I currently have a Wahoo Bolt I had to warranty and I received a brand new one. I’m contemplating selling it and buying a Garmin 530 just so I can have TrainerRoad workouts synced to my cycling computer. I was wondering what’s the timeline for Wahoo getting workouts from TrainerRoad as I much prefer to have Wahoo over Garmin.
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No firm date, but they are getting closer to releasing for Garmin. Wahoo will be later.
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I left a support ticket with Wahoo to ask them to hurry up with their API documentation for TrainerRoad to use. I mentioned that Garmin compatibility is almost complete. 
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My honest opinion? Wahoo is grasping at straws. You have to think about market share that Kurt Kinetic has at one point. They were the big hitters. Wahoo has/had market share, and then two major things happened:
- Their 2018 Kickr was an absolute flop
- Garmin acquired Tacx
You will see, in my most humble opinion, wahoo fall to its demise. Although this may seem like an aggressive anti-Wahoo rant; moreover, want to point out the fact not to expect great things/updates from Wahoo. As an extremely aggravated once-consumer of Wahoo, I think my hypothesis will come to fruition. Take this to the bank, Garmin did a great thing for this sport, and for its consumers, and its soon-“ownership” (if you will) of market share will reflect this
I understand your frustration, but I think predicting the death of Wahoo is premature and highly unlikely.
Yes, they have really screwed up in late 2018 through 2019. The Kickr 2018 and Core issues are big and have given them more than a black eye. Additional issues with snapped belts on the Climb and the recent marketing flubs are more signs of mistakes on their part. But I think we are a long way from Wahoo filing for Chapter 11.
You mention Kinetic, and they are an interesting case. They had a solid position in the dumb trainer market. According to marketing, CycleOps claimed to be the bigger dog in the era, and that may have been true when you considered their wider product line. Either way, Kinetic had firm footing. But they were slow to move forward and only now catching on to the smart trainer market. Despite those issues, they are still alive and kicking at the moment.
There may well be some fallout for Wahoo in the form of decreased market share, but I think it will take a fair bit more to get them into dangerous territory. All this is my speculation of course. Who knows what the real damage from these recent issues really did to them?
We will see how they weather the storm and what they have on offer in Eurobike this year. I think that may show some reaction from them, but again is a guess from me.
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@mcneese.chad i should have been more clear by saying their demise will be the loss of market share. I, too, doubt they will go under. One can’t convince me that Garmin acquiring Tacx won’t help make this happen.
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That is an interesting topic on it’s own. Tacx and Garmin are both full of examples of faulty products and firmware (like any company really). I am curious to see how the two grow together and address some of the issues we have seen from both in the past.
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Oof. Yeah, I don’t see that happening. Like at all.
At least in my neck of the woods, Wahoo is decimating Garmin in terms of head unit replacement and trainer purchases. I don’t know anyone who has recently purchased a new Garmin head unit - but I can think of probably 10 people off the top of my head that have picked up an Elemnt variant in the last few months.
Additionally, no one I know has ever mentioned having Wahoo issues in real life. My Elemnt has been amazing, and is FAR superior to my 510 for my use case. I have never had an issue with my 2018 Kickr and I use it almost daily. I only know there are issues with the units from this forum (full disclosure: I haven’t been on Facebook for about 2 years).
Sorry to hear that you’ve had a bad experience with Wahoo products, though.
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To me, there’s a pretty big difference in firmware issues and hardware issues. I didn’t have to lug a 50lb box to a shipper because of a bad firmware update. I am more willing to live software/firmware inconvenience because that stuff can be really hard to ferret out.
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I clearly am speaking from emotion and not hard facts then (it’s a family trait haha). Logically, I feel there are more issues with Wahoo than what meets the eye, but looks like I’m possibly wrong on this. I could understand that maybe it could be me, abd a slight few others with these issues; however, my brother is having the same problem with wahoo’s Kickr, and a slew of others on this site as well share the same sentiment. I can tell you, I loved my Kickr when it worked. After a bad snap (never worked on ERG mode, and then felt like my tire was stuck in mud), and then three faulty Kickrs, I had to pull the plug on Wahoo. I’m still not convinced there’s not a bigger issue with Wahoo than meets the eye. My opinion. I do apologize for railroading this thread. You folks are great…always fun shooting the breeze!
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As a totally neutral and impartial observer, I have to admit my opinion of Wahoo has gone down in recent months as a result of reading about issues with the kickr, their (in my opinion) marketing fail with the colored bolts and the lackluster roam that I think is overpriced and with underdeveloped features. A few months back I was pretty convinced I would get a Wahoo headunit, but with the 530 announcement have leaned toward Garmin (especially since the TR integration will likely occur first on Garmin). But I also recognize we’re a small subset of geeks here so our opinions may not reflect the larger public lol
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My bolt is yet to let me down - but I have several people on my Strava feed who quite regularly post rides with titles involving the words Garmin fail. (That and my watch that’s about 3 years old likes to randomly reboot here and there - luckily while I’m not recording things)
Actually I wonder if you can search Strava for rides with titles like that.
