the manual. Ray’s review notes
“With the Edge 1000 you can have five data screens, with each screen (page) containing up to 10 data fields (1-10). Further, you have a map page, a compass page, an elevation chart page, the lap summary page, and the virtual partner page. Each of those ‘special’ pages allows you to specify two additional data fields on them.”
wondering if someone with experience with their wahoo’s previous products can give an educated guess on what the actual “street price” might be based on the msrp? Just grabbed a lezyne super but may return it and wait for this one.
They typically match. Wahoo tends to enforce MAP pricing pretty strongly.
Thank you for the info. I guess I’ll hold onto the lezyne. Not perfect but if budget’s a concern, good enough.
@Murray, wondering whether multiple sensor support (mainly for SmO2 but also power; functions should include pairing, display, storing and export) has made it into the product? If yes, would you be able to provide some information (screenshots, export format)? If not, would you be able to say whether it is planned or not? Thanks.
Right now we support only a single Sm02.
We do support multiple sensors of the same type but due to restrictions with The FIT file support you cannot view/export this data.
We are considering additional file support to store/share the raw data from all sensors but currently do not have any confirmation that this will go ahead.
Will there be any updates in the future to allow us to further customise how the LEDs are used?
It occurs to me that using them for the ‘above average’ , ‘below average’ function is about as useless a function as they could possibly be put to (no offence!). Whereas configuring them to show an LED to for each heart rate or power zone would seem an ideal usage, so while you’re giving it everything you can just glance at the LEDs to make sure you’re in the right zone rather than trying to decode the numbers.
Also the top ones could be used for navigation, blinking indication on the left or right to show which way you’re going to need to turn at the next junction, so that you can navigate without having to lose your data fields in the process.
100% yes. We already support zones on the left LED’s.
Once we enable turn by turn (with RideWithGPS) the top LEDs will be for Left/Right (one of the original reasons why we added LEDs).
We have several other ideas and features for the LEDs in the future.
LED flexibility looks good. I do climbs based on power so such is useful for me.
Will you be able to add waypoints that are off-route? i.e., if I have a campsite or resupply store that is not exactly on the route, will I still be able to upload that and use it on the map screen? I’m eagerly waiting for this device… but need it to replace a Garmin eTrex in functionality as well as be a great cycling computer
We don’t right now but I do like this feature on RideWithGPS. I’ve added it to the list, we are planning a bit of a feature update to maps in the next couple months. Thanks
Cool. I had thought of this myself but was going to wait until I had actually used ELEMNT with RideWithGPS maps before asking!
Some other questions:
– Are RideWithGPS custom cue sheet entries supported? This is different from off-route POI in that these are on-route custom cues and RideWithGPS supports a list of Types such as “Water”, “Food” with Notes and Description.
– Is it possible to set a regular alert (beep, LEDs..) based upon time or distance? Such as beep every mile travelled, or every 30 mins, for example.
Custom cue sheets for RWGPS will happen at the same time.
Nothing for just regular alerts, you could configure auto-laps for this.
Looks great.
Any timeline on release date and on a in dept review?
In-depth review would likely be a few weeks or so after final software release. Depends a bit on travel/etc…
Wahoo told me shipping in 2-3 weeks in a Facebook message yesterday
2-3 weeks is fine by me if that’s what it’s likely to be. Weather and fitness means I probably won’t be doing any long outside rides before then anyway.
Will I have to wait longer if it’s being shipped to the UK?
So the November release that got pushed back to January is now pushed back to March…
Will pre-orders for the ELEMNT take up all of the initial shipment, so new orders will need to wait longer?
(Not that I have a problem with people who pre-ordered being first in the queue, just trying to understand if the wait for people who haven’t pre-ordered may be quite a bit longer than 2-3 weeks…)
… and forgot to add, the reason why I haven’t pre-ordered is I want to read Ray’s in-depth review first, naturally ;)
I would like to be able to configure the LEDs on the side to show 7 power zones, and the top ones to show 5 heart rate zones.
Will the unit help riders calculate their FTP? Having a feature that guides riders to complete the testing of their FTP would be great. For example telling riders when to start their warm up, and when to start their big 20 min effort, etc.
Also will it estimate VO2 Max like the Garmin units?
I have added your LED request to the list, its not something we had planned.
No automated FTP tests or other pre-planned workouts yet.
Any update (since Sept) on Varia radar integration? Looking to upgrade by 510 to a 1000 for radar and mapping. This would be a nice change if it supported. Even willing to wait a little if it’s in the planning.
Any word from the Wahoo team?
We don’t have anything scheduled in the near future but it is not too far down the list of niche ANT+ profiles we want to add.
[1] This thread is amazing (606!).
[2] I am starting to worry about my “early-March” ship date. Does this make me a pessimist?
Wahoo Murray, to heck with all the advanced features, let’s just get this thing shipping!! A lot of us who pre-ordered, and PRE-PAID might I add, back in NOVEMBER 2015 have been patiently waiting for months. Let’s get cracking!! If it can connect to my sensors, then it’s functionally sound as far as I’m concerned
Trust me it’s our primary focus, we have 3 teams around the world making it happen. Different people do different things so while we are 100% focused on shipping it doesn’t mean everything else stops. The wait is nearly over!
It’s “early” March. No email updates from Wahoo since that last one at the 25th hour in January begging us pre-orderers to hang in there. What’s up?
link to dcrainmaker.com
Hi Wahoo Murray,
does this mean that you have started shipping?
cheers
V
Ray says there’s “one last bug” you (Wahoo) are trying to fix. Have you mentioned in public what it is? I’m really curious.
Is it the Android app being its not available for download like the iOS app? And no, I’m not just gonna “get an iPhone”. I have the right to enjoy this product like anyone else. In actually rumor has it the issue is with the iOS app as opposed to the Android. Wahoo should just go ahead & ship mine!!
Calm yourself nobody is saying that. Murray has already said that the iOS app is only out because of the Appple approval process Android doesn’t have that so they will wait until they start shipping.
Mark – don’t talk to me like that, I’m not your son. Real easy to talk tough tapping keys, but believe me – you wouldn’t face to face!
Like what. You were the one throwing unfounded accusations around. Again, calm down, it’s all good.
Our iOS and Android apps are both ready and 100% feature for feature the same. The iOS app is ready available and the Android app will be live next week.
The Wahoo Elemnt Android app just popped up on Google Play. I’m hoping that’s a positive sign.
Here’s a link to the Android app:
link to play.google.com
Looks like the ELEMNT was (code)named Bolt during development.
As in calm down, Mark. I’m an adult so don’t talk to me like that, save that for your sons! And I wasn’t throwing accusations around. I clearly said rumor has it aka it may not be the truth aka I’m not absolutely sure aka I could be wrong aka it’s just what I heard, but you’re the know-it-all so I should just shut up, right? I think NOT! And not that I’m following your orders, but I’m perfectly calm. However, I think I’d be well within my rights being somewhat impatiently waiting for a product where I’ve pre-paid & two delivery dates haven’t been met.
There’s only one way to sort this…..
FFFFIIIIGGGGHHHHHTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So my RFLKT just died, so this would be a fantastic time to start shipping the ELEMNT (in Europe) :-)
Been holding off from buying a Garmin 520 or 810 instead, I’m checking the Wahoo website everyday for status updates…
A post on slowtwitch.com on Feb 24 said that they would be shipping preorders within the next week.
link to slowtwitch.com
Wahoo Murray,
Is there any truth to the slowtwitch article that pre orders will be shipping next week or is that the article’s author just translating early March?
Thanks
Looks like they’re still taking payments at the Wahoo website but the March release date is nowhere to be found. The catch is that some of us who pre-ordered might be out of the 60 day window to dispute the charges with our credit card vendor if this doesn’t ever ship.
I’m guessing this was just a way to avoid the 10% Kickstarter fees. Take payment up front while you’re still in the R&D phase. Well played.
“will ship early March” is still there on the pre-order screen.
I wouldn’t worry about them running off with your funds. Whatever you may think of Wahoo charging your card right away (I think its BS but I they clearly stated they would do it), they’re not that kind of business in my experience and Ive been buying stuff form them for a long time. Frankly, I decided to go with the Garmin 1000 so I asked Wahoo for my money back on my ELMNT order a week or so ago and they took care of it. No deals, no complaints…just good customer service.
I did the same, and simply went to a Garmin 1000. Refund came quickly from Wahoo without any drama.
Very pleased with my new Garmin 1000, but do wish Wahoo the best of luck with this product when it eventually launches.
None of us doubt that they would give us a refund if we asked for one, it’s the lack of clarity that is slightly irksome. I’m a Wahoo fanboy so am OK with holding out… but the silence with regard to even an estimated shipping date (i.e. second week of March) is the worrying thing.
I’ve worked in the sports industry as well as my core competency of Electronics. Delays are inevitable. It’s really the charge-ahead part that is irritating and actually a bit out of the norm. I preordered the Fre power case for my iPhone 6 Plus, and that thing ships April 29th. They only charge when it ships. Same thing happened with a Yamaha soundbar I preordered a few weeks ago from Crutchfield.
My guess is that wahoo is a small sub-100 person operation so in the best case, the logistics of charging when shipping is hard. In the worst case, this cash on hand is helping them pay for units without needing to float short term cash for their on hand inventory. Financially conservative on their part, but not very customer friendly if the product ends up being not shippable or keeps on slipping.
I’ll still wait for the unit and keep my preorder, but I purchased a replacement Edge 1000 again (lost last one somewhere in the house).
My expectations on this unit on low.
Agreed, more communication can be better than less but think about what other vendors share when things are delayed…I feel the fact they shared *anything* puts them in a better position than most. They announced delays, they’ve offered discounts for folks that preordered and generally kept folks in the loop directly via email and through this forum, one of the more read bicycle blogs WW. If I had a vote, I would have suggested refunding that discount on the actual order instead of offering discounts on more items but again, they did offer something and my experience was a nearly immediate total refund when I asked. Charging at the time of the order with an expected ship date may also seem bush league but they were crystal clear on my order that a) they would charge immediately and b) they were working on an as yet unreleased product and I should be prepared for production delays. I’m not in the bike industry but I do develop software and despite our best efforts, sometimes you run into something that keeps you from shipping.
It may sound like I’m defending them blindly but remember, I’m doing so from the position of having gone with the G1000 after having preordered the ELMNT. My original post was simply to let someone know that IMHO, Wahoo wasn’t going to walk away with their cash. My reason for changing is that I simply wanted to get on with a cyclocomputer instead of using my phone and a remote display (RFLKT) for my now longer training rides and I didn’t want to be changing head units after I got my personal road season underway. I suspect I’ll miss the LEDs (great idea) and KCKR control but I get something of the former with alerts on the Garmin and the latter isn’t a must have because I figure I’ll still keep stationary training with my iPad anyway.
Like Mr. Pass said, I wish Wahoo nothing but the best and I’d love to see the ELMNT succeed as competition makes the entire marketplace better for all.
Let me clarify one thing. My core competency is supply chain. I work with electronics OEM/CM/Suppliers all the time.
Two questions: will the element be able to control music and will turn by turn directions cost a monthly fee like the reflect?
We haven’t added music control, we found with RFLKT it wasn’t really used, it’s very popular with watches like the Echo but we didn’t think it was worth it for ELEMNT. I’ve added it to our feature request list and if we get more interest then its definitely something we can look at adding.
We are getting the Turn by Turn instructions from 3rd party vendors so its really up to them, however RideWithGPS will be available free of charge and we hope any other venders will come to the same arrangement.
I should add, as of today (2nd March) Turn by Turn is currently disabled, but it should be enabled sometime this month.
Presumably that implies turn-by-turn does not yet work for routes uploaded as .TCX (or .GPX) files, or just via direct integration with ride-with-gps / etc.?
