My initial moan about the ELEMNT was that I couldn’t give a proper name to each of my paired sensors. WAHOO support also confirmed this.

But you can do it. so now I’m happy. As the title might imply; if you fiddle around you may well just figure out how to do things.

Fiddling with the WAHOO is relatively limited, you get to where you want to relatively easily. There are lots of options but the unusual ones are typically not hidden away in the murky depths of a complex menu system.

WAHOO’s ELEMNT and Wahoo Elemnt BOLT are functionally very similar but the BOLT is a smaller form factor. As a result of the similarities, the 5 button system also works the same way on each model. On the right side there is an up/down or zoom in/out button and at the bottom of the screen are 3 buttons to do whatever the text above them says at the time. if you can read, you’re good to go 😉

The button on the left is what I want to talk about fiddling with. OK it turns the device on and off but it also flips the menus over to the ‘admin pages’. There you have some self-explanatory stuff as well as access to planned workouts and tests eg FTP test. The workout functionality is great and  I particularly like the almost seamless sync’ing of them from Training Peaks.

OPEN PAIRING

I’ll call the pairing ‘open’. ‘Open’ is a positive word in the gadget context. Pairing in the WAHOO realm s pretty cool.

Pairing sensors is probably not high on a list of interesting things to do in an evening but the WAHOOs do make pairing a relatively painless process, at least in my experience.

It’s not so unusual that you can pair Bluetooth SMART sensors and ANT+ sensors. The WAHOOs can pair pretty much  any performance-based sensor. From MOXY to ANT+ Fitness equipment to a BLE power meter.

What is unusual is that you can pair things straight to the device (obviously) BUT you can also pair through the app as well. I was surprised that I preferred the app method. Actually maybe not surprised; I sometimes found pairing to certain devices a little more tricky without the help of Mr App…notably I struggled a bit with Richard’s ROTOR PM as I tried to convince him to buy a BOLT to replace his Garmin Edge 810.

PAIRING TIDBITS

• For dual band sensors the WAHOO officially prefers to pair by Bluetooth rather than ANT+, although as I was preparing a photo to show that with a Scosche/OH1 competitor it decided to default to ANT+ to confuse me. #sigh Maybe it was already paired & active somewhere else? (It wasn’t)
• although the ELEMNT supposedly prefers BLE an ANT+ connection can be forced. I generally prefer ANT+ because of the number of devices I have and BLE can sometimes tie up a device when you least expect it or when you don’t realise #ble=annoying.
• The ‘more’ option gives more sensor info. For example, if you are not sure of the ANT+ ID then a high signal strength might indicate that you are trying to pair to the device that you are holding immediately next to the WAHOO.
• Pressing and holding a paired sensor on the APP brings up the option to rename it and the name sync’s to the device. Now you know.
• changing from the INDOOR to the OUTDOOR profile does not seem to make any difference to what sensors are remembered ie a forgotten sensor in one ‘profile’ is forgotten in the other profile.

This post is part of a series I am writing on my WAHOO Migration away from Garmin’s EDGE devices. At least migration away as ‘my’ device for personal usage. the5krunner will still have to use anything and everything, I suppose. I’m also on a quest to eek out the true best cycling computer of all time.