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Garmins response to the bolt
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Love my 520 and 735xt.

Spent a week with Element and (now) Bolt head units at bike camp.

- Wahoo units easier to update via phone app (screens) vs working directly with the head unit
- Wahoo units easier to share routes via email
- Wahoo units easier with 3rd party software (strava, mapmyride, etc)

Jump ship to Wahoo head unit or hope for a Garmin hail mary to catch up?
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [SkipS] [ In reply to ]
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How's GPS accuracy on the Wahoo units? Do you care about the ecosystem (ie integration with VIRB, Varia, etc) - cos Wahoo does not have that yet... Garmin's support is also amazing which could come in handy (my 520 went haywire 6 months into it, replaced with no questions asked).

Next races on the schedule: none at the moment
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [SkipS] [ In reply to ]
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What are your thoughts on the difference between the color screen of the 520 vs. black and white of the ELEMNT?
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [SkipS] [ In reply to ]
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I'm a big fan of Garmin products, but I ordered the bolt yesterday.

Not that it means anything, just my N=1.
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [SkipS] [ In reply to ]
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SkipS wrote:
Love my 520 and 735xt.

Spent a week with Element and (now) Bolt head units at bike camp.

- Wahoo units easier to update via phone app (screens) vs working directly with the head unit
- Wahoo units easier to share routes via email
- Wahoo units easier with 3rd party software (strava, mapmyride, etc)

Jump ship to Wahoo head unit or hope for a Garmin hail mary to catch up?

I don't get it - what does 'working with the head unit' mean? If there's an update for my 520 all I need to do is select 'OK' or 'cancel' on the head unit and that's not an option I'd like to give up. My workouts automatically go to Strava and trainingpeaks and that has nothing to do with the device, it's done by Garmin Connect. But who cares, as soon as a workout is done it's on Strava, Trainingpeaks etc so isn't that the goal?

'Jumping ship' and 'hail mary' make no sense here... in fact I think the Bolt won't sell much because a black & white unit is way behind the rest of the market.
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [Benv] [ In reply to ]
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Benv wrote:


I don't get it - what does 'working with the head unit' mean?


I think what he means is that if you want to customize the displays with which metrics you want, how large, etc, you have to do it directly on the Garmin, vs. with an app. with the Bolt. My Edge 500 is a *little* cumbersome setting up screens, but not that big of a deal.


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in fact I think the Bolt won't sell much because a black & white unit is way behind the rest of the market.


But if offers *way* longer battery life, probably in part because of the black & white. Apparently the 520 only runs about 4 hours and change in navigation mode. That's a deal-breaker for me because the rare times I actually use navigation are on 6+ hour epics (which my B&W 500 has kick-ass battery life). The colors do look good. But the ~4 hours battery life isn't worth it for me.

Edit: Huh. Comments below the link I posted have some people saying the 4 hours is not accurate. and the 520 can to up to 15 hours of navigation.. But they also say the navigation on the Bolt is far more felixible. E.g. on the Garmin you have to upload a route file prior to the ride. With the Bolt you can just whip out your smartphone mid-ride, set a destination, and your Bolt will take it from there. That's pretty cool.
Last edited by: trail: Mar 26, 17 20:00
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [SamMallery] [ In reply to ]
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Watched both screens back to back and garmin screens are better hands down.

The big win with the wahoo(s) was the route sharing features ( between units and 3rd party platforms) and ability to update your head unit screens via the app and not the head unit. I was using garmin connect and the screen update features on the head unit itself and was impressed with the level of the wahoo(s) ability.
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [alex_korr] [ In reply to ]
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The wahoo units were just as fast as the 520 garmin I was using in terms of GPS signal and route updates. We were in an unfamiliar area riding new roads and needed a constant update.

I really want to stay with garmin since my 735 serves me well for the swim and run. I have had great success in the past with garmin customer service.
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [SkipS] [ In reply to ]
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SkipS wrote:
Love my 520 and 735xt.

Spent a week with Element and (now) Bolt head units at bike camp.

