POLL : Garming vs garmin vs wahoo, what should I get.

[makoti]

Originally Posted by spinarelli

Main use is riding outside cell area. Don't ever use Strava live segments or the like. I was leaning towards the Wahoo but then I read the DCR review. His issue is a more specific case.





I have read lot and lots of posts about Garmin battery issues connectivity and UI problems. You gotta think that the people that have no issues don't comment in the forums with angry posts. You see more of the negative stuff.

I've had no real issues with my 520, outside of a one time lock up that made me reset it. I like my garmin. I know people love to bash them, but it works for me. So, I'd get the 520, but not at the listed price. I'd wait for some sort of sale.

[benb]

I have had good success with my Edge 1000.

Yes it has given me trouble. I have mostly been able to fix everything myself and have never contacted Garmin.

Only caveat there is I'm a software engineer and debugging problems where I sometimes don't often have all the information could be described as my specialty.

But it's nothing major. I got a battery bug on my Edge 1000 and it cleared up after I factory reset it.

The other issues I've seen over 3 seasons include firmware updates wiping out my sensors or my activity profiles. Those are annoying but not that hard to get set up again. That hasn't happened in a long time now though.

I've been on the road for 9 hours including stops with my Edge 1000. I'm doing 150 miles this weekend. I am hoping it gets me through the ride, I may pack a battery pack. The ride has the feature that you can get a bag dropped for you at mile 80 so I could leave the battery pack in there.

I very very very much value the ability to look at the map whenever I want and use it to explore, and also to do on the fly navigation when plans change or I want to change from "the long way home" to "the fastest way home". All stuff that seems to require a Garmin 8xx or 1xxx unit to do.

[muz]

Originally Posted by benb

I very very very much value the ability to look at the map whenever I want and use it to explore, and also to do on the fly navigation when plans change or I want to change from "the long way home" to "the fastest way home". All stuff that seems to require a Garmin 8xx or 1xxx unit to do.

I think the only scenario Garmin beats Wahoo is this: You want to navigate somewhere mid ride, and there is no cell coverage. In that case, Wahoo can only give you directions back to start, or select one of the pre-loaded routes. Garmin lets you browse the map and navigate. If you have cell coverage, you use the map on your phone, select a course and upload to Wahoo.

If you are following a preset course (as in a brevet), Wahoo seems to work better. Garmin sometimes stops giving you turn-by-turn directions, gets confused on out-and-back segments, and deviates from the course when it thinks you're "lost".

[rlanger]

Originally Posted by R3awak3n

Also I cannot believe that after all these years you still cannot send maps to the garmin unless you connect it to a computer, that really bugs me.

You can. It's not free, but it's totally worth it.

https://dynamic.watch/

I've been using it for more than a year and his has tons of indispensable features so I recently upgraded to the lifetime subscription.

[marciero]

Originally Posted by R3awak3n

Also I cannot believe that after all these years you still cannot send maps to the garmin unless you connect it to a computer, that really bugs me.

As rlanger notes, dynamic.watch/routeCourse is the key. In fact the free version does everything you need. Here is my rather lengthy post post on that.

https://forums.thepaceline.net/showp...61&postcount=7

[glepore]

Originally Posted by muz

I think the only scenario Garmin beats Wahoo is this: You want to navigate somewhere mid ride, and there is no cell coverage. In that case, Wahoo can only give you directions back to start, or select one of the pre-loaded routes. Garmin lets you browse the map and navigate. If you have cell coverage, you use the map on your phone, select a course and upload to Wahoo.

If you are following a preset course (as in a brevet), Wahoo seems to work better. Garmin sometimes stops giving you turn-by-turn directions, gets confused on out-and-back segments, and deviates from the course when it thinks you're "lost".

+1. I never use a bike gps to route, so I don't mind the Bolt's lack of labeled maps. It is so much nicer to set up and use. The autosync with rwgps is awesome. And its stable.

On the other hand, the price on that 1000 is pretty good as well.

[saab2000]

My Elmnt Bolt loses the GPS signal in wooded areas. I like the automatic upload to Strava but am unimpressed with the inconsistent signal as soon as I’m under a tree. My old Garmin 510 was far better in that regard.

[tigoat]

I bought the 1000 when it first came out, and I have been pretty happy with it in the last couple of years. I do not use maps that much nowadays along with some other extra stuff, so there is a lot of functionality in 1000 that I do not use. The touch screen is nice but it takes some getting used to. The bigger screen of the 1000 is nice to have more data fields on display. I currently have 8 data fields on the front page, which is nice to look at while riding. Unfortunately, the mount tabs broke last week, so I have been using it in my back pocket. I will hopefully have some time to remove the back cover to see if I can drill and tap some holes to attach a replacement mount. I contacted Garmin but have not heard back for a few days so I do not count on them to fix it. Anyhow, if you get a 1000 or any Garmin Edge, make sure the unit is tight when it attaches to the outfront mount, as a not too tight fit will eventually break the tabs under vibration. Also, I would get a rubber/plastic casing to protect it.

I just got a new 520 plus this week as a secondary/backup unit but I have not had a chance to use it on the road so I cannot comment much about it. It is obviously smaller than 1000 but it looks neat and feels light. I will decide how many data fields I will setup with it, probably 6 instead of 8. After using a touch screen on the 1000, it feels awkward to use push buttons to navigate round the screen but I do not see a big deal with that. I will post a review after using it on the road for a while.

Some of my riding buddies have Wahoos and I have not heard anything negative them.

[Bob Ross]

I feel slightly disingenuous contributing to this thread/poll, but fwiw my wife just went through this exact agonizing process and, after reading a ton of reviews and soliciting quite a bit of advice from a lot of our riding buddies, she settled on the Wahoo Elemnt. Just got it a couple days ago.

