Garmin 840 vs Wahoo Roam V3 for TR outdoor workouts

1

I know this has been discussed a bit but i wanted to get people’s opinion on comparing the TR outdoor workouts on the Garmin 840 vs the Wahoo Roam V3. I currently have a Roam and i’m experiencing significant battery issues so i need to find a better option for long events so i’m leaning towards the 840 solar. I’ve always had a wahoo and one of the things i like is the integration with TR and the great workout page.

Am I reading this correctly that it’s not as seamless on the Garmin 840? Want to make sure it doesn’t make my outdoor workouts more complicated.

The Coros Dura is another intriguing option for battery life but it seems like there is no TR integration at all.

2

I don’t have any experience with a Wahoo computer, but have used a number of Garmin Edge units for outdoor workouts. Currently it is an 840. The workout screen is wack, IMO. And, I haven’t been able to build a decent one from the stardard datafields. It is probably possible to find an IQ app that does a much better job. In any case, here’s something I wrote up about it a while back. Some of it personal preference. :

The font size for the interval time and target are very small. I can usually see them fine but not in poor lighting or riding rough surfaces.

There is no countdown timer for the entire workout on this screen.

The vertical slider pointer on the left of Target lags and jumps too much to be of value. The central block is red whether I’m above or below target. Different color, perhaps yellow for below would be helpful. Have the arrow respond quicker and more smoothly, or use that real estate for something of value

The Up/down arrows to the right of 3 sec power are red whether above or below target. It would be better if the color was different, perhaps yellow for below. Also, they seem backward to me. My intuition is the arrows should indicate what I need to do. e.g If power is low, arrow points up indicating a need to increase power, and vice versa. As it is now, the arrow points up if I’m above the target and down if below the target, showing where I am rather than where I need to go.

When pausing a workout, power averaging isn’t paused so when resuming that interval, the avg power shows much lower during the rest of the interval.

For my purposes, the Workout graph is too short, longer or user settable would be good.

IDK where “Step distance” comes from. It’s of no value to me during a workout. I’d rather see secondary target or something. Or, replace it with two user data fields.

Data fields:

With repeats, the “Workout step” shows which step of a repeat you’re on rather than the step number. e.g. 1/2 , 2/2, 1/3, 2/3… If the workout has 12 steps made up of 2x2, 3x2 repeats, you never see which step of 12 you’re on.

“Duration” and “Time to go” show the same thing, the interval time. There should data field for the time to go for the entire workout.

If you add a Workout target field to another data screen, it only shows my current power with the up or down arrow beside it and not the target power.

Training Plan Glimpse on the home page shows wrong days and workouts on wrong days.

3

Not exactly what you are looking for…but I had the OG Wahoo Bolt and now am on the edge 540. I found the Wahoo Bolt easier to use (both overall and in the context of TR workouts). I think the 840 probably is easier to configure the way you want due to the touch screen (the 540 takes a lot more clicking). Battery life has been really good on the Edge though (I think this is my 3rd season on it and it still seems about as long as when I got it)

4

thanks! This is very helpful. I think the workout screen on the Wahoo is great but the battery issues that have cropped up make this a dealbreaker for me since i do some longer events. I guess i could have an event and an everyday computer but that seems expensive

5

ok thanks! I’m really frustrated with my battery issues for the new Roam since i like most of the rest of what the unit does. Well besides how hard it is to seen in direct sunlight that is

6

I haven’t used a solar Edge myself, but many report the solar contribution is essentially nil and most find it’s not worth the effect on screen readability.

7

really? Interesting i thought it added quite a bit of life. Maybe that’s only true for the 1040?

8

But i’m currently getting less than 10 hours of battery life on the Roam V3 since the last update which is shockingly bad. I hope they can figure it out

9

Here’s a typical thread on solar performance from the Garmin 840 forum.

10

tthanks!

11

I’m a fan of the wahoo workout interface. How do you have your screen brightness se up? I use Auto Max but honestly don’t do super long rides so couldn’t tell you how long it lasts. Some possible options if you can’t figure it out is to go to the Ace which with bigger size should offer better battery life. Another option is to use an external battery to charge as you ride. Not ideal but they will work while being charged from a battery as I recall. These are options, if you want to stay with the Wahoo interface.

12

I’m the developer of the BigScreen ConnectIQ datafield. This is designed to replace the standard Garmin datafields with a more modern design - for example, configurable grid layouts, larger fonts and background color to represent zone. The idea is that you install BigScreen as a full-screen datafield, and then set up BigScreen to subdivide the screen into exactly what datafields you want. This can all be configured from the phone rather than on device.

For example, you can configure one BigScreen instance to display something like this:

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You can also have multiple BigScreen instances and scroll through them with up/down buttons or swiping as usual.

Now, I haven’t as yet added any workout specific metrics. But if there’s interest I can look into this. It would be pretty cool to get the best possible layout for TrainerRoad workouts.

13

I am also using an 840 and find using it for TR workouts to be difficult…I want to know the duration of the segment, 30 on/off timer, etc. power requirement, power during execution, etc. That’s all I want and I want it easy to see.

14

I still think Wahoo should either report the battery life properly or fix the issue. 10 hours is very low for one of these devices especially since they claim 25 hours. I have the screen on auto. Not max. Charging it mid race is pretty inconvenient too and the ACE is just way too big. I’m disappointed but will likely have to move away from Wahoo to other options.

15

Have you reported the issue to Wahoo? Wonder if you have some glitchy firmware because 10 hours does seem low.

16

I have several times now and they only seem to think it’s a charging block issue. They sent me a new one and I’ve gotten the same issue. It’s only happening since the latest update. I agree that 10 hours is shockingly low.

17

You should talk to Wahoo support about degrading the firmware to the prior release and turning off auto update. Assuming that is possible

18

That looks like a nice IQ app. However, as far as workouts are concerned, the existing data fields are lacking, and a useful workout page can’t really be created using them. A decent workout datascreen would require new datafields as well.

19

I think I can build something like this with the existing APIs - is this useful?

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The app allows any of these datafields to be changed/moved or the layout modified.

With some extra coding, I could maybe do some “over/under” type field as well.

20

I had both and now only use the 840. Wahoo has a better screen setup for sure. After fiddling with the 840 I got a setup that works for me. Pausing in the middle of a block on the 840 indeed reduces your average power for that block. However that seems fair. Stop 1 min in a 5 min block changes the training impact.

in the end I prefer the 840. The battery life is best. I cycled 11+ hours and still had 34% battery. I also feels it works “better” day to day (after spending hours fiddling with the setup, the gui is poor)