Wahoo rival – lowest-ever prices
via: @Yoeri, thank you
September is here and quite a few new sports watches and smart watches are starting to hit the headlines (Coros Pace 3, Garmin Venu 3, Samsung Watch6 and more)
Wahoo has perhaps countered some of these announcements with very significant price reductions to its ELEMNT RIVAL triathlon watch. If you are a Wahoo bike computer owner and inclined to the occasional bit of triathlonning then this is a must-buy watch at well over 50% off. Heck, if I were considering a new plastic Coros Pace 3 then I would think again with the Element Rival – Wahoo has a decent app, decent features and Rival also supports ANT+ sensors. Sure, Pace 3 is feature-packed but if you just want quality sportswatch features in a high-quality titanium shell then $129 is an unbelievable price. So unbelievable that Wiggle has sold out…although new stock is apparently on the way.
In answer to your next question, no I don’t know if there is a Rival 2 inbound. Rival is only just over 2 years old and you’d tend to release a triathlon watch in Spring. More likely is that Wahoo is simply responding to commercial opportunities.
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I’ve been tempted by the Rival as I have the Roam V2. But, each time I think of buying it I’m put off by the fact it’s has had no firmware updates this year at all so things like sleep tracking, introduced last year, have remained in beta all this year too.
Well, it’s kinda the watch that was lying under a rock the last years? I bought one for 129 euro.
All I want is tracking speed and distance. I don’t want metrics, sleep, music nothing so finding a watch that is doing that is kinda hard to find as I don’t want to pay for those features either.
For the money I didn’t think long and you can win UTMB with it too. Although Suunto Peak 9 Pro was the other one as I urgently need to do something for the environment.
Thanks a bunch for bringing this to my attention. Bought one, with your link of course.
Always wanted to check this one out and with that price I can do so without risking trouble at the homefront. 😉
So what’s the guess here? Wahoo clearing out stock and burying their sports watch endeavour?
I hope that they consolidate their operations, improve on their ecosystem and then come back in a bit (a year or two) with a true banger of a sports watch in a Pace 2 -esque way.
Wishfull thinking. The market will shrink with the vast majority of people sporting (ha!!) an ever improving android or apple smartwatch and only Garmin still holding on with a hybrid offering.
yes, there’s some truth there for sure.
why: my guess is that they are trying to boost cashflow. beats having lots of Rivals in stock tieing up cash that probably won’t sell until next season
rival is a good watch. it doesn’t need to improve much. BUT it needs lots of new features if wahoo wants to charge garmin prices…that’s a hard task
I’m still using the Rival alongside a Suunto Vertical.
Those HW might indicate that I’m not keen on features list longer than what i can read before falling asleep, but I’ve also been on Garmin side at some time…fact is, it seems I don’t need much.
Rival is a very good, straight to the point, easy to use watch. Even more so than a Suunto.
Mine has proven quite robust (except from the Stryd bug, still unresolved…), battery life is good for what I do at the moment (i.e no ltra trail), where I might like a profile view (and writing that, I realize I never looked at it on my suunto watch during 30h ultra run….), it charges quick (so a bit of battery boost during an ultra is OK), bip are clear, vibrations are clear, it tracks sports metrics well.
If a new one was going to show, I’d like…not much…A bit bigger screen in the same case size. Better instant pace (which goes with better tracks, but i don’t care the tracks..), maybe a breadcrumb/alti profile of an uploaded route. and…well…not much 🙂
Keep a low price point (300€).
aaaaaah not the stryd bug again! I hope the next gen rectifies that.
yeah, I’m similar to you in that I don’t want much more. as you say a bigger display size would be good (as with the FR965). the price too is a funny one, Wahoo is another brand that can command higher prices because of both the branding and the triathlon-based ecosystem (and the people that attracts who want to stay in it), but to get the volume it would need a price around the level you suggest.
i also really like the wahoo ecosystem. it does what it needs to on the app and (almost) reliably shoves the data to other places where I need it.
I think I’ve come around with that Stryd bug on every Wahoo Rival post I comment 😀
AFAIK, some people still successfully use a wahoo with a Stryd (even in top athletes such as Frederik Funk), but I still can’t get why it doesn’t work on mine…
I’m still tempted to buy a new one at 129 and check if it works with a stryd….just to see if it can be sample related…
Mmm. In Europe, Wahoo had already raised price again to 200 euro. That was a short sale…
Actually, I had a tabpag open yesterday evening at 9PM with a watch at 129€…decided to took the plunge at 10:30PM when going to bed…watch rose back to 199€…did not plunge 🙂
The Rival arrived yesterday and now I understand what you mean by ‘ease of use’ and ‘just works’ about Wahoo devices.
While I am rather old fashioned and most definetely not a fan of everything requiring a smartphone nowadays (why the royal heck does Google need to know where I am when I want to pair a gadget with an app using Bluetooth?!) BUT when you know the hassle of setting up data pages and fields on a Garmin Edge and then you experience the streamlined way Wahoo offers….that’s like Windows 98 versus IOS.
Will keep my eyes open for bargain for a Wahoo bike computer.
Oh and I may or may not have used your reference link to post the Rival sale on a german speaking bargain hunting website, so I hope you get some sheckels (or whatever you renegade islander use these days) coming your way because you gotta keep reviewing the odd one out stuff like Bryton or Sigma bike computers.
thank you for the kind comments
Wahoo devices are definitely logically ‘different’ to Garmin. I remember using my first Wahoo ELEMNT about 10 years ago and thought it very strange. However, you quickly get used to the new way of doing things and there really are SO FEWER button presses required to do most common things. If you like the RIVAL you’ll definitely like the ELEMNT bike computer. I’m just bucking the trend this year myself and endeavouring to use an Edge 540 just to annoy myself!! For once I’m succeeding at something 😉
Bryton: I can’t make any money out of the time i invest there. you guys in general are just not interested. The company needs to invest better in general awareness marketing
Sigma: is a similar story. Wahoo, at least in the UK and USA, is different as the company already has very much critical mass where it’s possible to justify my spending time.
that said if ANY company turns a good idea into a product then I’ll cover it.
Sheckels: ha ha, ty. There are several affiliate platforms that I just don’t trust. one springs to mind where i recently had 1000 clicks and zero conversions. Wahoo is using refersion.com which is one of the platforms i DO trust.
Rival is updated recently after one year of silence: https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017569220-ELEMNT-RIVAL-Firmware-Release-Notes
Wat does this mean?
I saw that yesterday and thought the same as you.
as to what it measn…IDK