Adds support for turn-by-turn.

I'm leaning toward a purchase of this computer to help for my upcoming century rides planned. I already use the wahoo blue s/c n tickr x with iPhone 5s.

Today Wahoo added Strava Segment support to the ELEMNT, and according to DC Rainmaker's review, it's done better than Garmin's implementation. Haven't had a chance to try it yet, but Wahoo keep improving the ELEMNT by leaps and bounds with regular software updates. I'm really enjoying using mine.

Any more long term updates on the Elemnt? Firmware improvements? I'm looking at replacing a 510 this off season.

Anyone doing interval work with this computer?

Things have been quiet on the ELEMNT firmware update front since the last update on Aug 31st, which added support for Komoot TBT directions and BestBikeSplit support, as well as a host of other things.

ELEMNT as of right now does not support structured workouts. I believe it is on their TODO list, but I'm not in the loop with the beta testers, so can't tell you whether they have made any traction on it yet.

Well, its been almost 8 months since I've seen a post on this thread. I'm bumping this up to see if anyone has purchased the Element or the Bolt in the last 8 months and if they have anything further to comment. Or, if some of the other posters have any new information since that time. Good or bad is certainly welcome and helpful. It's certainly marketed as one of the bleeding edge tech units for cycles. Please share for the rest of us who may be planning to shell out $400 for the Element bundle.

Thanks in advance!

I bought one at the beginning of this season and retired my Edge 1000. Then I bought one for my wife and retired her 800. We like them a lot.

Recent software upgrades have improved yet again. Real time grade measurment is still kind of wonky but getting better. Haven't decided if Garmin has a better algorithm or just lies.

We bought it for the connectivity (which is best in industry), ability to sync with Strava and RidewithGPS routes easily, and mainly for the way better UI.

J.

The 520 screen is great even in bright sunlight. Still shifting to a Bolt, but for reasons other than the screen.

I've had my ELEMNT for a few weeks now. Overall I like it a lot. The only major flaw for me is that the % grade/VAM function is, frankly, garbage and barely works most of the time. The altimeter seems to get the total ascent/descent numbers right most of the time, but when I'm doing a significant climb the grade often drops out to zero, and seems to stick hard at zero even when I'm in a shallow climb (say 1-3%) for several minutes. I've heard several other complaints about this so I don't think I have a defective unit. I've never been totally happy with the altimeters on the various Garmins I've owned, but this is another league of badness. Supposedly the Bolt has the same chips under the hood so I wonder if it does any better.

Battery life is decent. I estimate I'm getting about 10-12 hours with speed/cadence/HRM sensors, and turn-by-turn routing all active, and using the map display most of the time (so there's a lot of screen redrawing). The ELEMNT phone app, which needs to be running to get phone notifications and Bluetooth syncing (I think), seems to suck power though, and is dog slow in general when just scrolling through the displays (iPhone 6s).

Does anyone know what the behavior is when the Elemnt loses GPS track? Yesterday I was riding along on a rural road, clearly on the correct TBT route with no turns anywhere nearby, when suddenly the Elemnt started flashing the off-course warning at me (red LEDs flashing across the top). After a minute or so it went back to normal. I noticed I was under heavy tree cover so I'm theorizing it lost the GPS fix, but since there's no satellite page I couldn't get any read on the number and signal strength of the SVs it was seeing. I think there's a data field you can put up that is the estimated GPS accuracy but I didn't have it configured on any of my data screens at the time.

Boy, I could have written this. Nice summary.

I like the ELEMNT a lot more than my Edge 1000 but the grade measurement stinks. At least the Garmin number is perceived as being better since it changes faster - I don't know if it is more accurate. The ELEMNT seems to have issues below 1% grade. I previously thought it was just fine on a long grade where it could settle in until yesterday when I was on a climb that was probably about 3-4% for 1/3rd of a mile, and it read zero the whole time. Under 1% grade, it seems to be more insensitive than it should be. I rarely see less than 0.7% and it seems to go from 0% (and you can feel you're going up) and then usually it will go to 1.3% or so with occasionally displaying 0.7% briefly - hardly ever lower.

More concerning, I have a page where I show the grade alongside the ascent distance. The ascent number was climbing but the grade wasn't changing. I even was interested to see that it I had climbed more than 13' (roughly the precision of the GPS) over a known distance that was relatively short, and the grade number never changed. That should have been easily within the accuracy of the barometric sensor.

I have noticed that over the last three software revision, the grade number seems to have gone from twitchy, to more stable, to dead slow/inaccurate. So I think they must be working on it, but they have a lot more work to do. Either that or they need to explain why their number is what it is and why Garmin's number is wrong.

They need to figure this out and probably use some combination of both GPS and barometric data with some sort of adaptive sampling to get it right.

I don't have the problem with the smartphone app on an iPhone 7. It seems as responsive as any other app and meets expectations.

I have had the GPS lose the track and flash the LEDs in thick tree cover. That said, it still showed me on the route and it didn't lose the plot - it just complained.

Just got mine [the Bolt], and the build quality seems a bit disappointing. Also the up button seems to require more force than the down button. Anyway, setup was a breeze.

A colleague brought his elemnt to work to show it to me - i'm very impressed with the clarity of the screen - even in the shade in the office the screen was easy to read. I have the Magellan Cyclo 505 and it would be very difficult to read if the lighting is not angled properly on it.

The Cyclo 505 probably has the best navigation of all - it will stick to the route like baby poo to a blanket (quoted from another poster which i thought really describes the Cyclo505). Any deviation will be handled by the 505 pointing you back to the nearest point to join the route.