Still waiting for anything from the wahoo team.
I wasn’t looking for a “Yes we are going to ship on Wednesday” answer.
The article was posted from Slowtwitch that made a claim they would ship this week. Even if the answer is this week, early next would be great, or the article in question was taking the early march projections and they aren’t right kind of answer.
Love the fact the Wahoo Team has answered questions here. But hate the fact they haven’t communicated very well the date. Taking peoples money they could do a hell of a better job in keeping people informed as to the release.
It is now “Early March” and somewhere a project manager is drinking heavily. Meanwhile, a team of programers wearily codes on; the end of the critical path on their gantt chart fading away like a mirage.
Just texted with a Greg Gaffney at Wahoo Fitness. Per him the first batch of Elemnts are in hand and receiving latest firmware. Per him shipment within 10 days
Per acquaintances via friends here in Atlanta, Wahoo has had a shipment of units in hand for several weeks. Those units (one can only assume the first round of pre-orders) have to be updated with the latest software version once Wahoo feels it is stable for both iPhone and Android. Hopefully they don’t want to do a release with known bugs such as Garmin typically does.
Garmin is the 800 pound gorilla and knows they can get away with it. Wahoo is a small company that knows a buggy release could be their downfall. Personally, such marketing tactics drive me nuts about pre-orders with no hard release date, but I understand the psychology of it. It reminds me of when the Miata first came out – people put hard money down without knowing how many weeks/months before they could drive one off the lot. What people will pay for the latest and greatest…..
Wahoo Murray deserves a round of applause for taking the public’s heat and maintaining updates on a number of sites/blogs.
From Wahoo’s account on Facebook after asking if there was any update this morning. 030216
“These will be shipping out very soon. All of our pre-ordered units will be shipping in the next 10 days. Some of our early orders will be even sooner. If you’re trying to order now, we are expecting these to be available at the middle of this month. Please let me know if you have any further questions.”
I received an email that it would be shipping today.
No tracking email, but I have it shipping to a USPS Post Office Box.
I ordered on 16 November.
just got fedex shipping confirmation, should be delivered Friday
w00t!
Sweet! What was your order date?
I ordered the first day, 9.16.15
I’m a month behind you. Hopefully that only equates to a few days until my orders get shipped.
Got an email today as well. Shipping today. (No FedEx notice yet, but since I’m in Atlanta, they might just send it via USPS, which would be fine with me.)
I just got an email from Wahoo saying that the ELEMNT will be shipping in 7 days. I preordered it last week.
I received an email saying it would be shipping out to me in the next 7 DAYS. I ordered on Feb 3.
I ordered on February 5th and got a 7-day shipping notie.
Ordered first week of Dec. I got the generic ‘your Elemnt shipped’ email today but no tracking. I’m close to Wahoo, though, so maybe it went USPS. Either way should be here soon!
My 02-05-2016 order just shipped on 03-04-2016, in 2 of the promised 7 days.
I hope that’s a good omen.
I received a email notifying me that my Elemnt bundle shipped today. No tracking information.
The important info is that it shipped. If it is unlike Garmins and is bug free the delay is worth it.
As life is never a smooth path it is best to not sweat the small stuff.
Glad to see the units are shipping. Looking forward to seeing your reviews.
Using my companies VPN I landed on the US wahoo page, and was able to preorder. (Did not do it, as I am in the netherlands) the eu,wahoo site, still has o option to preorder….
Really looking forward to owning this device, and also do my own review…
Just waiting….
Just check my FedEx app. Showing up Friday!
Waiting for a reply from Wahoo as to when UK shipping starts – no response as yet – showing ‘early march’ on the uk.wahoo site.
Hi Tim,
I’m in the UK Tim, had an email yesterday telling me it was shipping out in the next 7 Days. I ordered mine in December.
Thanks, I haven’t pre-ordered but now it looks like it’s a reality I’ll go ahead.
Wahoo have now replied to say all international ELEMNT orders will be shipping in about 7 days time.
Received my email yesterday that it shipped, still no tracking information. But I have faith it will be here soon enough :)
Wahoo Elemnt in hand!
Didn’t realize I could attach pics. I’ll setup a shared album somewhere and link to it.
I received a message from FedEx, I’ll go pick mine up later today.
Where r u located. GA? I’m NC so just anticipating
Where r u located. GA? I’m NC so just anticipating
I’m in SE Alabama.
Okay. Elemnt arrives, it starts hailing outside. No ride today.
Setup was easy. Almost too easy. I’m sure there’s a catch somewhere. It did update itself right away.
Messed around a bit. Wifi didn’t want to stick at first but after a reboot it’s working. It didn’t want to download any of my RWGPS routes, I hopped over to strava and made two routes, those sync. I don’t pay for RWGPS, I am in my free trial of Strava so I don’t know how that will work down the road. Can’t try out the maps yet.
I really like the pages. I customized one for road rides, one for MTB, and I like how you can zoom in or out. I’m sure I will tweak this more.
Connected to my two ANT+ speed sensors easily. Renamed them after each bike, but I don’t see a place to setup wheel diameter… Is speed only off GPS? Surely not. I’ll have to look into this more.
Wahoo Tickr paired as expected.
Mounts- the square tabs are just a hair wider than my Garmin. I had my old plastic Garmin stem mounts around- a quick trim where the tabs slide into the mount and it works. It’s 90 degrees off though, so my plastic one piece out front mount won’t work. No worries, the included mount is even better. My only puzzle here is I have a K-edge stem top mount on my MTB, I hit trees sometimes and having the computer out front doesn’t work. I trimmed the plastic insert and it drops in but won’t positively lock, it just keeps spinning. I can’t figure out why. I’ll use the included wahoo zip tie mount until I can get a new k-edge insert.
Charging it up now. The screen goes blank so to check progress you have to hit the power button- a quick tap and you get a battery icon with 4 bars.
Hopefully I’ll ride tomorrow. I loaded up my usual training routes on Strava, so I don’t need GPS but I’ll see how it works.
One more observation. Doesn’t seem to work with Cyclemeter. It’s odd because their other computers do. Maybe that’s coming down the road?
I picked up my Elemnt from Fedex this afternoon. No ride yet.
RideWithGPS routes synced up for me, and I do not have a paid account. Strava routes also synced up, and I do not have a paid account there either. It would not sync them until I had setup the Wi-Fi.
It’s done 2 updates now, I think. Not sure what the last one was, but it was a bigger one than the first, if it was in fact an update. When powering up the Elemnt, it said at the bottom “Updating”.
It takes about 30 seconds from powering on until the data is shown on the screen. It calls the boot process “warming up”.
I’m sure as I get used to it, I’ll find some things that I find quirky. But, so far, so good.
The Elemnt product page is also available now: link to wahoofitness.com
I pre-ordered mine in the Netherlands, the shop has not yet informed to the delivery date, though. Fingers crossed it will arrive soon, so I can take it to Mallorca shortly, together with my BePro.
Hi Rob,
You should be able to pull routes from RideWithGPS with a free account. Does the companion app show a check mark under linked accounts with RideWithGPS? Will you navigate to the map page -> routes and let the ELEMNT connect to WiFi again. Does it now pull in the routes from RideWithGPS?
Tyler
Hi Wahoo Tyler,
Is there an easy way to get my order cancelled and get a refund? I tried emailing support and got a case number #192443 but I’ve heard nothing back, I don’t want to have it shipped and then return it.
BTW it’s nothing to do with the shipping delays, just changed money priorities!
Yea, yesterday when I setup the accounts it listed RWGPS on the Elemnt, but once it finally did a sync it’s not there anymore. On my app, it has a check mark next to it. I’ve unchecked it and logged in again and the elemnt doesn’t respond. If I uncheck strava the elemnt immediately responds, and when I log back into strava it responds.
I’ll try a few reboots and see, I can contact wahoo support directly as that’s a little easier for back and forth here.
Just messing with it for a few minutes this morning the battery dropped 5%, I guess the wifi pulls a bit of battery.
I figured out wheel circumference. Not sure how I missed that before. Very user friendly. I’ll set it to auto and see what the elemnt says compared to what the gamin said. I need to measure my new tires anyways.
Hi Mark,
I’ve contacted our CS team. They will be in touch very soon. Sorry to see you go :(.
Tyler
Okay. Deleted all connected accounts. Rebooted E (short for ELEMNT- I’m tired of fighting autocorrect) and the app. Added RWGPS only. Sync. Success. Added Strava. Sync. Success.
I have all my routes. I still have to type in the wifi password on the app to get it to sync, it seems to forget the password on reboot. I’m using an AirPort Extreme with WPA2 password security right now.
Otherwise, Looks like I’m good to go. Hoping to ride in a bit.
Rob,
Where is wheel circumference? I’ve been all over the app, and have not seen that. Is it even necessary?
On the sensor screen, once you pair the sensor tap on the name. I think at first it just let me rename it. Maybe the little gray chevron by the name could help indicate there are more settings there?
You can rename it or setup the circumference. Your options are auto/manual/or they have a pretty extensive list of nominal wheel sizes. Much nicer than flipping through a paper manual or googling wheel sizes.
Probably not totally necessary for road riding, but for training indoors, MTB, anywhere with unreliable GPS it needs the circumference.
I have not setup any sensors yet, that might be why I have not seen that.
Thanks, Rob.
it appears that the elemnt will only upload data via wifi? so if im on a camping trip without wifi but with good cell service I cant upload my rides?
Use your “Personal Hotspot” on phone as your WiFi connection while camping in good cell reception area.
i dont have personal hotspot capabilities im on sprint.
that kind of sucks if you can’t upload from bluetooth. I would find that hard to believe. maybe that’s getting pushed out in a software update you may need to run?
I just got my shipping notice…ordered 2/19 so looks like they are getting caught up for everyone else pretty quick.
^ its going to be a deal breaker for me if I cant upload my rides to strava using a cellular connection. I dont recall seeing any information about the Elemnt being limited to wifi for uploads until today. I ordered my back in October my order status is still on processing.
if you do a search for wifi on this page you will see that it notes bluetooth data transfers are indeed possible. it looks like you need wifi connection for bigger transfers such as a map update or other things like that.
hopefully wahoo or another device-in-hand user can confirm that you can upload your ride via bluetooth connection to phone and aren’t restricted to wifi only.
I just finished my first ride, and the ride is on my phone in the wahoo Elemnt app. I’m guessing it was sent via Bluetooth. From the phone you can upload it anywhere.
I think I’m having wifi issues. The ride isn’t on Strava yet, I’m guessing it didn’t get pushed by the elemnt, and I kept it turned on for 10 min after I got home. I just pushed it from the phone app and there it is on Strava.
I’ll keep tinkering with it. A bit of a learning curve with any new toy.
All rides are synced to your phone over Bluetooth, you can then upload them to any share site over cell, you don’t need wifi.
Wahoo Murray,
This may have been covered already – does the unit have an auto-shut off?
Yep.
For RideWithGPS, is there any method to sync those routes without WiFi (just via phone instead)?
I’m at a hotel that has a sign-in page, so I can’t sync it that way. And in this country my phone doesn’t support a MiFi access point.
Sorry Ray, Routes only sync over WiFi.
No support of syncing routes over Bluetooth will be a hassle when travelling, particularly internationally.
Most hotel WiFi networks have some sort of login web page that means the ELEMNT can’t use them.
I could use my iPhone Personal Hotspot to connect to the ELEMNT but then I’m paying expensive international roaming charges for the Internet connection and the whole point of hotel WiFi is to avoid this.
Maybe I could connect my phone to the hotel WiFi, the phone to my computer using a USB cable or Bluetooth and the ELEMNT to the computer using an ad hoc WiFi network on the computer but this is getting complicated and I don’t even know if it will work.