- Wahoo units easier to update via phone app (screens) vs working directly with the head unit
- Wahoo units easier to share routes via email
- Wahoo units easier with 3rd party software (strava, mapmyride, etc)

Jump ship to Wahoo head unit or hope for a Garmin hail mary to catch up?
For me, and others may well be different, but for me not one of the things you mentioned is a deal breaker. In fact, they're all 'meh so what'

Update - I regularly plug my 520 and 920 into my MacBook and they update. In fact they also update wirelessly, so no deal breaker.

Share routes - meh. Not something I do often, and if I do it's done through Strava and the groups I'm part of. And I've done that maybe 3 times in 2 years.

3rd party apps. Really? This is done via Garmin Connect and is instant. As soon as I upload my activity its on Training Peaks and Strava. Not sure what you're getting at here.

Battery - my battery lasts well over 7 hours. Although I never use navigation so can't comment on that, but I call foul on the 4 hour comment. IMO if you "really" want navigating get a 1,000 or 820. Again for me it's not required - I have a phone in my jersey pocket that has maps on it.
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [ In reply to ]
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4 hours on the 520?

I am using the 820 and go over 6 hours and have finished with 75% battery remaining. Of course I did have a near 4 hour experience once because I had the backlight set to remain on because I was using it indoors and forgot to reset until I got a warning. At that point of the warning I minimized everything and was able to finish the ride.
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [Felt_Rider] [ In reply to ]
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About the only way for someone to get only 4 hours on the Edge 520/820 is if they left the backlight on full, with GLONASS on AND had some crazy battery burning Connect IQ app they downloaded as well. And even then, that'd be tough to get it to die within four hours.

As for the BOLT, it's a very solid competitive device - meant to draw people away from the Edge 520 (which costs $50 more). And, based on everything I see sales-wise, it's doing a very good job at that. Still, it's a long road to change the minds of thousands of local bike shops around the world that just recommend a Garmin. But the BOLT got good reviews all around (from numerous outlets), and I haven't seen any unhappy regular consumers either.

I don't think Garmin 'needs to respond' though, to be honest. This was Wahoo responding do them (which they did well, but neither 'won'). Just my two cents.

That said - if I was Garmin, I'd certainly be nervous about where Wahoo goes from here. They're at a point now where all the basics are solid on their unit (which requires years of teething pains, that they've dealt with). So at this point they can start accelerating on innovation rather than the core.


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My tiny little slice of the internets: dcrainmaker.com
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [BayDad] [ In reply to ]
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BayDad wrote:
Update - I regularly plug my 520 and 920 into my MacBook and they update. In fact they also update wirelessly, so no deal breaker.

Battery - my battery lasts well over 7 hours. Although I never use navigation so can't comment on that, but I call foul on the 4 hour comment. IMO if you "really" want navigating get a 1,000 or 820. Again for me it's not required - I have a phone in my jersey pocket that has maps on it.

The OP is referring to the ability of the Bolt & ELMNT to configure the fields and data pages through the app, not firmware updates. I've had the E since last summer and indeed this is very nice and Garmin really needs to catch up on this feature.

I don't have the Bolt but functionality of my E is exactly the same except for a larger screen. Aside from the smaller form factor, the other hardware difference I'm aware of is that beeps on the Bolt are much louder than the E, that's one minor annoyance for me.

Overall I really like the E. It's not perfect but it continues to get better with each update. The only real software hassle I had with it (trouble downloading navigation routes on new wifi networks) was fixed last fall. Prior to using the E I was using a Garmin 910XT for all three sports, but wanted a larger screen for the bike and for my aging eyes. And I've continually had problems with data loss with the 910, I would lose one or two files a month, and to me data reliability is one of the most important factors in a head unit. I suppose since with the Edge series one can also download files with USB this would likely be less of a problem but it really put a sour taste in my mouth. I haven't lost a single ride file in 8 months with the E. I also found some of the software decisions to be brain dead on the 910, such as adjusting backlight via a power button that also has no confirmation for shutdown. The E acts like you expect a unit to behave, it confirms power shutdowns or ending a ride; my wife is constantly forgetting to reset rides on her 500 and ends up with rides on different days munged together.

