exxxviii wrote:
When Wahoo planned its ROAM introduction with its in-between screen size, I suspect they thought it would be the leader in the smaller screen product segment and put Garmin's 5xx and 8xxx products on their heels. However, a couple weeks before, Garmin released their 530 and 830 products with larger screens and major feature improvements from their predecessor models. The ROAM is at a competitive feature disadvantage with the 530, yet it is priced $80 higher-- only $20 below the 830 with its killer touch screen UI. Garmin has the Edge Explore and 520 Plus that it can use as weapons to box-in Wahoo and control the entry-level product space.
I don't disagree with anything you said. As somebody who bought an Elemnt a few days before the ROAM was announced, I was happy to see that the ROAM wasn't a huge leap ahead...but i do see your point that today, on paper, Garmin does look well positioned.
But, I also think there are other people like me who are sick of dealing with Garmin. Their warranty department has always been good to me, but the vector pedals i had were terrible. The 820 was terrible. The 520 was great until i updated firmware and the battery life seemed to instantly cut in half...and the support team pretended like it was a non-issue that hundreds of people on the forums were making up.
I just don't trust garmin products anymore, and I have no reason to have any distrust in Wahoo since my Elemnt has been nearly flawless. Sure, it doesn't have a colored screen nor a touch screen, but those are two features that I really don't care about or want. My only complaint with my Elemnt is that the maps don't have street names. And occasionally my ride won't auto-upload to Strava for some reason, but that's rare and also happens with my wife's 520.
So yeah, i think you're right that Garmin has a competitive feature advantage at almost every price point, and i do think many people will continue buying them. But, i also think there are people like me who have owned a bunch of garmin devices and have been frustrated enough to try something different.