Is there a good reason why the ELEMNT won’t support syncing routes over Bluetooth ?
We understand the issue, It hasn’t been excluded as a option, just not available at this time.
You will be able to load routes via USB via an update in the next few weeks.
After having a Garmin 510 mount break and my Garmin go bouncing down the road after hitting a pothole hidden in the shadows under a bridge (also two flats with one tube but that’s another issue), I became a fan of the leash on the 510. I was concerned about a similar situation with my new ELEMNT and without a case attachment point my paranoid solution is a camera lens cap keeper.
Mine arrived and I paired up sensors etc. I run three power tap wheel sets and do not see any way to auto zero the hubs. Need t odd that in order to ensure accuracy. Does anyone know how?
t odd= to do
You don’t need todo anything, auto zero means just that, it’s automatically calibrated, it’s the great thing about PT
Is manual calibration displaying what the manufacturer returns still possible?
That guarantees a zero, suggests the unit is working correctly, and allows slope verification.
For example, PowerTaps have a zero offset in inch-pounds which must be 512 +/- 12 outside which the unit is probably getting flaky.
With the torque display you can sanity that reported torque is correct based on gear and weight hanging (or standing) on a horizontal pedal arm, with spot checks in several gears showing the unit’s slope.
My Garmin Edge 500 and CycleOps Cervo both allow that.
We don’t currently display the value. I’ve just added it to our todo list, we have an update coming to show some additional sensor information and we can include it with this information. Thanks!
Any feel if there will be a stem mount with elastic bands (3rd party?) I try to do a rent & ride when i travel and it would be better than zip ties
My first ride impressions with the ELEMNT (keep in mind I’m a totally newbie user that didn’t spend a lot of time reading the online user’s guide):
1. I can see it. I’m over 50 and had trouble reading my Garmin 510 even with progressive lens Oakleys. I had no issue seeing the display fully filled with 10 fields but really like the 8 and 6 field displays.
2. The ELEMNT was fully charged overnight, and after 3:45:00 total on time / 3:23:00 ride time the battery was down to 60% with the backlight off. (Power meter, HR, SC sensors attached).
3. I like to track TSS during my rides and found that the displayed TSS on the ELEMNT was greater than 2x my actual TSS. I did accurately set my FTP in the Android phone app along with other personal information and HR zones.
4. My Samsung Galaxy S6 was not able to remain connected during the ride. It lost connection within minutes after starting the ride and then again after reconnecting it during the ride. My wife was unable to see my current location with the Live Tracking application, nor did I received phone or text message notifications (due to the phone being disconnected). I was able to received messages when my wife and I were testing our units last night when sitting in the living room with phones actively connected. My wife is currently out for a ride and I am able to follow her progress and appears her iPhone 6+ is staying connected to the ELEMNT. This makes me believe the my connection issue could be Android hardware related or Wahoo Android App related.
5. I loaded a route through Strava, however, I like using plotaroute.com and looked for a way to manually upload the route (TCX or GPX) to the ELEMNT. It doesn’t appear there is a way to do that yet. I ended up importing the GPX into Strava and then syncing my ELEMNT.
6. I would like to see a scale legend on the map and elevation screens. I could not find a way to turn it on or determine the scale of distance or elevation like I could in the Garmin. I like knowing how far until the next climb, how big it is, and how close I am to the top.
7. In the Android app I found if I tap the ELEMNT version number under the INFO section of the settings page multiple times it tells me that “you are now ‘n’ steps away from ELEMNT BETA Firmware”. I have not continued with the taps to install the beta software as I don’t know what fixes or potential issues come along with the beta.
8. Once completing my ride and reconnecting my phone (and/or connecting to my home wifi) my ride data was uploaded to my Strava and Training Peaks accounts. I did notice that the ride was duplicated in Training Peaks but that could have been caused by my tapiriik.com syncing service.
9. I really like my new ELEMNT and feel confident that the items above, if actual issues, will be addressed in future software/firmware updates. Even if they aren’t, for me, this thing right now is miles ahead of Garmin 510, however, one ride does not make a good review.
@Jeff Misemer….. Thanks for taking the time to post your first impressions. I’m looking forward to seeing how this performs. My biggest “want” item for my next bike computer is easy loading of rides put together by my local club and getting turn-by-turn directions. It seems that the Edge 1000 is still the best at this (???) but I would *really* like to avoid getting another Garmin.
STP
My first ride with the ELEMNT was pretty good.
Very, very readable in full sunlight.
The side LEDs did wash out a bit.
Somehow, the fields I selected in the companion app were not the ones I had selected. It reverted to show calories. Not sure how that happened.
I paired my TICRx for heart rate.
I had not paired the Bontrager DuoTrap speed and cadence sensor, but I was still getting cadence. Took me a while to figure out that the TICKRx was providing cadence.
The TICKRx dropped out about 1/2 of the way through my ride.
For a 1 1/4 hour ride, the ELEMNT went from 90% battery to 73% battery. That seems like a lot of battery used. Not sure if it’s because it was trying to reach the TICKRx, or my iPhone. I did not have the companion app running in the background on my iPhone 6. I did have the phone with me, using Cyclemeter and the RFLKT+ as a comparison.
I would like to see some clearer explanation of the elevation graphing. Some dark shading that doesn’t match up with the elevation profile. Not sure what that means.
All in all, for my first dedicated GPS cycle computer, I’m very impressed.
One thing I forgot to add, and maybe it’s just me.
I would like to see the speed to 2 decimal places. Or at least an option to make it show 2 decimal places.
I’m having the exact same issue as you with my Galaxy Note Edge. It keeps disconnecting during the ride. Hopefully they can fix this with an update. I also had issues paring the bar code with the ELEMNT app, but when using the Google Goggles app it worked instantly.
Other than that, I’m loving the ELEMNT!!!
Hey, Wahoo Murray –
With end user experiences starting, I’m betting this is going to generate a flood of stuff that may make it into your roadmap.
It’s arguable that having these dialogs here (at DCR’s site) isn’t the right thing to do.
Do you have another customer forum, or place you’d rather get this feedback? I know at places I’ve been, we have had direct links between our Forums & our product backlog (using the Agile / Scrum meaning of the word “backlog”).
RSVP
-jb
PS – apologies to DCR if this reduces desired traffic on his site. OTOH, he may be tired of this thread flooding his inbox. ;-)
@Jay Batson….
I’m with you on the point that DCR’s blog isn’t the best tool for these discussions, if only because the software itself isn’t really suited to hosting threaded discussions as well as most others. As much as I don’t like dealing with Garmin, I do have to give them credit for hosting user forums that help users sort out problems. I’m not certain whether Wahoo does the same, but I hope they do or will look at it.
STP
I agree, we need an ELEMNT users forum. There’s certainly going to be lots of questions/tips/tricks with a totally new device on the market.
You could do worse than go to http://cyclogps.com
I’ve been posting on there for a while and there is a thread on the Elemnt.
link to groups.google.com
Just about the ELEMNT.
@ Tim and Drew,
Thanks! I was unaware of cyclogps.com. And I’ve joined the newly created Google group.
STP
And…if Wahoo doesn’t have forum (yet), perhaps someone like Wahoo Murray can monitor these sites and contribute.
STP
Bad timing – they’ve just announced they’re closing down in June.
Tim,
You should have specified who “they” are.
The “they” is the clyclogps forum.
I had a brief moment of thinking the “they” were Wahoo Fitness.
Which would have been a real shocker.
Yes I know, I realised that as soon as I posted – I was replying to myself, but the posting was shunted down, making it misleading. Apologies. Guess this is why we need a proper Wahoo forum …
Yes, I did almost have a brown stain moment!
I read it on my mobile whilst escorting my little daughter to the toilet at the cinema and could wait for the film to finish! I did think, “Oh no! I’ve just bought something from a company that was in the process of going pop!” Of course I did see the follow-up message and was relieved.
P.S. Just to mention that Kung Fu Panda 3 is very predictable, but did make me laugh and the little ones enjoyed it.
I joined. Thanks for the heads up. Maybe we can get some wahoo folks over there…
Going to discuss this week and see what we want todo. For now I will try and jump onto the group above, working hard on new features/tweaks so do my best to keep up!
I would like to thank Wahoo Murray (if it is indeed one person or the team). His / their attention to answering the tech details / requirements goes above and beyond – I noted the response on 25th Dec 2015!
I was being slowly pulled over to Garmin after a few years using my dependable RFLKT. I need a bike comp with routable map functions. This ticks the boxes and I immediately ordered mine.
Hopefully I won’t need to wait the painful time that early pre-order peeps had to!
Looking forward to receiving it shortly!
Took my first ride with ELEMNT on Saturday: four hours of mixed terrain fun out in the Shenandoah Mountains. Overall I’m pretty pleased and most things I’d like to see done better would be software updates / feature additions which has me pretty bullish for this device long-term. I’m comparing against an Edge 1000 which has been my go-to for the last year.
+ The data pages are crisp. I used the “zoom in / out” on # of fields more than I expected, really useful feature. As is quickly making customizations with the phone (you see the display update in real-time). It’s nice having “compared to” arrows that many cheap computers have but Garmin lacks.
+ On-screen map is easy to read: B&W is way easier to parse than Garmin’s colored versions while on the move. I loaded the course from ridewithgps (super simple!). There’s no turn-by-turn but I was on unfamiliar roads and would glance at it on occasion to see when turns were coming up.
o elevation profile screen is well laid out and handy, but really need a legend for both axes
o buttons are a bit small and mildly difficult to press with thick gloves on, but still easier to operate than an Edge touchscreen in the same condition
o not sold on the LEDs yet. I had the left meter set to “current power vs. lap average” but since current power has a lot of rapid variation the meter jumps around a lot. Using a smoothed 10/30s average and being able to set the LEDs based on zones or target goal would be more useful (esp. for time trialing).
o just in general I would like smoothed power averages as a display field: 10s / 30s / 1m (etc). They eventually came to RFLKT so I’ll just bide my time here
o would like to use my existing K-Edge mount. Wahoo support said K-Edge would put the plastic adapter for sale on their site, so another wait and see.
– Battery life or percentage suspect. I started at 75% and finished at 11%. This was 4 hours or riding, backlight on w/5 seconds, having a course loaded and connected to TICKR, magnetless speed sensor, Stages. But after ~15 minutes of charging it said it was back up to 68% so I’m not sure what to think. Will need to keep an eye on it and cache battery handy for long rides.
– Boot up time is inconveniently long, about 30 seconds
– Temperature data wasn’t uploaded to Strava. It’s available during the ride, so that’s just an odd one.
– TSS was way wrong. I set my FTP in the app but ELEMNT said I was over 10k!
To recap: I can easily see this being my main computer. I hope that route navigation matures but for now I’ll hang onto the Edge 1000 for times when I’m in new territory.
Hi Tyler, Thanks for the feedback.
– Elevation profile, I will get some details posted on the scale of the elevation profiles in our support forums.
– Lots of smoothed power options available on Android and iOS (out today)
– Make sure you charge you battery to 100%, if you still have any issues then raise a support ticket from our website, this is outside out expected results.
– Not sure on the K-edge release dates, I am trying to get some feedback from them.
– We are looking into the TSS issue, only seems to be reported by a couple people.
HERE: If anyone has specific bugs please lodge them via our support website, its impossible to ensure we keep track on any reported bugs. We are 100% focused on any reported bugs so its support important they are logged though are trackable channels. Thanks!
I’ve ridden twice with mine. So far, I’m really liking it a lot. So happy to have a display that prioritizes readability over color or touch.
Best I can tell from my last ride, the vertical grid marks on the climbing page represent 1/2 mile each. At least this lined up with what i experienced. The vertical axis seems to scale depending on your zoom level. So I’m not sure you can learn more from it than your climb will get a bit easier in about 1/4 mile, etc.
