I’m looking at a Roam V3. I’m a former (happy) Bolt V2 user, switched to Garmin when that unit died and have never really enjoyed my Garmin.
On paper the Roam V3 seems great: most of what I liked about the old Bolt, with a touch screen and additional screen space. However, when it launched it seemed initial reviews pointed to a fairly half-baked firmware with quite a few bugs and some major issues with fundamental things like finding GPS signal and syncing rides.
The claim was that this would be fixed with subsequent firmware updates. My question is: has this happened? Is the current Roam/Bolt a solid and stable unit? Are there things that still don’t work well? I’m aware of stuff like the somewhat less-bright screen and longer startup time and can live with that. I mostly just want to know if all the features and basic stuff work as advertised and are stable at this point. Thanks!
I currently have a Roam v2, a Rival watch, and have had many Wahoo HRMs over the years.
I’ve always been a fan of Wahoo’s designs, but I’ve had too many frustrating moments with each of their devices that I’ve had.
I’ve used Garmins at other jobs in the past, and while the UI isn’t as simple, they just work. It’s kind of similar to the Sram vs. Shimano debate, in my opinion.
I really don’t want to switch from Wahoo, but I’d need to know that their products are improving before buying another one..
Depending on your time zone, that’s not too much experience (sorry, couldn’t resist)
Did the updates also manage to do something about the display? I remember the lacking brightness there to be one of the major drawbacks during the initial reviews.
My wife has a Bolt V3, and honestly I think the display is fine. It’s less bright than a Karoo or Garmin x50 series, but it’s easily visible in all conditions. I think it loses by comparison, but not in terms of actual functionality.
Somewhat. I still feel like I need it on Max brightness in anything but a fully cloudy day or in the woods. I run it on Max brightness all the time now.
I’m a bit late to the party. I upgraded from a Bolt v1 to a Roam v3. Here are my thoughts:
Any head unit these days will have way more features than you would typically use.
Older heat units (such as my Bolt v1) felt like an appliance, dumb, limited, but very easy to use. My Roam v3 has way more settings than my Bolt v1. It feels like a baby smartphone than an appliance. I reckon this holds for all current-gen head units.
Importantly (for me), it still has the Zoom feature where you can adapt the number of fields on the fly without having to change screens. I love this.
Battery life seems to be about 15ish hours.
The screen is relatively bright, but pales in comparison with my Apple Watch Ultra 2. The latter is always bright enough to overpower the ambient light. In very bright sunlight, especially with my tinted cycling glasses, the screen may seem dark. But it’ll be fine. Just make sure to switch brightness to Auto Max.
GPS syncing has sped up significantly after a recent update. It seems as fast as before the GPS debacle that killed my Bolt v1 for outdoor use for a while. (Wahoo offered me a 40 % discount on a new head unit, so I pulled the trigger and got a Roam v3.)
The Roam v3 has a great size, even though it still seems a bit big compared to my svelte Bolt v1. But I have 6 data fields in map view, and I’ll happily trade that. The Ace is too big, though. (Judging from the pictures, it dwarfs the Roam v3.)
I had the original Bolt for several years and then switched to Garmin (Edge 540) a couple years ago for the climb pro feature and the better battery life. But I really miss the zoom in and out feature. So simple but so useful. Especially when combined with the bonus di2/AXS buttons.
Yeah, the things I miss most from the Wahoo are the zoom feature and the use of color-coded chevrons for routing. I still find that to be the most intuitive way to provide both route and climb/elevation data. Garmin’s maps are more data-rich (and include heatmap data, which I find really useful when I need to improvise a new route mid-ride or in unfamiliar areas) but the routing is harder to see/read IMO.
Oh, the colored chevrons are amazing. They indicate whether an incline is coming up. The climbs feature is nice, too. Although where I live, I’d have to use quotation marks. The “climbs” are not even 10 m in elevation (not a joke).