dcrainmaker wrote:
lanierb wrote:
I read DC Rainmaker's review of the Roam and was frankly shocked that he focused so much on the spec sheet and price. If all you're interested in is the spec sheet and price, you don't really need a review.
Except, in this case, where it fundamentally doesn't do what it says on the spec sheet. Want to use Strava routes? Oh, you don't get turn by turn navigation. Want to use the Wahoo companion app to send directions to the ROAM? Great, you don't get elevation data for those routes. Want to route back to start along a route? No turn by turn there either. See, that's what a technical review is there for. So yes, I focused on things on the spec sheet that Wahoo simply isn't doing.
It's funny how many folks keep going off on the USB-C item (literally, it's a single line mention in my review - I have countless single things I mention - this one hardly important).
Yet the thing people are forgetting is that it just doesn't do what people think it does. If it did everything it claimed to do, and did it for the asking $379 - then we can continue the debate on that - but that's frankly the least of the issues at this point. Watch GPLAMA's video, especially the last 5-7 minutes, where he goes effectively slide by slide on all the if/but statements around caveats for endless things. I'm not sure if people didn't make it that far in the video, or if people didn't understand the nuance/importance of what he's pointing out.
I have no doubt Wahoo's shifting directions internally in the last 24-48 hours to address these with software updates in the future, but today, that's not the device people are buying.
can i make a guess? and i'm saying this with zero knowledge. just a sense of how all this transpired.
i got my first reachout from wahoo's PR team on february the 20th, for the launch at sea otter. the launch itself was april 9/10, with an embargo of may 1. if the first reachout to me was feb 20, they had this planned many weeks prior to this, because they booked a lot of rooms in a particular hotel for this launch, and getting rooms and meeting space for sea otter isn't trivial.
it is my guess that, when wahoo planned this launch, many months before may 1, it intended to have all the functionality done by may 1. during the launch we were told that certain functions (integration with singletracks and mtb project; turn-by-turn navigation, full time elevation data) were going to be a few weeks out, or a month or two. i think they just missed the deadline on all their functionality, and they damned near missed the deadline on their companion app update.
so, if i'm wahoo, what do i do? if i sell the watch for $329, which might be a fair price, and then raise it to $379, a couple of months later, when all the functionality is in, how's that going to go over? i can't really delay the launch, because i've already booked everything, and the only time all the media is in one place is at sea otter. i can't delay the release of the watch because i already have the factory space booked and my specialty stores are expecting the product.
so, look, i agree, the missing functionality is worth $X. do you review the watch as is, and calibrate it to $379? or do you review it as it soon will be and calibrate it to the price? or a little of both? i think they made the best choice they could, which is to launch, and ship, and promise a firmware update in fairly short order that brings this watch up to full promised functionality.
is it ideal? (assuming my guess is correct?) no. what's ideal is for it all to have happened the way it was storyboarded 18 months ago. but i have some sympathy for manufacturers.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman