Wahoo Bolt and Apple Watch 10

[Cat3roadracer]

Good Evening,

I have not ridden with a computer in years but am interested in monitoring certain data points and have a Wahoo Bolt v2 on the way.

My question - how will the Wahoo pair wit the Apple watch? Meaning, will my heart rate tracked on the watch, show up on the Wahoo? I have no interest in a separate heart rate strap. Will the temperature sensor on the watch also show up on the Wahoo?

Will the Apple watch record my ride, and subsequently transfer it to my phone without starting the ride app on the watch? Will the Wahoo essentially start the movement app on the watch?

I don't want to start the watch, then start the Wahoo, etc. The phone will always be in my jersey pocket for connectivity concerns.

Anyone have experience with this combination?

Thanks, Dave

[cgolvin]

Originally Posted by Cat3roadracer

My question - how will the Wahoo pair wit the Apple watch? Meaning, will my heart rate tracked on the watch, show up on the Wahoo? I have no interest in a separate heart rate strap. Will the temperature sensor on the watch also show up on the Wahoo?

Will the Apple watch record my ride, and subsequently transfer it to my phone without starting the ride app on the watch? Will the Wahoo essentially start the movement app on the watch?

I don't want to start the watch, then start the Wahoo, etc. The phone will always be in my jersey pocket for connectivity concerns.

Anyone have experience with this combination?

Thanks, Dave

Alas, your Apple Watch and the Bolt will neither pair nor communicate with each other; heart rate data stays within the Apple Health environment. The Bolt has its own temperature sensor.

I have an Apple Watch (older than 10 but I'm pretty certain what I'm saying obtains for all models), but never bother tracking ride data on it because the Bolt records more info (I have additional sensors so that includes power, cadence, etc.). The Bolt will sync with the Wahoo ELEMNT iPhone app so you can have your ride data uploaded to your iPhone automatically (and it will also automatically export to Strava, RideWithGPS, Apple Health, and a gazillion other apps).

Unfortunately, choosing the Bolt as the default recording source means that you won't have HR data unless you get a HR device that will pair with the Bolt. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

[kppolich]

Could be a way to get HR data from your Apple Watch to your Bolt....

https://dominikmaglia.medium.com/how...s-cb5e5000a291

[Dude]

The other annoying rub is that you can get powermeter data to display on your watch, along with HR but if you sync to strava it STILL won’t share HR info.

[JMT3]

While I admittedly am an Apple fanboy, I wear two watches on the bike. My iWatch series 10 and a Garmin Venu 2s to broadcast heart rate. There was a guy that developed an app for the iWatch to broadcast heart rate but it was a PITA and had to set up the app everytime you used it. I like simplicity in life!

[Cat3roadracer]

Originally Posted by cgolvin

Alas, your Apple Watch and the Bolt will neither pair nor communicate with each other; heart rate data stays within the Apple Health environment. The Bolt has its own temperature sensor.

I have an Apple Watch (older than 10 but I'm pretty certain what I'm saying obtains for all models), but never bother tracking ride data on it because the Bolt records more info (I have additional sensors so that includes power, cadence, etc.). The Bolt will sync with the Wahoo ELEMNT iPhone app so you can have your ride data uploaded to your iPhone automatically (and it will also automatically export to Strava, RideWithGPS, Apple Health, and a gazillion other apps).

Unfortunately, choosing the Bolt as the default recording source means that you won't have HR data unless you get a HR device that will pair with the Bolt. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

I appreciate the information.

If the watch sends the heart rate to the Health app on my phone and the Wahoo sends all of the cycling data to the same Health app, I think my net result will be the same. They have a 30 day return, so I think I’ll check it out.

[cgolvin]

Originally Posted by Cat3roadracer

I appreciate the information.

If the watch sends the heart rate to the Health app on my phone and the Wahoo sends all of the cycling data to the same Health app, I think my net result will be the same. They have a 30 day return, so I think I’ll check it out.

Happy to help, though it sounds like you're going to have to begin your rides doing something that you didn't want to: manually start the ride on your watch and Wahoo. Only a couple of seconds, no big deal.

