Long gone are the days when your bike computer merely showed you how long, far and fast you were riding. Nowadays, it’s all about the bells and whistles (or perhaps beeps and flashes).
In the last few months, Wahoo has yet again nudged ahead of the field with a number of updates that enable riders to control their bike lights, music and GoPro from Elemnt (frustratingly, the brand's attack on vowels remains) Bolt and Roam head units. The company has worked closely with SRAM meaning that you can use the auxiliary buttons on the new Red AXS to control your Elemnt without leaving the safety of your levers.
The final piece of the update, the GoPro integration, goes live today. We've not been able to access all features to test them but those we have been able to put through their paces have been pleasing and reliable.
Smart light control
If you have ANT+ compatible lights you can now connect and control from your Elemnt.
That includes toggling through different settings and automatic start and stop at the end of your ride. If you’re one for sticking your lights on at the start of the ride and turning them off at the end this integration is unlikely to greatly excite you. However, if you ride off-road a lot and tend to toggle modes to optimize seeing/being seen and ensuring you have enough lighting power to get you home, this feature will make your life a lot easier than fiddling around for switches in the dark.
Music control
Are you sick of having to stop and get your phone out to skip that annoying track? Be frustrated no more; the music control screen displays what’s playing on your phone (whether its via a music app, YouTube or a podcast) and gives you all the basic functions that you need: volume, skip, rewind and play/pause. It’s beautiful in its simplicity and I’ve found it to be both quicker and more responsive to operate than directly through my phone even when sat at home, let alone riding.
GoPro control
The star guest of Wahoo’s integration developments was fashionably late to its own party; GoPro control has now arrived.
By connecting your GoPro to the Elemnt as another sensor you are now able to directly stop/start, take photos and change modes all directly from your head unit; all far easier and more reliable than getting your phone out or fishing around for a button somewhere on the top of your helmet/chest/elsewhere on your bars.
Probably the most useful factor in this is being able to see the setting on your Elemnt to know you’ve got the camera on the right mode, thus avoiding filming bits after you’d intended to stop your camera and missing the main action by inadvertently switching the camera off.
There might not be tonnes of riders who use both an Elemnt and a GoPro, but for those who do, this stands to be a really valuable integration.
This feature uses GoPro’s public API so is only available if your camera is Hero 9/10/11/12 (not Mini). Cory Pittman, Senior Product Manager at Wahoo explained to us that this is because each camera works in a slightly different way meaning the software is bespoke to each model. Users will need to pay attention to the particular settings for their model. Wahoo has promised forwarded compatibility with future GoPro models and is also aiming to develop software to integrate with older GoPro ones, as well as cameras from other companies.
We haven’t been able to test this function ahead of today’s launch (we're behind the times with our GoPro models) so we will update as soon as we get a feel for it and can report on its reliability.
Training program integration
Unless you use Wahoo X or Training Peaks you’ve likely been frustrated by the lack of integration between training programs and Elemnt to directly transfer workouts to your head unit. Wahoo has improved the API functionality to make it easier for third-party apps to integrate with its system.
Humango, FinalSurge and others have already been added with several more platforms expected to join in the near future.
