Wahoo Elemnt Bolt review (vs Garmin 820 Explore)

Please be fair and thoughtful in your opinions. No rants please.
robing
Posts: 1359
Joined: 7 Sep 2014, 9:11am

Re: Wahoo Elemnt Bolt review (vs Garmin 820 Explore)

Post by robing »

My bad if that's the case. I would always want ahead up. I agree the inability to pan maps on the wahoo and that you are always at the bottom can be a weakness particularly if you go off route. But I tried using the Garmin edge 820 Explore to navigate on the fly. Admittedly you didn't need a phone signal but it was extremely slow and clunky.
Bez
Posts: 1218
Joined: 10 Feb 2015, 10:41am
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Re: Wahoo Elemnt Bolt review (vs Garmin 820 Explore)

Post by Bez »

Oh, for sure, actually planning a route on a Garmin is miserable. I've never done it (other than at home out of curiousity) and certainly wouldn't do it for a forced diversion (in extreme cases I might be tempted by the recalculation option) but it's the usefulness of the map when zoomed out a bit that's the key factor. It's the ability to spend a couple of miles glancing down amd seeing the route you're trying to rejoin and the roads that take you back to it (and those that don't) which allows you to detour without either getting lost or fishing a phone out and generate a temporary route. (Interacting via the phone for configuration etc is great because you normally do that at home, but on the bike I'll have to stop, fish it out of a pocket, remove it from a freezer bag, take my gloves off, keep it sheltered from the rain, find a signal… nah, for my money anything during the actual ride should be rendered unnecessary if possible, but if not then done via the device on the bars.)

Like I say, the Wahoo will be great for many people; they've got a lot of things right. North up or track up is one of those things where many people have a strong preference; sadly Wahoo didn't understand that, and unluckily I'm in the set of users they didn't understand ;)
ianrobo
Posts: 512
Joined: 12 Jan 2017, 9:52pm

Re: Wahoo Elemnt Bolt review (vs Garmin 820 Explore)

Post by ianrobo »

I had a couple of Garmins I had to return in quick order and decided enough was enough and after reading the reviews on Ray Maker's site the option was easy for the Element ...

Since I have had it I have been delighted with it, as said above the screen is clear, easy to set up and sync and the gPS is basic but you would need to be in a world ion your own not to miss the red lights and off route !

There was a weakness where if the battery as it did for me ran out without me noticing that (not got a data field for it) it would not keep your ride but they patched this in the latest release and the battery time is only 10 hours where the newer garmins are longer. Garmin know this is a threat because they recently lowered the pricing on the 820 explore (but it lacks some of the data connections the Element has and I use) and just seen a one hundred quid markdown as well for the 520 ....

however for me it is a no brainer choice now simply because for reliability there is no comparison, just check out the differences in the Wahoo and Garmin forums for that !
Psamathe
Posts: 17650
Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:56pm

Re: Wahoo Elemnt Bolt review (vs Garmin 820 Explore)

Post by Psamathe »

ianrobo wrote:....
however for me it is a no brainer choice now simply because for reliability there is no comparison, just check out the differences in the Wahoo and Garmin forums for that !

After 4 weeks of using my Elemnt I’ve given-up, had the retailer agree to a full refund when I return to the UK and I’ve purchased a Garmin.

I’ll post full details (and photos) once I get home but software for navigation is buggy to disastrous. Wahoo’s infrastructure (needed to load courses and for their much advertised “Take me there ...”) is unreliable (I had several days where is was not working and I couldn’t loads any courses to the device).

My 4 week experience highlighted several serious issues and I would disagree with your “for reliability there is no comparison” (unless you mean it in a “nobody could be that bad” way). But I’ll need battery power and Wi-Fi to post details so my experiences will have to wait.

Ian
althebike
Posts: 242
Joined: 10 May 2018, 12:58pm

Re: Wahoo Elemnt Bolt review (vs Garmin 820 Explore)

Post by althebike »

I had garmins for a few years, I found they worked brilliantly for a while, then did'nt, it seems as if its firmware was corrupting itself. My last garmin was the tourer which kept turning itself off, it was replaced under warranty , and the replacement did the same.
So I brought the bolt, and have just completed an end to end ride with it .I managed to follow the route the whole way with hardly a missed turn. One thing I did find difficult, while the screen was orientated ahead up, when I first started each ride ( heading south) the breadcrumb trail would start at the bottom of the page and go down, should I set off in the wrong direction, the trail would never reappear. Once I got riding, after 10-20 yards, everything would appear, with the trail the right way up, and from there it was flawless.
In my experience, the garmins I owned were the buggy ones, while the bolt, the rock solid unit.
Richard Fairhurst
Posts: 2030
Joined: 2 Mar 2008, 4:57pm
Location: Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Re: Wahoo Elemnt Bolt review (vs Garmin 820 Explore)

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

This was doing the rounds the other day: https://joshua0.dreamwidth.org/65779.html

In short - the Wahoo units appear to be built on open-source software, but without crediting the authors or fulfilling other licence conditions. Not very cool.
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