Zoom in / out is an awesome feature from Wahoo….i can have my primary data fields big and easily visible and then zoom out for secondary features if / when needed.
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My wife and I both had terrible experiences with the Bolt/Roam navigation losing routes and refusing to recalculate when we were far from our start point. Eventually, we had to pull out our phones and use Waze to guide us back to the start. This happened to both of us at different times and using different head units. That’s a serious safety concern in my book. After it happened to the wife, we dumped Wahoo and bought 1030s. The only thing I miss about the Bolt/Roam is the zooming. It’s a fantastic feature.
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That I don’t know, but it’s probably fair to assume there will be a large and small variant.
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Were your nav failures in V1 models or V2? I do agree in general that Wahoo nav is a step behind HH or Garmin (but it has also been awhile since I used it, and I think things have improved in that regard).
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All I can think of when people use GPS navigation on roads, be it cars, bikes or whatever, is the episode of the Office where Michael drives into the lake.
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I’d guess V1 Roam and V2 Bolt, but it’s been a while so don’t quote me.
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V1 Bolt as far as I’m aware had no rerouting capability, that came with V2.
Personally I’ve had trouble with Garmin in my area the few times I’ve tried it. Not informing me of turns, informing me late, weird rerouting. Wahoo has been spot on.
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On a separate note, I previously mentioned about Wahoo not having API support for having outside companies push structured workouts into their platform. This has now been added, which is why there was an announcement about other services (JOIN, Humango, etc) directly supporting Wahoo. The announcement didn’t mention how this occurs, but it’s open to any developer or company who signs up so it wouldn’t surprise me if more services start having the ability to push workouts to ELEMNT bike computers.
They also documented how you can push completed activities into the Wahoo cloud, so that’s cool too.
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@jcolp There is also some chatter about this on the intervals.icu forum so it seems like they will use those APIs soon. Believe it is in beta now.
Just to fully beat the hell out of this dead horse, I’ve been riding with an Edge 840 (non-solar) for the last few months, and this morning dusted off my older Bolt V2 for a ride. My impressions:
-Both are fine and will get the job done.
Points for the Bolt:
-The Bolt screen is easier to read; I have great eyesight so that’s not an issue. But I find the fonts and sizes used by Wahoo preferable. I also think their screen is generally more crisp and less subject to glare.
-I’m definitely on Team Zoom for the Wahoos, I love this feature. Zooming in to have just the info you want/need visible (power, HR, cadence, lap time), with ability to zoom out to check cumulative stuff (total time/dist/climbing) is very nice.
-Wahoo’s “3 flexible buttons on the face” is really nice. It’s easy to know WTF is going to happen when you hit a button, cause it has a label on the screen. I still don’t always know which of the right side buttons on the 840 is going to do what in many situations.
-I like the LEDs, a nice flexible option for various warnings. Allows less reliance on audible signals, which is nice when riding in a group or for general peace.
-Using the bolt made me realize the Garmin has a lot of features I don’t actually care about. I don’t need my computer to give me an extended weather forecast, and I still don’t know what the “performance condition good/fair/+4” message I get 10 minutes into every ride with the Garmin means.
-Mapping: Chevrons, with color coding for hills, is a really simple and intuitive way to display routes. I find the Garmin routing harder to read, especially if you have “heat maps” turned on. I don’t think either does a great job of suggesting alternative routes if you go off route.
-Wahoo has more options for audible alerts, i.e. you can enable beeps for only certain things. Garmin is mostly yes/no beeps, as far as I can tell.
Points for the Garmin:
-The slightly larger screen is nice. Wahoo doesn’t make as effective use of its frontal space (larger bezels), especially with the Roam. A Wahoo that’s all screen save the 3 lower buttons would be great.
-The touchscreen, and ability to change settings directly on the computer rather than via the app, is handy.
-I like Garmin’s multiple profiles, i.e. the ability to create a whole different set of screens/displays for road, gravel, MTB, racing, outdoor workouts etc. It seems like this would be very easy to implement on Wahoo.
-Instant boot-up is super nice. Having to wait 30+ seconds for the Wahoo to boot up just to see if it needs to be charged is annoying. Adding a low-power “sleep” mode to the Wahoo, from which it can be quickly awakened, would be a nice feature.
-I like that Garmin includes street names in their map and directions.
TL;DR: I think I actually slightly prefer the Bolt, just because of how easy and intuitive it is to use. The Garmin can and often does work great, but I have more “Jesus WTF stop beeping at me/how do I get to this one screen?” moments with it, even after months of use. A Wahoo unit with a Roam-sized screen but smaller bezels and overall size, a single row of LEDs, a touchscreen, and quick boot-up would be nirvana.
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The time trial style beep countdown makes me chuckle, thats as close as im ever going to get to hear that sound 
Nice review. I mostly agree with all of your pros and cons.
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Back when I had a Wahoo unit (original unit and Bolt) I never used the Zoom. The reason was simple- with my bad reading eyesight I can’t read the fields when zoomed out. I’d much rather change pages. The other problem is that in the Wahoo units the most fields that I could read easily was four per screen. But, the zoom doesn’t support 4 fields. So, now I use the biggest and brightest screen that I can get. Overall, for me, the Karoo 2 is the easiest to read, Garmin 1040 is 2nd since it is a little dimmer.
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This new Music Control feature added to the Bolt & Roam V2s is a bit annoying, as it seems there’s no setting to disable it if you never intend using it!
As is, if it detects a background loaded music app on your connected phone, it adds an extra music controls page to your set of pages, whether you want one or not. I don’t want one as I don’t listen to music on the bike, and I also don’t want an extra useless music controls page to have to scroll past each time I cycle through my Bolt’s pages…
My phone’s not easily reachable once riding, so I now have an extra pre-ride step to remember to close Spotify if it’s open in the background, as it often is, else see an extra useless page each time I cycle through them all ride (or until I crack, pull over, and dig my phone out of the depths ).
⠀⠀
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Go into setup on your phone’s Elemnt app and turn that page off.
Edit … I swore I saw a switch for that page. But I can’t find it 
It does not help, Elemnt app “helpfully” turns it back on when it detects music app running 
Yeah, I just noticed that. I have my Roam on sitting beside me. If I am actually playing a youtube video, podcast, or music, the page automatically gets added. I have to close the app on my phone to make that page go away. This is fine for me, but maybe they should add a switch to disable it.
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Just released firmware today that does this! Enable/disable music page
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I’d love if they could get the Zwift plays to work with the Kickr Bike, might help mitigate some of the shifter failures. Also make use of the third port by releasing blips/sprint buttons that you could use for steering in the drops, would make a big difference sprinting if you could get people off your wheel. Can’t steer in the drops at the moment with the steer buttons where they are.
We are in Q2 of 2024…are we getting new computers or not?