I don't doubt a lot of this is handled better on the newer Edge series but just explaining my thinking for not wanting to go with Garmin. At the time I bought the E the larger navigation-oriented Garmin units were getting long in the tooth and the 820 had not been introduced. It's my understanding the the 520 has very limited storage for maps and the download process is not very clean, both of which are non-issues with the E or the Bolt. The 820 fixes that at a higher price, but does have in-unit on the fly navigation. You can do on the fly navigation on the E & Bolt but you need your phone. I did find that the on the fly navigation can route you over trails that can only be ridden with an MTB and hopefully that will be fixed in the future but on the other hand this is a feature I'll rarely if ever use.

The E & Bolt do not have profiles like the Garmin but don't need them as much since it's so easy to configure the data pages. I set up different data pages for my different uses and turn them on and off quickly with the phone app. For certain uses, such as going back and forth from MTB use to road use, I'd like some sort of simple profile functionality as you can only have one map page, currently I have to go into the app to change data fields on the map pages and that's kind of fiddly; but my MTB use is seasonal so not a big problem.

Structured workouts are not currently available on the E & Bolt so that's something to be aware of, I believe they're coming eventually but are still a ways down the road. Personally I find that functionality to be useless as I find stop signs, traffic lights and downhills make preset intervals impractical, and I use zwift or golden cheetah indoors. My Quark Riken works well with the E, I believe most common powermeters work fine, but SRM and some less common power meters currently have issues so that's also something to be aware of. For more information search the Wahoo ELMNT user's forum on google groups.

The black and white maps work fine for me, I can see that color would be nice in certain situations, such as offroad to provide more context. Most offroad trails do appear on the maps, it uses Open Street Maps. Seven hours of battery life sounds pretty low, I would have exceeded that on a couple of my rides last year, and I only charge the E once every week or so. You can extend the functionality of Edge computers with Connect IQ, I've looked through the available apps and while many of them appear to be of minimal value a few of them look nice so that's also something to consider.

Overall I like the E, it seems to be built with more user-friendly software than Garmin. Both Wahoo & Garmin have their pluses and minuses and one may fit your needs better than the other.
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [tttiltheend] [ In reply to ]
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Just wondering if anybody knows exactly what type of smart phone you need to setup the Bolt. All I use is a pay as you go phone with 3G and WiFi. It doesn't have bluetooth, sorry if this is an obvious question, but I can't seem to find the answer on the internet. Does the Bolt talk to the phone over bluetooth or WiFi?

Thanks
Stephan
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [StephanP] [ In reply to ]
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Bluetooth

Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [dcrainmaker] [ In reply to ]
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dcrainmaker wrote:
That said - if I was Garmin, I'd certainly be nervous about where Wahoo goes from here. They're at a point now where all the basics are solid on their unit (which requires years of teething pains, that they've dealt with). So at this point they can start accelerating on innovation rather than the core.

And hopefully it motivates Garmin to clean up their non-embedded software. Which was weak for years (decades?) , and even now that it's somewhat cleaned up, is now behind Wahoo in several ways (e.g. phone integration).

I was so traumatized by Garmin syncing software that I still use a custom linux script to move new FIT files off my Edge 500 when I connect it to my computer. Though I hear it's better now.
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [trail] [ In reply to ]
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Element/Bolt do not support ANT+ FE-C
I use the 520 to control my smart trainer. If you are on a kikr you can do it with their head units, if you are on any other trainer you are @#$ out of luck.

I doubt Garmin will change the configuration from the device; Suunto has a much easier interface on their web platform for years and with Garmin you still need to go through endless menu options. It is mostly a one-time pain though, so I don't see it as such a big deal
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [dorongo] [ In reply to ]
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dorongo wrote:
with Garmin you still need to go through endless menu options. It is mostly a one-time pain though, so I don't see it as such a big deal

It was more of a pain when the firmware updates wiped out the display/screen settings. They seem to have resolved that issue.
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [rijndael] [ In reply to ]
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I have the ELEMNT and prefer the dual band technology as most of my sensors are BLE based (Suunto Ambit 3, Stages PM, and Wahoo TICKR) plus the super sharp screen on the Elemnt made this a clear choice for me over the Edge (I just sold my Edge 510).
Last edited by: JTNY: Mar 28, 17 10:34
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [JTNY] [ In reply to ]
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JTNY wrote:
I have the ELEMNT and prefer the dual band technology as most of my sensors are BLE based (Suunto Ambit 3, Stages PM, and Wahoo TICKR) plus the super sharp screen on the Elemnt made this a clear choice for me over the Edge (I just sold my Edge 510).
my issue with BLE is you can only connect to one device - so it will only display on your watch or your bike computer. So no good if I want data to both my watch and bike computer.

