Wahoo Tickr longevity

My experience mirrors many others, Tickr is low quality junk, at best.

I have two Garmin straps, both are working perfectly, one is five years old and still perfect.

Do the planet a favor, buy once, buy right. No need to clog landfills with millions of dead Tickrs…

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My Tickr is 4 years old. 2 battery changes in that time. Gets used pretty much daily for running & cycling. Never dropped a beat.

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Which models?

I think it’s a HRM3-SS? Hard to read the micro writing. I also have a new Dual Bluetooth model for the trainer.

I’ve had issues with the Bluetooth on Zwift, but that was software on the laptop and Zwift issues. Strap has been faultless.

I posted on this on the previous Wahoo Tickr dying thread. It’s very difficult, as one person has a faultless unit, the next, horrible. I suspect the original was mostly junk, possibly sealing and QC problems.

My sample size was everyone one I know who owned an original Tickr had them fail quite rapidly. Maybe 4 people total. 100% failure rate. Of the same group of people, all now have the Garmin strap. All still working perfectly.

Again, the very next post will be someone saying they’ve had a Tickr for 8 billion years and they use it to belay climbers on Mt Everest with zero issues… so who knows.

For me and the small group of riders I know, the original version was terrible. I imagine it’ll be a while till we know if the new model is reliable.

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I find the straps to be the weak link. Whenever I start getting wonky hr readings, first I try a new battery. If it happens again on the next few rides a cheap ~$10 strap replacement from amazon. Never had to dig further. Seems like I’m going thru straps indoors at the rate of 1/yr (much cheaper than a new unit, and it’s not like wahoo is getting my money). If it’s not something obvious on the tickr unit, like rust inside the battery compartment or the electrodes breaking off, give a new trap a try.

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I have had two TICKR’s. One came free from Strava back in maybe 2015. It’s going strong now. I left it on a trip and a friend now has it, and it’s working great for him (with his Garmin strap).

The second is 2 years old (as I bought this to replace the misplaced first one), and also going strong.

Both have had a battery or two replaced in them.

I do have the original straps from both and a genuine extra strap from amazon for $20 (so 3 straps), and then also bought one of these knockoffs. This knockoff works exactly like the others. Bonus too that they offer them in bright colors so easier to find in your gear bag.

Totally recommend getting these (or another seller, as this one seems to have put shipping up).

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From AliExpress?

@stannoo - yes, link in the posting.

The same sellers tent to sell on amazon and aliexpress, and I just prefer aliexpress these days.

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Thanks kiwifyx. Link wasn’t working for me but I recognised the AliExpress layout!

Strap ordered - will be here for Christmas :grin:

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Once I changed the battery on mine it just hasn’t been the same. I also lost part of the plastic that holds the clip on, I’ve superglued it several times but it just comes off.

The connectivity seems to be 50/50 now. Once it’s connected it stays connected but being time crunched I am finding myself leaving it off more often than not now. :disappointed:

Definitely not the best wahoo product I have bought. Not super expensive though so it’s not the end of the world.

Bought the newer model tickr in April or May I believe. Didn’t use it a ton, and it stopped working a month or so ago. I changed the battery, and the lights came back on. However, when I tried to use it the next day: no lights and no recognition by my wahoo elemnt or laptop. Wahoo hasn’t responded to my support question about whether this is a common issue in a few weeks; would like a new one, or if prevalent, refund to pick up a different meter.

It was time for my annual replacement purchase this weekend and it looks like Wahoo is out of stock on the regular Tickr. I ordered a Garmin Dual to try. Haven’t had a Garmin in a few years.

Data is not the plural of anecdote.

My TICKR has been flawless for about 18 months. Many others have too. But many others have failed miserably. Does that mean quality is great, or quality is miserable? Neither… without data on the overall Tickr “population” we have no idea as to what percentage fail and when.

I had the same issue some weeks ago, I though it was dead when it stopped working after changing the battery, since it’s also more than two years old.

However, upon closer inspection, I saw there was some corrosion/gunk on both the sensor and the strap contacts so I cleaned them thoroughly with a small brush and some spray for electric contacts and it has been working perfectly since then.

In addition, I’ve adopted @rkoswald advice and also started cleaning the contacts after (almost) every ride with a piece of paper towel.

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What is a fact is that the quality is not consistent. Furthermore, the design seemed to be flawed by the fact that it’s not sealed well enough. Spec says IPX7, but when looking at mine, that also fails too often until I scratch the springs touching the battery, it’s more or less open and after riding you see droplets inside. Realizing the salty sweat moisture inside, it’s no wonder both contact points and electronic suffer.

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who enjoys a tad of hyperbole once in a while.

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Welcome to the TR forum. :+1:t2:

I’ll beg to differ on this sentence. The quality may be very high (say, 0.01% failed/unsatisfactory items built) or very low (say, 10% bad copies). And the quality may be consistent if they get the same percentage of bad/failed items built each year, or it may not.

But we don’t know that, nor can we infer anything about the general population of Tickrs really, from inspecting your Tickr, or mine, or from the reports in this thread. Maybe the quality’s fantastic (0.01% bad copies) and very consistent, but you got one of the bad ones. Maybe the quality’s terrible overall, or varies per batch or according to which factory made it. We don’t know.

Data is not the plural of anecdote.

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…suggest we then add the word “perceived” in front of the word “quality” in order for us to continue to use forums for what they were intended: to discuss high and lowlights of products. In this case the wahoo tickr.

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While anecdotes cannot replace data in decision making, no quality department is ever going to ignore them. There is clearly a disconnect between some consumers expectation of how long this product will last and how long it is. Whether this is what Wahoo expected or not we can’t know, but if I were on Wahoo’s quality team I would absolutely be paying attention to stuff like this. You can be hitting all the production quality numbers you want, but if consumers’ perception of your product is of poor quality, it doesn’t matter.

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You’re absolutely right in that quality departments don’t, and shouldn’t, ignore anecdotes. Also that your actual quality is important but so too is the perceived quality of your product in the eyes of the overall market.

I was simply making the point that the perceived quality within conversations like this one rarely track well with the perceived quality of the product by the overall population of users, because most of the people who comment on threads like these have had problems (and are thus more motivated to discuss the issues they’ve had).

Editor’s note: Upon quick review of the thread, it seems I made a very similar comment about three weeks ago. The Daily Cannon regrets the error in posting a substantially duplicate post.