Also–it does not appear to zoom (the elevation profile, that is). Doesn’t bother me at this point–but it might whenever I go back to Latigo Canyon!
All in all, I’m loving this product.
Same battery problems. I opened a ticket, ‘It should get fixed with firmware, we know there’s a problem but we don’t know when’ was the answer. I’ve been on four rides and I would consider myself lucky to get 8 hours out of the “17 hours” from the website. I had it on my desk and powered it on and off four times hoping the update would come and fix the problem, used 6% of the battery. No sensors, it only talked to my phone during that time.
I have been out on mine a few times. Used it for Banstead to Brighton round trip of over 8 hours and 160km. On return the battery is still good. I make sure mine is fully charged before I start and try to drain the battery down after a ride. I think batteries prefer to be used that way although of course the new tech they should be fine with topping up.
vinnychoff
I’m having problems with my Elemnt when I press the Lap button, only the first lap uploads to Strava/Trainingpeaks and the rest of the ride is missing. Interestingly, in the Elemnt app it shows the full ride? This is really annoying since I would like to analyze my full ride with other software.
I use the “lap” function on my current Garmin quite frequently for intervals. If the lap problem reported by Jusitn B is not user error, that needs to rocket to the top of the “needs to be fixed” list for Wahoo!
I meant to mention that I was about to place an order, but that problem stopped me dead in my tracks. Would like to hear if others are experiencing it. Certainly seems like something that should have been caught in testing.
Hi Justin,
Sorry to hear about this! Are you sharing from the companion app or ELEMNT auto upload? Are you running iOS or Android? I’m going to look into this.
Hi Tyler,
I’m sharing from the companion app to upload it to Strava/TP, running Android. Both Strava and TP only had the first lap of the ride. However, I plugged the Elemnt into my computer and grabbed the fit file and uploaded it manually to Strava and the full ride is there. Must be a problem with the companion app?
Thanks for your help!
Justin
Thanks Justin! It does indeed sound like a companion app issue. I’ll investigate this and we will work on a fix. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Upload issues here.
Is the ELEMNT supposed to upload at the end of the ride? Am I supposed to do something to trigger that? I get home, I hit pause, then stop and leave it on and take it inside until auto-shuts off. As far as I can tell nothing happens. I can upload from the phone easy enough. Certainly not a deal breaker but if it’s supposed to auto upload it’s not. I wouldn’t mind if it used the phone cellular connection to upload.
Also, when uploading to Garmin connect (or if I export a .gpx file to Cyclemeter) my total distance and speed are zero. The elevation is half of what the ELEMNT reads. I’m trying to use either Garmin or Cyclemeter to still keep track of my gear mileage (bike, wheels, chain, etc. ).
Hi Rob,
Can you please log a support ticket via our website, this isn’t something we are seeing and if we can get a ticket made we can make sure its tracked and talked about in our daily meetings. Thanks!
Murray
Will do. I really appreciate the customer service so far BTW. It’s been great.
Murray, I have a question: will the price be rised when the Elemnt is in stock?
With all the delays, a price increase would be counter productive. It’s already priced 10% above the 520 and with Cleaver Training discount, it’s roughly 20% above.
FWIW, I’m in the US, ordered on March 2nd (the bundle with HR strap and cadence sensor) and USPS tracking indicates it should arrive today. So it seems pretty close to “in stock”.
Jealous, Buck, I ordered it 6+ months ago and am still waiting. I’m sure it’ll arrive soon.
No the price will not rise. It will remain as is.
They FedEx ground shipped mine. Supposedly shipped the first day available but still in transit . But, never told me the tracking number. Had to ask customer support, whom took about 24 hours to respond. i guess this is how things are done in Georgia.
First couple of rides today with my ELEMNT, and I’ll say up front that I don’t have any other bike computer to compare it to (apart from my RFLKT which isn’t really a comparison) and I have to say I’m impressed.
– Set up was almost annoyingly easy. I’m a geek and I like to futz around with these things but it was as simple as pairing, logging in, setting up wifi, pairing devices (BlueSC, TICKR and KICKR) and off I went.
– Display is super clear and at-a-glance obvious.
– Auto stop on the device worked perfectly.
– Haven’t really used the navigation yet much but it seems clear and smooth,
– Battery life seems good, I left with it at 94%, rode for 45 mins and it’s at 91%.
– Data sharing is giving me problems. I uploaded to Strava and the stats are different to the device because Strava doesn’t realize where my stops were and for how long, the clock kept on running. MapMyFitness won’t upload at all (Error, it says ‘Reference: 53838’). That’s a pain, but hopefully something that can be easily fixed?
– I selected the LEDs to display power but they didn’t come on. Just tried it with Heart Rate and it seems to be working, I’d have to try it again to be sure.
Adding my thanks to WahooMurray for his attention on this thread! It’s useful and friendly support that keeps me coming back to Wahoo.
Hi Mark,
I was able to reproduce the issue with sharing to MapMyFitness. I’ve logged a bug and we will get this fixed.
Will you email support@wahoofitness.com about the Strava issue so we can get some of the details. Please provide the file from the companion app and a link to your Strava workout.
Thanks,
Tyler
Thanks Tyler – entered the ticket re: Strava. It seems that the same data displayed in Strava and ELEMNT don’t line up for some reason: Strava had me moving for a longer period of time, so the ELEMNT data does reflect when you’re paused some of the time, but only about 30% of it. It’s not in synch with when the device itself says you’re paused.
The guys over at cyclogps.com have now set up a Wahoo sub-forum, to which everyone is invited. The forum was originally set up by fans of the Mio/Magellan series, but has expanded to include a wide range of GPS’s and an equally wide range of knowledgable folk!
The cyclops page appears to be a ghost town. Dead as dead can be. I would use the Google Group posted above, as Wahoo is already actively responding to it.
link to groups.google.com
Yes, I can only agree, the google group page very quickly became the go to place.
Fellow preorder peeps, is there anyone who has NOT received their ELEMNT yet? I got the “Your ELEMNT is on its way!” email- which doesn’t have a tracking number in it. That’s all I’ve received- and I ordered it early (9/15/2015).
I got the same. Had to bug their support, which took a long time to respond. They FedEx ground shipped it, because they thought that was the best way to help preorder customers after numerous delays and charging our credit cards in advance.
Why did I give them my money?
Hi Tedder – Please shoot support@wahoofitness.com an email so we can track down your ELEMNT! Have to get you out there riding.
Well, I received my Elemnt tonight and wouldn’t you know it, the “UP” button doesn’t work. All the other buttons has a subtle “click” when press them, but not the UP button. It’s almost like the button isn’t even there (the rubberized cover is there but I doubt the actual button is underneath). This really should have been caught in the final round of QA on the device. The menus are inoperable without this button. You’d think they’d check this critical functionality before shipping them out. I understand that software was the source of delay on these devices, but I wonder how many hardware issues are about to pop up. Unfortunately, I’m really fed up with Garmin (went through three 810’s in about 2 years) and was really hoping Wahoo was going to be the answer. Not sure what to do at this point. I assume i now go to the back of the line and will have to wait months for a replacement. Remember getting that toy for Christmas when you were a kid that was broken when you opened it? Remember that feeling of disappointment? Yeah… that’s happening right now :(
Hi Nate – I’m really sorry to hear this! Please contact our support team so we can get you up and running ASAP.
Tyler
Thank you Tyler. I have contacted customer support and received an instant response. They’re overnighting me a new one today!
When will you post the review on the shipped version? I am very curious.
Around the end of the month.
Just had the email from Wahoo that my Elemnt has shipped by Fedex.
Ordered in the UK just before Christmas. Looking forward to getting my hands on it over the next few days :-)
Dex.
be interested to see a UK users thoughts, plus what UK mapping is like. Sick of my 800
Hi Dex,
I’d be interested to hear your experiences, especially with the map display. My wife has a Garmin edge Touring and it is really clunky and the screen is not particularly bright / clear.
I have loaded Open Cycle Map UK and that is really useful as the National Cycle Network routes are highlighted on the map screen. I was hoping that the Wahoo would have a similar feature.
anybody know how to make street names appear on the map page?
Wait for the software update which includes street name display. To paraphrase the development team is thinking about options, but it’s not yet in the feature backlog.
I’m aware that Wahoo’s marketing mock-ups and packaging include street names which would be visible at sufficient zoom.
link to groups.google.com
Just got my first ride in. Good unit. Screen and maps are good. Main gripe is battery life. Burned through 25% in less than two hours, 30 mile ride. Almost identical battery run down on my vivoactive for same ride. At that rate this thing could struggle to make it through some slow centuries for riders especially if longer stops. Not looking like anywhere near claimed battery life. And I was not flipping screens or utilizing backlight for more than a few seconds. Maybe this will get fixed in software update.
And my texts/calls were not showing up even after double checking to make sure it was connected and setting was on.
Might be worth checking again after a couple of ride/charge cycles. battery power readings might just need time to settle.
So far, most battery life comments have been from just a few hours use shortly after getting hold of the device. I would give it a week and a few longer rides before getting worried.
Funny reading the comments on here about shipped units.
So after waiting so long for these Elemnts, it seems people are still being Beta testers?! You’d have thought all the bugs would have been ironed out given the 6 month delays.
I think you see all products have growing pains upon release. Dramatically expanding ones test pool does that.
I’m far more interested in how they react over the following weeks. Obviously, they’be been hugely reactive here and on other forums in terms of reacting to bug reports and agreeing to fix them.
The next step is getting releases out that fix them. I’m hoping we see something like every other week releases for bugs. We’ve started to see that with the app already, so that’s a good start. You don’t want to iterate so quickly that you can’t do QA, so you do want to find a balance there.
Same with any product launch. Apple, Microsoft, anyone – nobody ever has a 100% perfect launch. I work in software development and every go-live is the same… Wahoo’s support staff will be so busy, they will be getting their asses handed to them right now. But one thing you can be sure of – unlike Garmin and other larger companies, Wahoo’s people actually do give a crap about the product and will always work with you to solve issues. And solve them they will.
Just think. In a short while, when Elemnt is a rock solid product, you’ll get to tell all your friends that you were using it when it sucked.
However, I feel that it is already a solid product, and I’ll get to tell my friends that I was using it when it first released, and they really missed out.
My Elemnt arrived today, setup was easy and straightforward, but I can’t Customise my Screens, I get an error message pop up every time. Doesn’t matter if I try to add a screen, or change the existing default screens. I’ve raised a support ticket with Wahoo, just waiting to hear back from them.
This aside, I like the unit, not used it in anger yet of course, I need to sort out this issue first.
Screenshot of the error message attached, wonder if anyone else has seen this?
Dex.
Mine went okay. took a while to pair and power on. I have already updated mine. Have you had the option to update?
Vincenzo
Yep, software/firmware is up to date, I’ve checked that. After playing around with it. It appears to happen most often when trying to use the “3s Avg Power” field when I try to use that it seems to get the error message most, I’ve used the “5s Avg Power” which seems to work ok.
All a bit odd.
Dex.
Hi Dex – Sorry about this! 3s Power is coming soon to the ELEMNT. That’s why you’re receiving the error. The ELEMNT doesn’t yet support this. It should be in the next update.
Hi Tyler,
Ahhhh, that makes sense then :-)
No worries, happy to wait, I’ve got 5 sec working in any case for now. Will await the update, otherwise all is good :-)
I had raised a support ticket for this issue, so if you have access to the support tickets you may wish to bin it, happy you’ve answered it here.
Thanks,
Dex
Ray thanks for your review, I have bought the elemnt and put a youtube video unwrapping the box. I am looking forward to configuring it away from the defaults once i get used to it.
