Wahoo’s early Elemnt Bolt & Roam biking GPS computer systems have lengthy been praised for his or her easy interface, intuitiveness, long term occasions, and simply bug-free firmware, even a few years after their launch. Effectively, that was till final week, when a problem with how these older units tracked GPS time led to many riders shedding GPS monitoring, trip recording, or just ending up with corrupt information after the top of their exercise.
Oops!
Fortunately, Wahoo software program engineers have been on the case. And it seems to be like Wahoo solved the issues for these older Elemnt computer systems, which a few of us have been counting on for greater than 8 years. Hats off to supporting outdated tech, even whereas they’ve offered us on a pair newer generations since.
First-gen Wahoo Elemnt Bolt & Roam crash with dangerous GPS dates
A number of weeks again, an outdated buddy rode out to my home for a fast couple day go to. We caught up, did some good driving collectively, and when he noticed my new touchscreen Wahoo Elemnt Roam v3 he commented how his 8-year-old, first-generation Bolt was nonetheless going sturdy and had been trouble-free after years of buggy Garmin head items earlier than that. Effectively, it appeared like he cursed it. And simply over every week later, he texted me that it may need been his fault. Unhealthy karma, or one thing.
The problem was easy however fairly shortsighted. For each the unique ELEMNT BOLT and unique ELEMNT ROAM, Wahoo had solely allotted a restricted 10-bit system to trace time on these early units. So unexpectedly, Elemnts reset their inside clocks to January 1st, 2006, and couldn’t be fastened. And since GPS communication and subsequent trip monitoring depend on correct information, satellites saved telling your GPS the proper date and your Wahoo pc disagreed. That date error then cascaded into unpredictable and infrequently flawed places. And when your location jumps round, trip monitoring and navigation exit the window. Generally you’ll find yourself with an entire .match file that thought it was dwelling in 2006 (which could possibly be corrected with some post-processing). However simply as doubtless, the Elemnt corrupted your exercise information.
As much as 8-year-old Wahoo Elemnt biking computer systems get GPS repair
Bugs are part of life with any electronics. And Wahoo has performed a reasonably good job with purposeful, over-the-air firmware updates to those units through the years.
However our fear – together with many legacy Elemnt customers – was that Wahoo wouldn’t have the ability to simply repair, or possibly wouldn’t actually care to repair the problem for these very outdated units.
However a lot to our welcome shock, Wahoo jumped on it final week. They rapidly recognized the issue, discovered a repair about three days later, ran it by means of their very own beta testing over the weekend, and had a firmware patch prepared final night time. I even acquired an e mail this morning explaining to me the way to replace it.
Time for extra updates!
Wahoo firmware updates are fairly easy, however most frequently not computerized it appears. You possibly can replace them both on the gadget paired to WiFi or within the related Wahoo app – Elemnt for these older units or Wahoo for the newest gen 3. I figured it was time for me to replace all three generations of the Roam that we nonetheless use for numerous trip monitoring and product testing.
Sure, all three wanted an replace. And I truly wanted to replace the gen1 GPS twice to be updated. However now everyone is present, and again to regular – delivering lengthy battery-life, easy interfaces, and wonderful navigation.
Because of Wahoo for supporting these older legacy units! It seems to be like a repair for the even older, unique Wahoo Elemnt from 2015 will nonetheless take a bit longer. However they’re engaged on it, and you’ll preserve monitor of the standing and see the way to replace your units, right here.
WahooFitness.com