[CAAD]

My edge 1000 was great....for the most part. Had it for around 2 years. I travel a lot for work and always bring my bike so the round trip routing was a big seller. BUT the routing put me on some not so safe roads sometimes even with the correct avoidance things selected. Batter life was also pretty bad. Everything else was good. I have to Edge 1030 now. The round trip routing now uses Garmin popularity routing. Great routes now. I let it create the route then log into the Garmin map and sure enough the route is one that's well traveled by other cyclist. The last one I let it create followed the exact route as the local clubs Thursday night ride. The battery life is more then double also. But so is the price tag.

[benb]

Originally Posted by muz

I think the only scenario Garmin beats Wahoo is this: You want to navigate somewhere mid ride, and there is no cell coverage. In that case, Wahoo can only give you directions back to start, or select one of the pre-loaded routes. Garmin lets you browse the map and navigate. If you have cell coverage, you use the map on your phone, select a course and upload to Wahoo.

If you are following a preset course (as in a brevet), Wahoo seems to work better. Garmin sometimes stops giving you turn-by-turn directions, gets confused on out-and-back segments, and deviates from the course when it thinks you're "lost".

What's missing for those of us who have not used a Wahoo is what they have done with it since it was first shipped.

I went and read DC Rainmakers review and a few others and the Nav seemed incredibly weak at the time it came out compared to say an Edge 8xx/1xxx.

For example:
- Following set course (brevet) and you have to detour off the course to go find food or something. It sounded like you're totally out of bounds at that point with the Wahoo? The Garmin gives you a bunch of options at that point. What options does the Wahoo offer today?

- The reviews back then were saying it just showed your route on a map and didn't even give you turn by turn at all. What have they added since then?

It does not help with routes others build but I like to build 2 routes for out and back courses. That completely avoids the thing where your GPS can get confused. I actually saw the out and back confusion years ago with older Garmin GPS units (eTrex circa 10 years ago) but have never really had my Edge do that. If your event is an organized event and you build in significant amounts of out and back I am not that likely to ride your event though, sounds like a boring course.

The turn by turn directions thing on Garmin with downloaded courses is just a gotcha in the software:
- If you nav on the fly it automatically turns on turn-by-turn.
- If you download a course from say Ride with GPS it won't do turn by turn unless you go into the Courses settings and turn on Turn by Turn. But that's a global setting, not one you have to turn on for each course. It may have had an issue where software updates turned it off though.

I might actually use nav on the fly more than I use courses. But then I also don't necessarily go out of cell coverage that much. It happens, but not like every ride.

[spinarelli]

Thanks everyone for all the responses. I ended up getting the 1000. $300 all in, was really cheap for a brand new device that had all the bundle sensors included. If I don't like it I will just sell it and get a wahoo.

Thanks for the link, I will try it. I was playing with the garmin app and the nearby course options and I liked how it synced with the garmin over bluetooth. I just have to figure out if it's possible to plot a custom course on the iphone and sync it over bluetooth. Lots of youtube and blog reading planned for this weekend. The importing from ridewithgps to garmin is very simple on the computer, I wonder if you can do it over bluetooth while out riding.
The map update is huge, too, over 9 gigs.

Originally Posted by rlanger

You can. It's not free, but it's totally worth it.

https://dynamic.watch/

I've been using it for more than a year and his has tons of indispensable features so I recently upgraded to the lifetime subscription.

Originally Posted by marciero

As rlanger notes, dynamic.watch/routeCourse is the key. In fact the free version does everything you need. Here is my rather lengthy post post on that.

https://forums.thepaceline.net/showp...61&postcount=7

[muz]

Originally Posted by saab2000

My Elmnt Bolt loses the GPS signal in wooded areas. I like the automatic upload to Strava but am unimpressed with the inconsistent signal as soon as I’m under a tree. My old Garmin 510 was far better in that regard.

This is true; I get a lot of "off-route" warnings under heavy tree cover. When I inspect the GPS trace, it's comparable to what I see on Garmin, and not too far from the road. I think Wahoo has a smaller threshold where it triggers the warning. At least you can mute it on the fly.

Originally Posted by benb

- Following set course (brevet) and you have to detour off the course to go find food or something. It sounded like you're totally out of bounds at that point with the Wahoo? The Garmin gives you a bunch of options at that point. What options does the Wahoo offer today?

It shows you the route on the map, but offers no directions to get back on the route. But you can always get reverse directions. Note that when you leave the course on a brevet, you are supposed to get back to the point you left, no shortcuts allowed. If you allow Garmin to navigate, it will no longer follow the set course from that point on (at least my 800).

Also, turn by turn directions always work on Wahoo. They resume as soon as you rejoin the course.

[deechee]

Btw, being out of cell coverage should not be an issue as long as your cellphone has a gps receiver, which has been pretty standard for probably 10 years now...

Here maps (formerly Nokia / Navteq data) supports offline maps
as does
OSM Maps; you can easily preload free maps

[benb]

Being out of cell coverage is an issue if your phone's cyclocomputer support app doesn't function without access to the cloud.

E.x. ignoring anything to do with Wahoo or Garmin Google Maps can navigate you without cell access but only if you've let it build the route before you go out of service and then you've given it enough time to cache all the maps for the route. But once you get out of service you can't change to route somewhere else.

On the Garmin side one of the most annoying things IMO is you can't sync your activities without full access to the cloud. I really wish the phone could buffer the activity to the phone and let you analyze your ride on the phone and then it could sync to the cloud later. But the way it's implemented it literally won't sync unless it can send everything to the cloud immediately.