Did a couple of test rides today. Nothing huge, but a nice hour in the early spring sun of Scandinavia :-)
For me everything worked perfectly, however the only censor was a TickrX.
I experienced no drops in connection, no issues with pausing or any other “strangeness”.
The out-front mount breaths of quality, and seems at least as good as my bar-fly mounts!
The display is really crips and easy to read. In daylight that is! It probably goes without saying, but at nighttime it appears almost off, unless you use the backlight! With backlight on, it’s again really nice.
But this leads e to the only “issue” so far: Should you want to turn on the backlight, for more than x seconds (what happens when you press a button), you have to do this from within the App, you cannot turn the backlight on or off on the device.
So if you are riding, and it becomes darker, you have to pull out your phone, should you want to turn the backlight permanently on.
Also, I have not seem any Strava Segments on the screen, does anyone know if that feature is already live, or waiting a future update=
Hi Jan – You can turn on the back light from the menu(power) button without the use of the companion.
Strava Segments. This is in design as we speak and hope to roll out in the next month or so.
You can turn the light on from the device.
Press the On/Off button on the left, to get into Settings. Backlight display options are there.
You don’t even need to look. After you tap the power button the backlight option will be highlighted, tap the bottom middle button twice to cycle off-5 sec-on, and the power button will get you back to normal operation.
A short press on the power button to turn backlight on-or-off and long to get the config menu would be easier though.
I’m really glad to hear this.
Then there is really nothing to complain about so far :-)
You Wahooligans are doing a great work!
My wife pre-ordered her ELEMNT and has been able to play around with it a little already. From my limited experience with hers, it looks really nice. I’ll order mine through my local shop when they are able to place orders.
Does anyone at Wahoo or anyone else know if there will be a mounting solution for the new Trek Madone which has a unique bar/stem combo and shape? I was hoping for an “off the front” type of mount but I don’t see anything on offer that would provide that sort of mounting.
@John D, Regarding a Wahoo mount for the Trek Madone: link to bikeforums.net
Hi
Mine got delivered in the UK yesterday and first ride today. I love it!
The screen is really clear. It feels very well built. Mapping is excellent. Set-up was ridiculously easy and it synced to Strava with no fuss. I’m glad I waited.
I have two questions:
1. Is it possible to configure it so that some units are metric and some imperial? I like different units for different things. I use miles for distance and speed but I much prefer Celsius to Farenheit for temperature and actually would prefer metres to feet for elevation. I guess this is an issue unique to UK users but it would be great if it could be further customised.
2. Is it possible to orientate the map so that it is ‘Track Up’ instead of ‘North Up’?
Thanks
Steve
Steve- both of those issues have come up on the google groups discussion area. I’d suggest joining us there.
Steve – Wahoo site says “will ship in April” so how did you buy in the UK?
Sorry for not reading all 760 posts, but the angst re “doesn’t fit Garmin quarter-turn mount” caught my eye. This is a major faux-pas by Wahoo – just accept that there is pretty much an industry standard and go with it, and don;t risk turning away a customer.
The answer is for someone with a 3D print capability to run out an adapter which need only be about 5mm thick… A little awkward to ensure the ‘right’ bit does the 1/4 turn in the right order but that’s not beyond imagination.
I feel your pain but as I understand it (from comments above), that 1/4 turn mount is proprietary to Garmin. I’d guess the 3rd party mount manufacturers are licensed by Garmin to produce that mount style. I’d also guess that Garmin wouldn’t readily license any GPS computer manufacturers it deems competitors to use it.
Fwiw, I continue to use the ELEMNT in the standard Garmin quarter-turn mount just fine. After going in/out a few times it seems to be fine. Obviously, whether or not that breaks it long term…not yet sure. So far so good.
As for the mount. Take a look at post #54, #63 and most importantly #73. Open Standard!
I have spoken with and ordered a stem mount from K-Edge. They have all mounts available in black for the Elemnt, but they have not updated their website yet, so you must call.
I have also spoke with Barfly and they claimed to have a mount for the Elemnt in 4 weeks or less.
Quality mounts are coming, and coming soon.
Ray! We want the full ELEMNT review – if someone is in the market for a bike computer is this now the best option or do you still prefer the Garmin 520?
I’ll have my in-depth review up by the end of the month, the week of March 28th (somewhere in there).
The two units have their pros and cons, which I’ll detail in the review.
Ray I look forward to your review. I am enjoying the f1 leds and playing with the software.
vinnychoff
Looking forward to upcoming in-depth review. As I still didn’t decided which first gps bike computer to buy this will definitely help me with right choice. I hestitate to choose 520 for existing issues with Tickr and poor support. Elemnt on the other hand is ~100eur more expensive and in early life cycle for now.
I had the same thoughts that you had with either the garmin or the wahoo elemnt. When I first joined the cycling groups everyone had garmins and complained about them. The mapping did not work very well.
I am into technology and think that new products only improve but it is also the quality of the software that will help. That helped me to choose the elemnt with new features and better mapping.
How do you get RideWithGps to work ? Have added my account and the Elemnt does nothing won’t sync etc.
The companion app said with was authorised.
Cannot see any option in companion app to load bespoke routes manually.
Pairing was rather painful, and an update lost all my settings.
Sadly seems very garmin-esque at the moment. Was hoping for more !
Thanks
Also is there some iOS beta version of the companion app I should be using, looking at the images again here the ‘Offline Maps’ and ‘Routes’ just don’t in appear in the companion app.
Graham – We have more route options coming in the next update to the companion app.
As far as syncing routes to the ELEMNT. Authorize RideWithGPS and then navigate to the maps page on the ELEMNT -> Routes -> Sync. Make sure the ELEMNT is in wifi range for it to download the routes.
Yes i got it to work eventually. Was very temperamental and i need to re-auth RWGPS about 5 times but eventually it synced.
Thanks
Question to Elemnt owners: Does the unit is full black or with grey bottom as in picture here link to eu.wahoofitness.com ?
Yes it is. Back on top, grey bottom.
the offcial web site change from “preorder” to “add to cart”
does that mean the elemnt can shipped immediately after payment
Yes you are right. You can order the elemnt. I had mine delivered last week. I can see on the site that they are now shipping from stock.
Vincenzo
Thanks
I’m from China, can this be shipped to China
When is it going to be available in Australia?
Thanks
V
As I understand it the ELEMNT supports bluetooth and ANT+ for everything. And if my sensors have dual BTLE and ANT+ support. eg. Stages power meter, Wahoo Tickr, upcoming Wahoo speed sensor, then which is the ‘best’ method to connect them? Bluetooth or ANT+?
My understanding with bluetooth and ant+ is that you cant choose. I was going to link up my elemnt to the android phone rather than wifi so it updates often but cant see this in the menu.
Vincenzo
As I understand it the linkage to your phone is an entirely seperate matter. I’m talking about pairing sensors.
Is it a known bug, if in erg-mode and the iPhone app wants 20min max avg to show, the ELEMNT displays 10min max avg? The same with 30min max avg, the ELEMNT says 20 min.
Michael – yes, this is known and resolved in the next update.
Wahoo Tyler – can you comment on GoPro camera control? Is it on the roadmap somewhere – Ray had mentioned it was coming in his first take on the ELEMNT.
I see a virtual partner type thing is planned, is there anyway to see route/segment times and current time on the route.
Wahoo – is the GoPro control functionality that Ray mentioned in his first take actually working or is that on the roadmap for a future SW release?
Hi Ray, sorry to ask but whe are you going to release full review?
Thanks!
Ray mentioned in post #793
I’ll have my in-depth review up by the end of the month, the week of March 28th (somewhere in there).
The two units have their pros and cons, which I’ll detail in the review.
An honest review released now will note basic functionality does not work, like recording rides (it replaces zero power and speed samples from stops with non-zero on export to .FIT files) and navigation (unlike the 6.5 year old Edge 500, it does not do turn by turn navigation, give distance to course points, and show cue sheets from .TCX files). Maps have no scale, no street names, and can’t be panned away from your current location.
A review which will remain relevant needs to wait for turn-by-turn navigation which Wahoo has scheduled for March, some bug fixes, and mapping features not yet publicly on the road map.
I get mine today – just took the risk on early SW bugs. My bet here is that Wahoo will move faster on features and cool functionality than Garmin. I have a bunch of their products (all good experiences) and am willing to take the risk even though it does sound like the ELEMNT is still a bit beta.
Strange, I don’t see that non-zero on any of my files. I’ve been comparing the raw-off-USB exports to other units, and don’t see any issues there (from the same power meter).
As for other mapping functions, no doubt there’s work to be done on mapping. But as I often note – they’ve made the bed they lie in. So, if they’re selling a product on the open market (which they are), then it is what it is. I’ll definitely note areas of focus going forward, and where they plan to update things.
I’ve taken the risk and ordered an ELEMNT as well, primarily based upon what I hope is a highly legible screen.
My aging eyes are finding it more difficult to read a Garmin colour screen, particularly in bright sunlight and there isn’t much that I can do about that while I hope Wahoo can address product deficiencies with software updates.
I’ve seen the non-zero issue when I exported the data, but not every time, it’s sporadic. Someone over on the Google group saw the same problem so I looked too, and saw the same symptom. The exported gps_speed data seems to stick on the last speed it recorded but the spd_instspeed column is zero. I believe a support ticket has been opened for it.
I posted the interpolated samples problem (latest firmware, PowerTap SL+, Garmin GSC10) to my ELEMNT users google group
link to groups.google.com
Here’s a Golden Cheetah screen shot. Note the stop at 3 minutes where cadence drops to zero (the ELEMNT added the wiggle) and power ramps steadily over 30 seconds from 0 to 250 Watts. Those samples are not in the Edge 500 recording.
Interesting. I’ll poke around looking for something similar. I’ve mostly been using a PowerTap G3 and P1 with it, so I wonder if perhaps there’s some slight variation between sensors and some standards going on for your SL+.
I say that because there have been slight changes over the years in the ANT+ power profile, specifically around how companies should deal with drops and zero-values.
Got my Elemnt today… How can I calibrate the Altimeter?
And when will the firmware arrive so that I can manually add my wifi. The app couldn’t find my network…
Macbuddy I would think that you have a issue with your router rather than the elemnt. I found my wifi and neighbours rtrs. The only issue I had was that it lost the password and I had to reenter again. Mine is syncing okay and checking for software updates now.
No, the WIFI is perfectly configured. I’m working in that kind of business.
Router is one of the best you can get in Germany – AVM Fritz.box 7490.
Do have 5GHz and 2.4GHz Networks running… Sadly you cannot configure a manual connecting (have to wait for a firmware update).
But what about calibrating the altimeter?
Macbuddy i have been through all the options and cant see how to alter the settings on the altimeter. Why would you need to do this?
You have to calibrate barometric altimeters to make them work properly. Look at Garmin/Sigma/…
For me it’s 50 Meters too high at home.
I’m more concerned about the delta elevation than absolute. I’d rather know how many feet I climbed than what my actual elevation was. I’m not climbing mountains though.
Because it is so new, I am patient to see all the options. I hope wahoo look after us and have these bugs ironed out. The best way is to raise a case through wahoo, that way it is noted on their system.
Thanks for letting me know about setting the altimeter.
Vincenzo
ELEMNT arrived today – first ride report
So setup was no problem and the QR code pairing worked well. I connect my Blue SC and my Polar H7 HR strap – all good. Time for a ride.
– The good – really like the hierarchical display. You just pick your top 10 metrics in order of priority and then you can drill up/down as you see fit. This is very innovative and I really liked it the first time out. Display was also very easy to read – liked that.