To me that's a complete deal breaker.
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [BayDad] [ In reply to ]
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BayDad wrote:
JTNY wrote:
I have the ELEMNT and prefer the dual band technology as most of my sensors are BLE based (Suunto Ambit 3, Stages PM, and Wahoo TICKR) plus the super sharp screen on the Elemnt made this a clear choice for me over the Edge (I just sold my Edge 510).
my issue with BLE is you can only connect to one device - so it will only display on your watch or your bike computer. So no good if I want data to both my watch and bike computer.

To me that's a complete deal breaker.

The Suunto is BLE, both my PM, HRM, are dual band. So basically the Elemnt is getting feed via ANT+. Best of both worlds!
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [SkipS] [ In reply to ]
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So the website says the bolt can control the kickr in erg mode.....I'm guessing thats a manual erg mode, not the ability to load a workout from say the trainerroad library?
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [SamMallery] [ In reply to ]
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SamMallery wrote:
What are your thoughts on the difference between the color screen of the 520 vs. black and white of the ELEMNT?

I was an early ELEMNT buyer (a year ago - picked it up in HI while on holiday). The improvement in display quality over the Edge 800 it replaced was incredible. It's far, far easier to read. The typefaces are far better designed, and the ability to easily zoom in and out to have more/fewer fields is really nice. The wireless uploading is almost instant and far more reliable than the Edge 800 was. Notifications of calls/texts are really welcome on long rides, although I mute emails and everything else sometimes. Battery life is pretty good.

Accuracy wise, I have no problems whatsoever. The integration with my Kickr (V1) is flawless and instant. The phone app makes rearranging fields and updating the software extremely easy, although it has (had?) a habit of dumping all your settings if you changed phone and reinstalled the app. The mapping is very different, and turn-by-turn only showed up fairly recently. I know the area I live in far better than I did when I was using (and relying) on that feature and so I can't say much about it. It shows enough to make turns easily apparent.

Physically, I'd probably enjoy the slightly smaller form factor of the Bolt now, as well as the placement of the USB port, but overall I am still really happy with it. It's a hell of a lot less hassle to use than my friend's Edge 1000 (although I do like the capacitative screen on that unit).

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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [alex_korr] [ In reply to ]
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alex_korr wrote:
Garmin's support is also amazing which could come in handy (my 520 went haywire 6 months into it, replaced with no questions asked).

How is replacing a defective product "amazing support"? That's just run of the mill stuff.

My 510 went haywire a month out of their one year warranty (actually started a couple of months before, but then totally bit the dust forcing me to get a new one) and all they did was offer 20% off the 520, which could be gotten cheaper through online retailers.

I despise Garmin and will be getting a Bolt very soon.
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [rubik] [ In reply to ]
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Sucks about your 510. Garmin replaced my 910xt about 3 years out of warranty. I guess that YMMV.

Next races on the schedule: none at the moment
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Re: Garmins response to the bolt [SkipS] [ In reply to ]
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I was thinking about replacing my Edge 810 with something smaller. Originally I was set on the 520, but the Bolt is intriguing. As nice as color screens are, I'm thinking the bolts higher res black and white screen might be easier to see at a glance while riding at speed. I also like the ability to easily increase or decrease the number of data fields while riding. I also like using dropbox better than Garmon Connect. But that's just minor

As for navigation, being able to send a route on the fly via a phone is slick. The one potential issue is that sometimes maps (such as google maps) will send me down less preferable roads to get from a to b so I end up having to drag the line over to a different road. Easy to do on computer but not so much on a phone. I liked the maps on the 810, but I only used navigation a few times in the past 3 years. Plugging the unit and loading routes was just an extra step that I wouldn't mind avoiding.

Matt
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