Can anyone help me decide if the screen clarity of the elemnt is worth ditching the Cyclo 505 for?

The Elemnt is a fantastic computer and yes the screen is one of the most readable out there but...... Where you will bump into an issue with the Elemnt, or the Bolt for that matter, is the black and white screen is not optimal for navigation. The roads, chevrons ect are difficult to read and will blend in together somewhat.

For data and text based items it rocks but the one area when it's screen hurts it is in navigation.

I am thinking of switching from the Bolt to the larger Elemnt. Happy with the Bolt except for the screen.

Is the Elemnt functionally identical to the Bolt?

According to Wahoo - YES! The difference is the larger screen size, extended battery life and two rows of LEDs. They both use the same firmware and phone app.

Ah...thanks very much for that feedback. This is the first comment i've heard where the chevrons would be difficult to distinguish from the rest of the map.

Another function lacking is re-routing which is currently not on the wahoo units. I once had to made a diversion from my planned route (was diverted because there was another event running on parts of my route) and i followed everyone else away from my route - i could see the Cyclo 505 complaining but it continued to always point me back to how to return to my route. So i knew i was generally heading towards the correct direction to join the other sections of my route. It was very reassuring to have the cyclo 505 show me the correct direction of where i would eventually join up to my route. That wouldn't have been possible with the Wahoo units. Getting diverted and returning to my route on the Cyclo 505 was a thoroughly seamless experience- in fact it was quite cool and i quite enjoyed the brief diversion (because it caused zero problems for me). On the Wahoos i imagine you'll have to stop and pull your phone out to reprogram a new route to be then loaded into the Wahoos?

I could be wrong (it's been a while) but I think many Garmin units zoom into the intersection when you get within a certain distance to a turn. That might be a useful feature for them to add.

Speaking of the screen, yesterday I got a big drop of sweat on the screen of my Elemnt. Wiped it away with my thumb. No drama whatsoever. My touch-only Oregon would have been going crazy at that point. I can't stress enough how much I love going back to a non-touch screen. I really hope Wahoo isn't planning on adding one in the next model just to "get with the times".

To be precise, it's actually a superset. The Elemnt display can display two more data fields than the Bolt. Other than that, pretty much identical.

I think the chevron thing is really not the main issue in the navigation data. That's largely resolved by zooming in. It's not worse than the Garmin color path on their lower contrast screen also being hard to read. I'd say the biggest issue with Wahoo's maps is the lack of street and place names. While that hasn't been a big issue for me but it's in the "would be nice category."

Looks to me like the top of the heap in navigation may be the upcoming Karoo from Hammerhead. Due to ship in October and at a pre-release pricing of $299. Looks really interesting. Might be worth the early adopter jump if nav is a big deal for a given rider.

J.

Thanks.

I was more worried about lag, sensor dropouts etc, which the earlier Elemnts were known to have.

Yep. Other than that, they are pretty much identical in terms of performance.

I bought a Bolt for my daughter (Tri athlete - so locking down to bike is important in the transition areas). I used it for a while to compare to Elemnt. Display is a little different, a little lower contrast but not significantly. Sensor performance seemed identical to Elemnt.

My only complaint with both Wahoo units is that the grade measurement seems wonky. It isn't particularly responsive in shallow grades (<1%) and it seems to take a while to respond. At first, I was critical of that against Garmin's performance but to be truthful, I don't know which one is more accurate. Grade is a funny measurement - it requires you to ride some distance to get the rise and run relatively accurately. I came to the conclusion that Garmin's display of the grade data makes you feel like it's more accurate and more responsive, but I don't know if I'm just looking at garbage numbers either.

Other than that, I much prefer to the mono high contrast displays of the Wahoo units to the display on my Edge 1000. The Edge 1000 really suffers when the sun is at a lower angle (i.e. late afternoon). It seems to fool the light sensor on mine. Then again, I'm riding in Minnesota where the sun us always at a relatively low angle and that could exacerbate the problem.

On connectivity, the Wahoo kills the Edge 1000 less of a gap when it comes to the Edge 1000 replacement.

My thoughts exactly on the grade as well as the lack of colour.

I did a number of rides with both the 520 and the Bolt. The bolt always read the total ascent as less than the 520. Yet to do a known climb to see which is correct.

Yes, the grade takes time, and never reflects on lower gradients.

I agree with this.. I guess that's kind of what I meant. The chevrons are a bit hard to see if you are not zoomed in due to a lack of color on the screen. But yes, the largest issue is the lack of map detail like road names ect.

I don't navigate often and the Elemnt and Bolt both did the trick but Machoman is use to the Cyclo 505 and that, in my opinion, was the best navigation computer ever made. It's a real shame Mio/Magellan never kept it updated or fixed it's other bugs.

Compared to the Cyclo 505, the Wahoo lags far behind in navigation. Garmin's are not much better but do proved more map detail. Maybe the Edge 1030 will be an improvement?

I believe Wahoo relies on OSM maps, which tend to be very sparsely labeled in my experience, even with the full web interface. I sometimes try to use the OSM Cycle maps when plotting routes in RwGPS, but I always end up switching back to the Google map because I find it really hard to differentiate roads, even in areas I've intimately familiar with.

Just got my Elemnt Bolt yesterday. Has anyone found a forum thread or website discussing recommended settings or popular custom page designs? Or is that info buried somewhere in this one?

Everyone will have the computer setup differently to suit their needs and wants.

If you'd like a specific place, there is a Google Group dedicated to the Elemnt computers.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!fo...o-elemnt-users