– The bad – HR reading said N/A as soon as I got on the bike. Huh? It had been working fine. I check my Wahoo Utility to make sure the HR strap is working – no problem, heart rate readable on iPhone. So I unpair/repair the HR strap – no dice. Unpair/repair/unpair/repair/no dice/repeat. No clue why the ELEMNT won’t work with my HR strap but feels like a fairly sizable bug.
Are you sure it can pair with your phone and the ELEMNT at the same time? Many BT devices can only do one at a time. Turn BT off on your phone and see what happens.
Indeed a limitation of Bluetooth 4.0 sensors (most anyway). Especially if the phone connection is held open (common). Best to either power phone off to test, or to just hit the Bluetooth icon to turn off Bluetooth on phone to test.
Thanks to Ray I actually realized that the Wifi connection had never worked so the ELEMNT was not running the latest firmware. I upgraded the firmware last night so will test again this weekend. My HR strap is now working when not in recording mode so I assume it will work when I next take a ride.
As for Bluetooth not connecting to two devices at once that is correct. However, you can test whether a device is working with an app like Wahoo Utility and then shut the app down and the same device should connect to a bike computer, etc. I tested this to make sure and it does indeed work.
Rod I had the same with wifi. I could not see my router name. When I connected it again it worked and the sync worked.
re the bluetooth I am not sure what you are saying as I have the wahoo heart strape, wahoo rpm connected.
Although I have a ticket open with wahoo as I am not happy with the cadence display details. It seems very erratic. Maybe this is elemnt as quite often I find crash dumps are uploading to wahoo.
I would disconnect the device from the phone. The Elemnt appreciates the Bluetooth connection to your phone ;-)
Ray are you still testing? Really looking forward to see your review on this device. Struggling around to get the Edge 520/1000 vs. the Elemnt.
Yes, I plan a full review during the last week of march.
I’m noticing a large discrepancy between how Strava interprets my Elemnt’s autopaused ride data vs my Garmin 500. I realize Strava does all kinds of filtering–which is understandable for the purposes of segments (although not necessarily defensible for the whole ride). But on the same ride, I’m getting very nearly no credit for any of my paused time on my Elemnt, whereas my Garmin data is much less “molested” by Strava. Anyone else seeing this? Any clues as to why?
Looks like I will be turning autopause off, and manually pausing my rides for a while…
Yep, I’m seeing exactly the same thing. There’s a thread for it over on the Google group as well. I’ve opened a support ticket for it but you should probably do the same in case your issue is slightly different to ours in some way. A ride that displayed 40 mins on the ELEMNT was 42 mins when I uploaded it to Strava. The same ride using the Fitness app with sensors would more or less agree with the Strava upload, give or take a few seconds.
Also, I think you’ll find that manually auto pausing won’t help, because the problem is that ELEMNT doesn’t agree with itself when you upload to Strava. I’m finding some rides are better than others, and I dumped the data in .csv format – there’s two columns that track speed, one zeroing and the other isn’t, it’s retaining the last known speed which would be recorded as moving time. I don’t know if that’s the precise cause but it certainly doesn’t look right. Should be a simple fix IF that’s the problem.
Thanks for the reply!
The years-long thread on the Strava support page (about the general filtering issue) suggests that Strava respects a manual pause, and makes no attempt to filter a “hard” pause. Haven’t tried it yet–so can’t say if it works.
If I understand your .csv observation–it’s odd–as the auto-pause only kicks in after I’ve been stopped for a few seconds. Plenty of time to record a 0mph point.
I’ll submit a ticket once I’ve gathered a few more facts!
I got mine yesterday, and was hoping to use it today, but passed on it. You see, navigation, and being able to plan and download a route, is a big feature to me, and for some reason, I can’t get it to work. It paired and sync’d to both RWGPS and Strava (most of my routes are on RWGPS though, and I have a lot). However, the nav function is clunky (routes seem to be ordered by proximity to where one is, in somewhat random sequence), and I could not find the route I was riding today either before I rode, or after I rode it. On the screens above, there appears to be a ROUTING option in settings, but I didn’t find it on my add-on app, nor does it appear that this is how it works anymore from the FAQ’s.
Am I doing something wrong? I’m not deleting routes from RWGPS, so that’s a non-starter. Right now, I’m thinking I’ll put it back in the box and send it back to Wahoo.
John my understanding is that the maps is not fully functional yet. I have only seen like you some of my routes but not been able to follow correctly the route.
I have heard so many complaints about garmin that i would rather ride the waits for the software. I think if you raise a case with them and comment on here. hopefully that they will listen and move soon.
Thank you for that info. I may still send it back then, and pick it up when it is more functional. My plan was to sell my Garmin 810, which I’ve learned to quite like… and like I said, navigation is *really* important to me. thanks again, Vincenzo.
As far as I can see Ray was testing an unofficial release.
Actually there is no option to select the routes via the companion app. It syncs everything with your Elemnt (Phone Elemnt – but you need WIFI connection!!!).
Then you can choose a route on your Elemnt (but be careful – could be a long long list).
I wonder if you could make the elemnt connect wifi to the phone then the updates would be quicker and on the go rather than when you get back home.
I wonder if Wahoo thought about this?
Vincenzo
I’ve configured my phone as a mobile hotspot and synced + updated an ELEMNT that way.
It is a VERY lengthy list. The nav function is not very good, and is quite clunky. Additionally, you have to scroll through ride by ride, and the one I wanted isn’t even showing. Compared to the 810, the functionality of this leaves a lot to be desired. I’m afraid I have to send mine back.
As of 2016-03-20 the navigation functionality isn’t as good as the Garmin Edge 500 which predates the ELEMNT by 6.5 years.
On the Edge 500 you can download individual course .TCX files and delete them. The ELEMNT gives you every course in your ridewithgps account.
Once riding a course when not on the map screen the Edge gives you an audible alert before each turn plus a pop-up indicating direction and street name. On the navigation screen you get next turn, distance to it, and estimated time. There’s a cue sheet with the next three turns listed plus time and distance to those and the course end.
The ELEMNT does give you maps with city names, your course as a grey line, chevrons in the direction of travel on the nearby part of your course, and a scale. The map does not have street names and is not scrollable. While a start, that’s not as useful because you need to keep your eyes glued to the map.
Both give you on and off-course alerts, with the ELEMNT flashing its lights.
Drew thanks I did wonder if i should have set that up as the wifi point. Thanks for your tip though.
As you say Drew I went out and used the maps to look at the way back. I could see via the maps where it was black to get back on track. I could also see a couple of settings. Not the ideal way to see but It works for that part of the maps.
I hope to see an improvement on the maps side
To me, in spite of some missing features, the map functionality is already far ahead of the Edge 500. Also, people should really stop comparing the ELEMNT to the Edge 810, which retails for much more, and whose functionality the ELEMNT was not designed to compete with.
For me, just having a map of the world built in (not via internet) is huge–with or without street names. Being able to actually see the display in all lighting conditions is huge. The display of the route names is so much better, and more readable than E500. More of the route name shows up–less truncation. The sync is instantaneous for me.
Something does need to be done about route organization. I realized before I did my initial setup that I would not want ALL my RidewithGPS routes on my ELEMNT, so I exported the subset that I did want, and brought them into Strava, and let my unit sync with that. This is my stop-gap until the companion app has some better organization features.
As they say, different strokes for different folks.
For me, the ability to plan a route, download it to a device, and be able to follow it while riding is pretty critical. That’s why I buy GPS devices in the first place. The ELEMNT does not meet this criteria. It has some other features that I like, but the trade-off is too much for me. It’s not a matter of “which device is best”, but rather “which device is best for me”, since, after all, I’m the user/purchaser.
I doubt I’m the only one who wants this functionality; therefore, my comments are merely to advise potential buyers who also value this function that it is lacking in the ELEMNT.
If this gets fixed, I may buy it again, but for now, it’s a $300+ piece of equipment that doesn’t meet my needs.
I’d agree that the ELEMNT has a bit further to go in terms of having all the features of an Edge 810, but I’d disagree it’s dramatically short of the Edge 500. I’d say they are different.
For example, the Edge 500 lacks mapping, which ELEMNT has. And quite honestly – that’s a HUGE thing. I’d rather have maps than a unit without maps (but that has better TBT directions).
Of course, like John noted, different things for different folks. From a purely mapping perspective, I’d take the ELEMENT over the Edge 500. Would I take it over the Edge 1000? No, of course not.
Would I take it over the Edge 520 (again, purely mapping focuced)? Well, that’s where it gets complex. The Edge 520 has better maps (using OSM), which gives me more clarity than ELEMNT. On the flip side, you’ve basically got to use Garmin’s platform to wirelessly sync (design in GC). Else, you can manually do the US/transfer thing. Many folks hate the cumbersome process for getting routes on computers.
Now, I’m not sure that Wahoo actually makes significant progress there oddly enough. In some ways, yes, if I had routes already in Strava or RWGPS. But if not – then it’s basically just shifting the mouse trip elsewhere. It’s still a mouse trap though.
As for using ELEMNT today, as is (on March 20th), I just haven’t had issues with getting where I wanted to go. I’ve been in tiny European towns with confusing intersections and got to my destinations hours away without issue by bike. Could it be easier? Absolutely, but it’s not really a deal breaker for me.
Just my two cents.
On the positive side, I liked the Wahoo’s UI much better than the Garmin. The Wahoo is intuitive and paging is a breeze, and the smart phone integration is superb. Their customer service is top-notch (does Garmin even answer customer questions?).
I will take another look at the ELEMNT when their nav features are more robust. I have no doubt they’ll get there.
I’m just hoping it’s reliable.
My Garmin 1000 has crashed / turned it’s self off several times during a ride.
The touch screen borders on the useless as it’s so unresponsive.
TBT on the 1000 varies greatly, sometimes excellent, other times it doesn’t say anything till I’m off course.
Just did a firmware upgrade on the 1000 and it’s lost all my settings.
All in all i’ll give the elemnt a go, it’s got a pretty low bar to beat.
I am with you Graham, I took the plunge and bought the elemnt through seeing so many issues with garmins while out on cycle rides. Yet my car gps is a garmin so I am not adverse to having a garmin.
I do love tech though and realise that early days mean that you have to be patient also. New features take time to develop properly.
I’ve had my E for roughly two weeks or so. I am a newbie user to advance bike computers, though I have been using a combination of entry-level computers and cycling apps on my cell phone. Here are my quick thoughts:
1) The high-contrast screen is fantastic. It’s clear to read in all conditions, and I love the ability to maximize or minimize the amount of categories on the screen (using the up or down right side buttons).
2) The initial pairing is suuuuper easy, though the instructions for the devices are really awful. It’s not terribly complicated to figure things out, but it might be helpful to have some basic functions explained in an quick start user guide.
3) The mapping functions are not great, yet. It’s actually a bit complicated to use – requiring creation or sync using other services. I think it’s missing a simple input or search on the device like I’m used to using Google maps.
4) I’ve had some challenges making sure the speed on the rides gets established right away. There’s been quite a bit of inconsistency, actually. I reset the device, etc., and it’s been more consistent since then.
5) The LED lights seem cool, but I’m not sure they’re super functional short of power users using a PowerMeter.
6) The grade category does not seem to work when I am going downhill, only uphill. That may be because it’s not supposed to and this is a stupid novice error? I wish it showed me the grade, though, both downhill and uphill.
7) I designed a custom page using the app, and it works! It’s a pretty neat feature, though I wish more of this was able to be completed on the device itself without having to use the application. Of course, it’s a silly first-world complaint to make.
8) I really like the device overall, though I feel like it’s a bit expensive without a more robust and immediately helpful mapping system – both turn by turn navigation and ability to search for addresses on the device. Or, I guess, the opportunity to send a search from Google Maps straight to the device.
