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Wahoo Rival | Adds more Running Power Support

buy Wahoo Elemnt RIVAL review specificationsWahoo Rival adds more STRYD running power support

Must Read: Wahoo Rival Review

The Wahoo Rival triathlon watch was released toward the back end of 2020 and, sort of, had some support for running power. Whilst this missing feature set won’t affect too many people it was a significant omission for me personally and, probably, for a significant minority like me, to the point where I had zero plans to use the Rival until that feature was working.

To cut a long story short…running power seems now to be working.

Wahoo Firmware

Source: wahoo

Wahoo promised to release feature improvements by the end of 2020 and did so via their v1.2.124 firmware release on 15 December. I was aware of the release at the time but it didn’t seem to do too much officially in the way of RUNNING POWER. I discovered that it improved custom multisport functionality and wrote about it somewhat scathingly here, however, notes that talked about the changes to multisport profiles on Wahoo’s Firmware Update page seem to have gone AWOL. Maybe that’s a good sign that they are having a re-think…I only asked for a little re-think.

Tinkerings Today

I was playing with the RIVAL earlier today and started to notice some other minor features that I could have sworn weren’t there in the launch release, so my inquisitiveness got the better of me. I played around some more and found the following

  1. STRYD can be paired initially via BLE but, once paired, suggested that it also recognises the ANT+ connection as well.
  2. As part of the STRYD pairing process, RIVAL asks if I want to add CADENCE and POWER fields (hmm, that was new?)
  3. It IS then possible to create a new page in the RUNNING PROFILE and add various power metrics to that page (NEW!!)
  4. I went for a short run and, sure enough, power was displayed. (NEW!!)
  5. Some running power metrics were also displayed in the workout summary, which I seem to recall was there at launch.
  6. The saved FIT file seems to save running power correctly and Golden Cheetah agreed and displayed it very nicely.

Take Out

For me, that means I can and will use the Wahoo RIVAL as from NOW.

It lacks auto- and manual footpod calibration factors and further lack the ability to have STRYD as a source of both speed and distance. I can live with that omission for a while.

Return to the full Wahoo Elemnt Rival Review

 

 

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8 thoughts on “Wahoo Rival | Adds more Running Power Support”

    1. there is LESS info on the wahoo website as the reference to multisport has been removed.
      wahoo has previously released features on the ELEMNT without listing them, so this is not necessarily unusual.

      1. Oh i did not know that 🙂 still waiting for route guidance on rival to pull trigger on rival(also waiting for white), bolt/roam and tickr x

  2. Curious what version of the Stryd pod (original or wind) you are using. I just purchased the Rival this week and paired my wind Stryd. I only was able to connect via ANT and get no power readings either on the watch or in the FIT file

    1. fw v1.42.6 on the watch and the air version of stryd.
      have you added a power data field to the run display?
      please ask stryd and let me know what they say.

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