Wahoo Elemnt GPS computer challenges Garmin’s supremacy

The Wahoo Elemnt won’t dethrone Garmin from GPS computer supremacy, but it should put the tech giant on notice.

With easy configuration via a paired smartphone, LED indicators, and a sensible zoom feature for all pages, the Wahoo Elemnt began shipping this month from the company that put its name on the cycling map with the Kickr smart trainer.

The Wahoo Elemnt connects to peripherals via ANT+, to smartphones with Bluetooth, and to your home network on Wi-Fi. Wahoo is betting the farm on the phone integration, operating on the assumption that riders will prefer to use the phone for setup instead of submenus on the unit itself.  

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From the start, Wahoo as a company keyed off the iPhone, offering products like a Bluetooth/ANT+ Tickr heart-rate strap that works with the phone, and the Rflkt cycling computer that’s essentially a monitor to display the processing power and GPS of a phone.

Unlike the Rflkt, which is useless without a paired smartphone, the Elemnt is a standalone GPS cycling computer — sort of. In order to set up the unit, you need an iPhone (4s or newer) or an Android (4.3 or newer) phone. For those who have such a smartphone, the initial configuration of each of the pages is a snap; you just navigate with your phone, dragging what you want where, and the Elemnt changes to match. For those without such a device… this isn’t the computer for you. There isn’t a way to set up the page configuration without a paired phone.

For Stravaheads, the Elemnt offers some cool integration, including automatic uploading of your Strava routes to the Elemnt.

You can read more at BikeRadar.com