Ad 3) 8) This would be super-great and probably easier to implement. Export route from google-maps (where you can enter adress and rest is done for you by google) on your phone (easy to do so, large touchscreen operation) to element device and then simple turn notifications (as in edge 500/520) would be enough (I see this is still lacking on element, but suppose it will be added in future release).
P.s. I would love if element would handle custom cue points from RWGPS like summit,valley,drink,food,danger,etc that you can manually add. When creating route on RWGPS I prefer to add all of cue points manually than the automatic ones.
An update:
3) I think there’s been some conversation from others around maps, and I’m hopeful that there will be a stronger solution moving forward. I think the suggestions just about to push the map route from your phone and Google maps would be great.
4) The recent updates have helped secure stronger connections, I think, and I’ve also learned that it just takes a minute for the E to get connected. I guess I’m more used to the simple bike computers where it registers as soon as you’re riding or the smartphone connection which is always established. It may be that the delay is true for other devices, too. It’s minimally annoying, but it’s easier to understand now that I understand it. :)
6) I am not seeing downhill grade elevations as negative elevations on the screen.
** After using now for a few weeks, my number 2 request (next to improved mapping) would be a more simple one-touch upload to Strava. As it is, I have to take 4 extra steps to connect the data. It would be much more helpful if there were a simple one-touch solution.
Pushing maps from options other than Google would be even better as Google maps are not always the best option, particularly if going off road.
For the Strava upload – have you looked at Auto Upload?
It’s what I use, and the activity ends up on Strava without anything further from my standpoint (using WiFi).
Hey – I read about it on the product page under features, but I haven’t been able to locate it. Sorry if that’s ridiculous. How did you enable it?
ps. This gets to point “2”, though, which is I feel like the instructions are not super great . . .
On the app, select:
Settings > Automatic Upload > Yes
Hi,
any update on Garmin Varia radar compatibility?
I
So as i said a couple of weeks ago it looks like the Elemnt is still in Beta form. So its a wedge of cash for a computer that doesn’t do maps, needs to be reset regularly, doesn’t do speed consistently and various other things you would expect from a device claiming to do all these things. A device thats meant to do all of these things.
Im sorry, but it just doesn’t cut it. Nowhere else would you buy a product and then expect half the features to be available at a date you don’t know when.
Bought some taps for a bath?…just don’t expect any water to come out of them..
Bought a TV to watch films?…fine, just don’t expect it to turn on..
Bought a pair of shoes to walk in? fine but don’t expect them to come with a sole.
Its a joke that any of these companies can get away with it. I find it incredible that everyone just accepts it when they wouldn’t elsewhere in life.
I mean, that’s not totally unfair, but I don’t think it’s completely fair, either. Yes – I do think the initial cost should have been lower, maybe, given the first-timer experience. At the same time, I appreciate their consistent feedback and support, and I think that counts, too.
If you ever fund a Kickstarter project, it’s kinda like that but much better to be honest. At the same time, I hear what you’re saying. It’s not totally out of bounds.
I don’t disagree that it’s not yet finished, but I think you’re twisting facts a bit.
A) It does maps just fine. Does it do them as much or with additional functions as much as you’d like? Apparently not. But it does do maps.
B) Mine doesn’t need to be reset. Not sure why yours does.
C) I don’t think the 0 speed issue is universal. While I agree your specific issue is odd, it’s definitely not across the board. So to say that somehow that the 0 speed issue is universal and a massive show-stopper seems a bit odd.
Again, not saying there aren’t issues, but I think it’s not entirely fair to say these things don’t work when they do.
I have many Positive reactions to ELEMNT.
Question: What do the “VS” mean? SPEED (VS WORKOUT AVE) or SPEED (VS LAP AVE).
Problem: Unable to download ALL routes from ridewithGPS and no provision to download via email or file.
Comment: It is nice to preview pages when customizing except LAP page is not available.
The “VS…” indicates what data the up or down caret after the value is plotted against. e.g set as VS Workout Avg, a workout average of 18 mph and a current speed of 19 mph would show an upward pointing caret after your speed on the ELEMNT.
Thanks, Jeff. I display speed with a small font so I had not noticed the caret nor would I have suspected its orientation would display a statistic.
Regarding the problem, not being able to download ALL routes, WAHOO has duplicated this and is working on it.
Three (trainer only) rides with my Elemnt, and I have a couple of comments.
1) Bigger than I imagined, but still fine. I formerly rode with a Garmin 500 (occasionally using my wife’s 8xx when I needed better maps). Elemnt is bigger than the former, wider (but shorter) than the latter. Just making note – not a criticism.
1a) Build quality is really good!
2) I *love* how to reconfigure screens using the iPhone app, vs. doing it on the device. Brilliant, works excellent.
3) I’m anxious for the 3-sec power field (coming in an update soon). The instantaneous power seems to jump around a bit more than my 500 (when I had the two side-by-side). It’s almost like the Garmin is doing gentle smoothing with the instantaneous power reading, but I can’t be totally certain of that, and frankly, given the Garmin product in general, it’s hard for me to believe Garmin engineers would be that clever (vs. Wahoo). And the 5-second average is too-long for me to use for changes in power average when doing trainer intervals.
4) I want an option to shut off the “automatic” field in the main page that shows power when a Kickr is being used. I’m having odd interaction issues between Kickr & Zwift that I can’t figure out; so I use my Quarq power meter as the power source input to Zwift, so that power reading is what I show on the main page. BUT, with the Kickr power automatically shows on the Elemnt, it takes up two display slots on my computer. (I’ll post this in the Google group.)
5) It paired with everything flawlessly. I’d forgotten how to pair it with Ant+ devices after my first (of several), and had to chat with support to ask. BUT, they nicely reminded me, and i’m good! I did need to hold the Elemnt a little closer to the power meters than I would have thought, but no problems, really. (BTW – Wahoo chat support is AWESOME.)
6) One odd interaction: Watch out for getting your world configured to send multiple uploads of the same ride to Strava. My first ride was on TrainerRoad, and my second on Zwift. Both services are automatically set to upload my ride data to Strava. Of course, I configured my Wahoo to do so as well, resulting in two uploads of the same rides. Easy fix; I just deleted one at Strava in each case. I’ll leave it this way for now, because I want some of the meta-data that goes to Strava from TR/Zwift (e.g. intervals), I want the auto-upload from Elemnt for when I do outdoor rides, and it’s easy to delete the Elemnt data. Still, I’ll post this oddity in the Google group, too, so Wahoo can think about a UX for this.
Overall, the software quality is awesome, and THIS is why you buy an Elemnt. I’m totally on the train that says Wahoo is going to add features at a rate that will leave Garmin in the dust. All the complaints about routing / navigation? I’m going to give Wahoo the benefit of the doubt, and let them incrementally improve it.
Very happy I bought this instead on a Garmin 8xx (which was the choice I made for this year.).
One more thing I forgot to say: Over the years, my Garmin 500 has been a nuisance in one key area: Sometimes, when starting, it shows the screen “Working…” for a LONG time. So long, in fact, that it actually will occasionally time-out, and shut itself off before it finishes “Working”.
I’ve come to discover that it is re-parsing all the data on all the .tcx files that are stored on the device, and re-storing the data. Sometimes, it will not ever finish, in which case I must attach the Garmin to my laptop, and mount the device as a drive. For some reason, this “clears” the need for the Garmin to re-parse the data, and it boots fine. (I believe it thinks that all the data has been retrieved, therefore doesn’t need to check the data.)
This has caused me to lose data on key rides. I rode many hills in the Alps a couple of years ago, and out of the 6 days of climbing, I have data for TWO. Made me quite irritated. And Garmin has been unresponsive.
So, I’m happy to leave the Garmin 5xx behind, given how the Elemnt is working well so-far.
Jay I had the same issue with the elemnt but want to ask everyone reading to take it with some grace.
Second or third ride out on the elemnt and I was half way on my ride enjoying a break. The elemnt then showed lost communication from my phone and the route did not seem to load up so i thought i had lost my first 15mile route. I loaded up strava on my phone and used this.
When I arrived home the elemnt synced up and the whole ride was in. I think it up loaded some crash data but all the information was in the strava route.
That for me was a bonus as you say it is hard when you loose a ride due to crashes. Since I have only synced up to only strava as I opened accounts with all the options mapmyrides etc.
I think this has helped now as yesterday my elemnt uploaded in the time I had some thing to eat. Previous it had taken a long time.
For all of you reading I find the comments hard on the device. You have to see the working of it to understand how good it is. A few hiccups is not like the moans that i hear about garmins. I hope to put some videos up for others as i think it needs more supporters. Its early days but moving in a postive way.
Vincenzo Iaciofano
I’ve had the same issues with my garmin. having lost data on numerous occasions (thankfully not in an actual event.. yet..) and have had garmin trying to discover satellites for sometimes up to 10 minutes on a clear blue sky day with no obstructions in sight.
really glad to see that the elemnt seems to poo poo all over anything garmin has to offer at the moment or have announced to date.
W every time i have turned it on it has booted up within a minute or so. It always seems to work so far which is what i was hoping. I am looking forward to the software updates on the elemnt.
Vincenzo
Have you tried to ride a route from ride history or a gpx file on the kickr yet? This is a feature I am excited for, however in my experience with apps that have attempted this, some are good, some are bad.
Does the ELEMNT have an elevation page similar to the Garmin Edge when following a course route?
Yes, it does. It shows up on the dedicated climbing page.
There has been some confusion about the scale of the graph. From what I can tell, each vertical mark is 1/2 mile, and the Y scale is arbitrary (changes with zoom level).
I could be wrong–but I could swear I’m getting the graph even when I’m not following a route. This happened at least once. Perhaps it just looks ahead on the road you’re riding?
Does this mean you can not set a custom scale (both x and y) like on the edge? I tend to change on the fly during the ride depending on the terrain. ie if I’m climbing a 1 hr mountain scale is different than a rolling hill course.
I do like the fact you mention you’re getting elevation even without following the course. The edge requires a course loaded for this page to function correctly.
Couple of quick questions:
1) Will you be able to replace the battery? I know it’s rechargeable and I know it’ll void the warranty but with all rechargeable batteries, they eventually deteriorate and after multiple years, your fully charged ELEMNT will die on you after 3 hours. Just wondering if there will be a service (if you don’t want people to do it themselves) for this. You can do this for cell phones and laptops, I’m thinking that this won’t be any different.
2) If you are riding on a clear sunny day with good GPS signal and also have a speed sensor, what data is the ELEMNT using by default? Does it take the GPS signal over the sensor when the signal is good and just use the speed sensor where the GPS is bad or how exactly does it decide?
3) Because the ELEMNT uses both ANT+ and BTLE and your sensors do the same, which technology is used by default? ANT+ or BTLE? Does one technology use more battery power over the other?
4) I’m sure this info has been mentioned or posted before but how much data can the ELEMNT store in it’s memory? Certain number of hours ridden or ride? What is it’s capacity?
5) What is the limitation of sensors that can connect to it? Meaning, how many bikes, with sensors on all of them, can be used by the ELEMNT? As with most cyclists, we all have multiple bikes (and some have more than you need) but it would be good to know what the limits are.
6) Does having an iPhone connected during a ride (just so you can receive notifications on the ELEMNT) affect the battery drain on the ELEMNT? If so, approx. what percentage? Just want to ensure that I can actually get around 17 hrs of run time with the ELEMNT – and if it’s a lot less with a phone connected, that should be posted as well seeing that most people these days take their phone with them.
7) Configurable odometer? Meaning, can you set it to a particular number or reset it at the end of the year?
Well, that’s it for now. I’m sure I’ll think of more eventually. Ordered one and patiently waiting.
I received my ELEMNT and have done 2 rides with it. The screen is incredibly crisp and easy to read. The buttons are easy to use. Nice unit. I would have much rather had another stem mount rather than the 25.6mm bar mount. I can’t remember the last time I saw a bike with the old diameter bars. It’s been so long, I’m not sure “25.6mm” is correct.