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Garmin devices are also full of bugs. I’ve had 3 Garmin bike computers 810 (had to have 3 units due to issues), 520 - worked flawlessly and 1030 - issues re connections at the start, better now but still often crashes for no apparent reason…and don’t get me started on vector 3’s. Now on my 3rd set of pedals and had 4 sets of battery covers and still having issues. Wahoo have had a bit of a bad run. I have a 17 kickr that hasn’t given me one ounce of trouble. I honestly believe that people expect issues with Garmin and are more forgiving whereas Wahoo issues are less frequent and the kickr 18 was a genuinely monumental mess up. I think Wahoo will survive, I hope they do. we need the competition.
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Former Garmin user, Current Wahoo user and I’ve never been happier.
I have an ELEMNT, ELEMNT Bolt, KICKR, and KICKR core (my son) and every one of them has been flawless from the very first day of opening the box. I understand that my experience doesn’t reflect everyone’s, but I also understand the reverse to be true. We have the fan as well, and it is set to HR, as soon as one of puts on the HRM, it starts up, and works flawlessly.
I’ve also never had any data drop outs in Trainer Road, I use bluetooth exclusively, on a MacBook Pro, iOS, and windows.
Maybe I’m just lucky, but both companies have completely earned my trust.
A common thread through both is the almost grass roots feel to the way they do support when there is an issue. If you post something on this forum you will get a response from other users 100% OF THE TIME, AND 99% of the time a TR employee will follow up as well. The same is true with Wahoo and their support forums. I’ve never one time gotten a “bot” reply from either company.
Call me a big fan.
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Absolutely this. Garmin users I know (slowly declining numbers) seems to not really think twice when their device has real problems (like the ones mentioned above). I used to be one of them as well! I have had zero issues with my Elemnt and honestly, I was floored to find such a capable and feature-rich unit right out of the box.
I also own a Kickr 2018 and, as mentioned in another thread, have never had a problem at all with it. Between TR and my Wahoo devices I am grateful to have a completely reliable setup. Looking forward to Wahoo head unit integration.
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I was a long-time Garmin user including multiple GPS units, for camping, use in the car, as well as their first ForeRunners, Edge 305, and 510, and 910XT. My last Garmin bike computer, (Edge 510) had multiple firmware/software issues, as well as started to flake out on the touchscreen. I had it serviced under warranty. I then ended up breaking off one of the tabs (fixed with dogears) and it too then began to have strange behaviour in uploading, and general operations. This one was then replaced out of warranty with a re-furbished one. Problems still persisted and instead of buying a 520, I went with the Wahoo Bolt. The Bolt has been extremely reliable, easy to set up, and access to third-party software is solid. I never saw any reason to go to the 520 or 520plus. I would say that Garmin has upped their game with the 530/830 releases, and while Wahoo has been working on the Kickrs and associated devices, they haven’t really focused on the Elemnts that much. They do have the mini, they offered some colours on the Bolt, and the Roam is really underwhelming, especially for the money.
Wahoo has had integration of workouts with Trainingpeaks for some time now, so I would hope that giving to to Trainerroad should be a relatively painless task. I’ve been doing a manual workaround, where I build my TR workouts in TP, which then it syncs to my Bolt automatically.
Wahoo needs to get back to innovating instead of playing catch-up with Garmin now.
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My thoughts on the issue: Garmin has taken Wahoo’s mojo. At least most of it.
When I got the Wahoo Bolt last summer I was very impressed with its feature set and generally good reliability, plus the app-centric management felt very state-of-the-art. I was less impressed with the hardware (low-res green-ish monochrome display, kinda-dated feeling housing of the device), but that didn’t bother me too much.
Garmins on the other hand felt dated and just “old” in comparison due to their slow CPUs and old-school concept of on-device configuration, in conjunction with very mediocre touchscreens. Also, I sympathized more with the underdog Wahoo than the old, monolythic Garmin.
After the honeymoon phase was over, I realized that with the Wahoo it was pretty much “you get what you bought” - and that’s it. I implicitly expected from a relatively young company to be more agile, deliver regular feature and bugfix updates etc. Maybe this had been the case in the past, but after almost a year of use I have not seen any new features or bugfixes (that were relevant to me) - and that was somewhat disappointing.
But it wasn’t until the new Garmins were released (followed by the Wahoo Roam) that I realized how badly Wahoo got outmaneuvered by Garmin in terms of device innovation and roadmap. Sure, Garmin was in a bad spot for a few years, but if Garmin can deliver a reliable experience, Wahoo will be in big pain for years to come.
I just received my Edge 830 and will be using it along with my Bolt to see what’s what. But initial impression is: Garmin has left the competition in the dust. Wahoo still has a few selling points on the software side, but they really need to step up their head unit game. I hope they will.
Trainerroad integration (for outdoor rides) is a prime example where a smaller, software-centric company should be first to market - and if Garmin beats them even here, that says a lot.
Just my 2c.
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In my cycling group most use Garmin (eg 520/820’s), some Leyzane (spelling) a few Bryton and others unknown brands. Haven’t seen anyone with a Wahoo. As for problems in three years I have only two problems and out of those only one where I could not get my ride data at the end.
My mates don’t seem to have had any issues either from checking their rides. Some forget to turn off the unit and get weird data maps occasionally. I have never understood the negative comments in this forum for Garmin.
I will also be purchasing a 530 in a few months because Garmin has been goods for me, it is cheaper and has more features than the Roam.
I wish Wahoo would also allow Varia Radar to work on Bolt
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This thread reminds me of the Mac vs windows threads I used to* see on forums. Interesting how folk can find ANYTHING to be tribal over.
*maybe they’re still out there and I’m just not paying attention.