FWIW, only slightly OT, after many years of wearing a chest strap HR and having to replace them regularly, I decided to try using a Garmin Fenix watch which can broadcast HR to the Wahoo. I wanted to test the accuracy so for a number of rides I wore the chest strap and recorded the ride using both the Wahoo (with chest strap HR data) and Garmin. After analyzing the data it was clear that the watch's accuracy fell far short of the chest strap. The good news was that during hard efforts approaching max HR they tracked more closely and at worst during those efforts the watch reported HR only a couple of BPM greater than the chest strap. However, the watch often reported much higher BPM when in Zone 2/3 and had no shortage of dropouts (it's hard to position the watch on your wrist to maximize accuracy while still being comfortable.).

All of which is to say that if accurately tracking HR data is important to you, best to suffer with a chest strap. If all you care about is a reasonable estimation of your HR data then the watch will suffice.

[Alistair]

Just summarizing what others have said...

- Apple Watch doesn't broadcast metrics, but it can display metrics from some other devices for some activity types.

- Wahoo (or any GPS head unit) won't display metrics from Appel Watch because the watch doesn't broadcast them.

- Any app that is integrated with Apple HealthKit will send metrics (post-activity) into the Apple ecosystem for display/processing. Wahoo is listed, though I push everything through Strava to avoid dupes.

- Apple HealthKit now has a Training Load feature (release last month) included in the Fitness app.

[Cat3roadracer]

To follow up - Wahoo going back tomorrow.

Was not impressed with its battery life, the time it takes to boot up, the look of the screens, the quality of the unit itself.

Truth be told, the Apple Watch gives me all the data I need at this point.

[fourflys]

Originally Posted by cgolvin

FWIW, only slightly OT, after many years of wearing a chest strap HR and having to replace them regularly, I decided to try using a Garmin Fenix watch which can broadcast HR to the Wahoo. I wanted to test the accuracy so for a number of rides I wore the chest strap and recorded the ride using both the Wahoo (with chest strap HR data) and Garmin. After analyzing the data it was clear that the watch's accuracy fell far short of the chest strap. The good news was that during hard efforts approaching max HR they tracked more closely and at worst during those efforts the watch reported HR only a couple of BPM greater than the chest strap. However, the watch often reported much higher BPM when in Zone 2/3 and had no shortage of dropouts (it's hard to position the watch on your wrist to maximize accuracy while still being comfortable.)

interesting.. I got a Fenix 6 from a friend a while back as, like you, I was hoping to ditch the chest strap.. my experience is I've never had a dropout that I can tell and, compared to the Wahoo strap I was using, the BPM was only ever off by a beat or two at any given time.. at least from looking at the watch HR (on the watch) and the strap HR (on the Wahoo) at any given time while riding.. and this is pretty much riding at a Z2/low Z3 range.. so now I have the Fenix paired to the head unit and just start a ride on the Fenix and Wahoo so the HR broadcast starts..

I guess YMMV..

[cgolvin]

Originally Posted by fourflys

interesting.. I got a Fenix 6 from a friend a while back as, like you, I was hoping to ditch the chest strap.. my experience is I've never had a dropout that I can tell and, compared to the Wahoo strap I was using, the BPM was only ever off by a beat or two at any given time.. at least from looking at the watch HR (on the watch) and the strap HR (on the Wahoo) at any given time while riding.. and this is pretty much riding at a Z2/low Z3 range.. so now I have the Fenix paired to the head unit and just start a ride on the Fenix and Wahoo so the HR broadcast starts..

I guess YMMV..

Yeah, my "at-a-glance" comparison was that they didn't differ that much, the stark deltas were at low effort (Polar said 80, Fenix said 95), and when riding a bit harder when I glanced at the Fenix the number was generally within a few beats of the Polar.

The dropouts were from analyzing the entirety of the data collected over a ~3-4 hour ride. I also learned after the first test that I needed to turn off the "smart HR" setting on the Fenix in order to make it sample every second.