I’m interested in the answers to Merlin’s questions.
What is the easiest and fastest way to end up with a file on my laptop that I can import to WKO or Golden Cheetah? Currently, I have been opening the companion app in my phone, going to History, selecting the ride, emailing a file to myself, going to my laptop, opening email, finding the message I just sent, opening it, saving the attachment, opening WKO, and opening the file. WHAT A NIGHTMARE!!! It is so much more easier and faster when SRM and Garmin download to my PC immediately. Please tell me there is a better approach.
1. I doubt it’s user replaceable. Sure you can try but probably not recommended. Will Wahoo offer some type of battery service down the road? Only they can answer that. Most gadgets these days have a sealed battery and will suffer down the road. It’s almost like phones, cameras, computers ect are treated as disposable these days..
2. If you have a speed sensor connected then it will read from the sensor and not GPS.
3. ANT will use less power than BTLE. How much? I don’t know but ANT uses hardly any.
6. The phone should not drain the battery much. Some sure but I would not expect to see much difference unless you are using live track or something like that.
7. I don’t see anywhere on the ELEMNT where this can be done so I am going to have to say no unless a future update brings that option.
raqball if there is enough demand i am sure some one will open up a service to repair.
vinnychoff
pretty sure that skinny mount is for aero bars.
Something a good number of people will want.
I’ve had no problem plugging the ELEMNT into my computer and copying the .fit files directly from the unit. Are you not able to do this?
Any news on when FE-C trainer control will be available? Specifically the Tacx Bushido? I am torn between this and the Garmin 520..and it already has trainer support so theres a slight edge there. Looking forward to the in depth review as well!!
Roy I have the elite qubo digital smart B+ which has fec control. Are you only after the tacx?
DC, have you completed your in depth review of the Wahoo Elemnt yet? I am particularly interested in your opinion on they type of rider who might prefer it to the Garmin 520 and Garmin 810/1000 soon.
Thank you.
Ray said it would be out by the end of the month
Gee, thought it already was the end of the month.
Cabin fever in NH…..
Just got my ELEMNT and disappointed to find I can have km and degC or miles and degF and not miles and degC which is the standard most use in the UK.
Pretty major oversight for a device which claims such a level of customisabilty.
^^^ At the risk of repeating myself, but what Mark said…….. Like to mix Imperial and Metric please.
For me this is not a problem. My kids have grown up with the metric system. I do not know why it does not all go over. Of course it is hard in the begining but the metric system is a lot easier to work out then miles. KM and C for me is ok.
I’m sure km and C is what a lot of people want
I’m sure miles and F is also what a lot of people want
But miles and C is also what a lot of people want (mostly in the UK)
I shouldn’t have to learn how to understand km if I want to use C. I shouldn’t have to learn how to understand F if I want to use miles. One is distance and one is a unit of temperature. They shouldn’t be related to one another.
For a device which is based upon ease and degree of customisabilty it seems a rather major omission.
Just got the new iOS app1.2.3 thats meant to be able to import a GPX route.
Any idea how you are meant todo that ?
I managed to get my strava routes synced to my elemnt. Go to the map you want on strava, press on the star next to the map you want, choose duplicate which puts in your routes, go back to the elemnt and make sure you are connected to your wifi and phone, sync and you have your map in routes. I am off out to try it out now.
Vinnychoff
I figured out how to transfer it from email to Elemnt, you have to open the email on your iphone, click the GPX file and click open in Elemnt.
THen you will see it on the Elemnt iphone App.
The problem for me is, it doesn’t sync or show up on my Routes on the Actual Elemnt Device so you can’t use it..
Frustrating..
You can only pull routes over wifi, i noticed mine forgot wifi settings and adding them back allowed it to pull them down. It really needs to be able to download them via bluetooth from your phone.
Wait so…If you have already “synced” the routes from strava to your Elemnt over Wifi, then go outside of your house and say ride down the block and then try to load one of the already synced routes from the Elemnt, it wont let you? because its not on wifi?
As long as you’ve sync’d it, you’re golden. Just for new routes.
Wahoo says they are working to enable BT sync of routes though, hopefully resolving that issue.
As a workaround, could you use your phone’s wifi?
I can make my iPhone a wifi hotspot and I imagine many others make can too. So would that work?
That’s fine if it syncs over BT, but I don’t need it to sync every time I go to the Routes page.
Which it does right now.
Every.
Single.
Time.
Even if I was just on the Routes page 30 seconds ago.
I bought an Elemnt and so far I’m pleased with it. The only thing I’d like it to do that it doesnt is a “Route to Home” feature for when you get lost and you’re out on your bike exploring a new area.
Also, id love if you could type in an address on your phone (or even the elemnt) and it would route real time to that destination. RIght now you have to pre-plan everything using Strava Routes you have already made in advance.
Are they planning to do this? If not i might sell it and buy the Garmin 1000
Absolutely. My phone can route just fine, it’s great at it. I would love to type something in, have my phone route it, and then push the route to the ELEMNT via bluetooth.
Live tracking is a bit of a mess. It shows location, but not the breadcrumb path of where you’ve been on the ride. It definitely needs an option to shut off your location once you’ve stopped your workout, there’s really no reason to show my location 24/7. The Garmin live tracking is closer to what I would want.
For me its ok, I am looking forward to updates and features. I think that they will out weigh the Garmin if they treat it like a project. The focus on software that can be updated freely is much better than locked. I have used the mapping software to get me home by zooming out. That way I can see to where i want to go. Or if you have a route locked in that goes home. That could possibly be used.
Interesting to hear those for and against the Garmin
Hi,
Have been using the Elemnt for 3 rides and generally happy, but following issues which need to be resolved ASAP.
* HR Zones needs to be displayed with a decimal place, to know if you are high or low in a particular zone
* Power Zones need to be displayed,shocking that they are not
* For electronic shifting you need to be able to choose the type of cassette (number of teeth) to display gear ratio
* Routes are syncing with Strava, but you cant delete them from the device or the app
* Once you complete a ride and its syncs with Strava the average power reported by the Wahoo iphone companion app is significantly higher than the average reported by other. This was verified by going into the CSV file and verifying that the avg power reported by the Wahoo app was too high.
* I am using a Garmin Vector 2 power meter, there needs to be functionality for the initial setup (installation angles setup). Without this the power meter is a paperweight
* Obviously turn-by-turn navigation is needed, as well as Strava segments.
Installation angles actually happens automatically on Vector (and Vector 2), as soon as you start pedaling it calculates it for head units that don’t support it.
Matthew, you’re right with your wishes – I’m with you and would like to add:
– fix the sync with RWGPS and with Garmin Connect – Data is los/broken.
– fix the issue that temperature is lost when syncing with a service
– and automatic light when you’re driving through a tunnel/under a bridge etc.
Thanks Ray!!!!
Good thing I called both Wahoo and Garmin for this and none of the two could give that information. You’re my go-to guy from know on!!!!
You Rock!!!!!
Thanks
Will there be support for radar units like the Varia? Realize that’s a dumb comment since it’s probably proprietary but seeing cars coming up behind me was a game changer. I refuse to go out on my bike now without it.
If I had never bought the Varia, I would have jumped off the Garmin buggy software train and right into Wahoo’s arms. But at the moment I’m willing to deal with Garmin’s crap software so I can keep this feature.
Totally agree with Patrick.
Obviously I already ‘jumped’ over to the Element, but I believe Wahoo needs to take pairing to the Varia extremely seriously, as it will open the floodgates for cyclists to jump over to the Elemnt.
I have my Varia in the box waiting to put it to good use, with my Elemnt.
Well said Patrick
I asked about ANT+ lights in general yesterday, and the answer was that they were still evaluating whether or not to add support.
ANT+ lights are supported today by both Garmin and Bontrager (may be others, but I think that’s it).
I didn’t ask about Varia support though (which does have an open ANT+ standard for it too).
I didn’t think I’d be so attached to the feature, but by the 2nd ride I’ve already developed a habit to check my Edge 1000 screen first for cars. It’s amazing how 2-5s checking your blind spots adds up over a multi-hour ride vs. a simple glance down and not having to take your eyes off the road.
Ray, do you know if any other companies are coming out with radar units? Seems Garmin bought the only solution at the moment.
Hi
Will I be able to use pre made off road routes made in rwgps that use bridleways (UK user), and an alert or cuesheet ‘beep’ to tell me to look at the device for information. This is how I use my Garmin 800 currently and it does a good job, but ya know, a new toy and all that….
No, not yet. The ELEMNT does not display text or alert upon reaching course points. That makes it less useful for navigation than the Edge 500 which does that but predates it by 6.5 years.
To quote Ray’s review:
Right now much of the catch-up navigation type features are planned to be added by “end of year”
Hi there,
Are you going to include a looping countdown timer option on the element, similar to the Garmin offering, handy when trying to time when you’re going to suck down your next gel.
And are the 1/4 mounts available to buy?
Cheers
Michael 1/4 mounts are on sale already. As with Wahoo I am waiting for updates that will improve. Lets hope wahoo are looking at the forums and taking note of the features wanted.
vinnychoff
Vincenzo, I’m looking the 1/4 turn stem mounts not the K Edge offering. As for the forums, are there any official Wahoo Elemnt support forums?
Cheers
Michael the only one that i am aware of is here and google link to groups.google.com
regards Vincenzo
The google group is unofficial, although issues usually get comments from Wahoo engineers.
Thanks for a very good review!
I find it a little bit odd that autostop only work with sensors as far as i understand ?
I don’t have any sensors on my mtb. and autostop is important to me, on mtb you do short or long stops quiet often. Besides having to remember to push paus will not work so good. you tend to forget that on the roadbike as well.
So i use autopaus on my garmin 500 all the time.
Is there any more information available on how the new elemnt will work with the wahoo kickr? I have a Garmin 1000 which I am very happy with although I would consider purchasing an elemnt to control the kickr as the iphone is pretty duff in this regard.
Many thanks
Ally
You should check out the in-depth review on this site–plenty of details of kickr integration:
link to dcrainmaker.com
Ally,
The Elemnt works using the following modes when controlling your Kickr.
1. Power Based (achieve X Watts).
2. Route you’ve previously ridden sync’d from Strava etc
3. Resistance based (percentage)
4. 3rd party application such as TrainerRoad/Zwift
I’ve used all with the exception of resistance based. I must say it works well.
Hi, just received mine. A feature that would be amazing, and isn’t on my Garmin 520, would be the ability to stay paired with two phones. It would seem silly, but I have a tough phone for riding, and a less durable one named after fruit, for daily use. Having to “forget” the connection becomes a pain…. any chance of a feature add on?
Hi All!
Just as a minor bit of house-keeping I’ll be closing the comments section here on the ELEMNT *preview* post, as I usually do once I release an in-depth review.
You can find the in-depth review here: link to dcrainmaker.com
Cheers!
Those aren’t maps – urgh!
Challenge for Wahoo – I’m ony interested in turn-by-turn navigation using pre-loaded routes.
Can I create a route on an android tablet, then connect it to an Elemnt to get turn-by-turn?
Currently plan on ridewithgps but to get directions (rather than a map only) on a garmin 810 I have to save the rwgps gpx, load into bikehike then re-save as gpxx. If you can give me turn-by-turn without having to buy a windows computer you’ve got me :-).
Thanks for reading
Wonder if anyone can help? I have udpated my elemnt to the latest software wf42-1815. also the android companion app.
Went out on a cycle ride today and my bepro pedals are not showing the cadence?
I also went to update the maps and it says not enough room. Has anyone done this? I guess you have to delet the exisiting maps to update?
regards vinnychoff.