Wahoo’s range of head units has always been based on clever simplicity. When the very first ELEMNT was launched in 2016, it was meant to go toe-to-toe with the Garmin Edge 520.
While it didn’t have a colour screen, the smartphone integration eliminated the button-pushing marathons required to set the device up or load a route. It didn’t have the capability to show you some advanced features or guide you through intervals, but it would connect to Bluetooth smart sensors and could load a route from a third-party app.
While it missed out on some of the high-level functionality and advanced metrics, at its core, the ELEMNT did all of the things that most people wanted from a cycling computer. Then, through regular firmware updates and subsequent computers, Wahoo has continued to fill in many of those gaps.
The latest Roam V2 is the brand’s current flagship head unit with all of the bells and whistles.
An overview of the Wahoo ELEMNT Roam V2
Based around a 2.7in, 240x400px colour display, it is the largest head unit that Wahoo makes measuring 9.05 x 5.95 x 2.05cm. While that display is still not a touch screen, it has jumped from a measly eight colours to 64. There is still a fair bit of physical real estate on the bezel, but that is occupied by two arrays of six LEDs, which can be programmed to flash different colours based on anything from heart rate and power to Strava Live segments, workouts, notifications from your phone, turn by turn directions or rear facing radars like the Trek Carback.
On the outside, the only significant visual changes to the device are a swap from micro-USB charging to USB-C, and the buttons have changed from innies to outies. While this may seem like a small modification, the innies created the perfect spot for mud to collect. These new buttons are much easier to feel with gloves on and have a more satisfying ‘click’ to them.
Wahoo claims a battery life of 17 hours. This is the same as its predecessor, and of course, this depends on a number of factors like temperature, light conditions, paired sensors and the like. This puts it a little less than the Garmin 1050 and its smaller family members like the Edge 540/840 but a little more than the smaller Bolt V2. Even still, it’s more than enough for a LARGE weekend of riding without needing a charge.
The mounting interface is still a quarter turn, although the tabs are oriented opposite to Garmin, and Wahoo includes a streamlined out-in-front mount and a puck that can be zip-tied anywhere there is room.
Under the hood, the Roam can use GPS, Glonass, Beidou, Galileo QZSS, SBAS and NavIC satellite constellations for precise location accuracy. The Roam also sees Dual Bad capabilities, which allows the computer to collect info from two of these satellite constellations at once, to maintain a lock if your view of the sky is obstructed by tree canopy, canyons, buildings, mine shafts, underground lairs — maybe not those last two, but you get the idea.
The Roam also sees a built-in barometric altimeter, gyroscope, accelerometer and compass to provide real elevation data and track speed and distance should you lose contact with the positioning satellites.
It can speak Bluetooth, ANT+ and Wifi, so connections to devices, sensors, and your home network for auto uploads are more or less universal.
Wahoo has also updated the internal storage on the Roam from 4GB to 32GB. Why do you need the same memory as an iPhone 7 on a cycling computer? The maps.
While maps for any region can be added to the Roam V2 for free via the ELEMNT App, that extra memory means there is room to store just about the entire earth, along with tonnes of activity files and routes.
The ELEMNT App
Where Wahoo has always excelled was leveraging its app integration to make the computer easier to use. This also means the computer itself has fewer menus for things to hide in.
Pairing happens through a QR code that you scan with the camera on your phone, which guides you through a setup wizard. Here, you’ll lay out your data screens, set up notifications and custom alerts, manage maps, routes and more.
Any changes made in the app appear on the computer just about instantly.
With the way Wahoo leverages the app it allows it to utilise a UX you’re used to. While Garmin has slowly introduced some of this functionality — including laying out your data screens through the Connect app — to its computers, most things need to be done directly on the device, and there is a learning curve to navigating your way around them. If you’re technologically challenged, you’ll appreciate the familiar feel of this aspect of Wahoo computers.
The app also allows a whole host of integrations from just about every third-party app I know, and quite a few I don’t. Most noticeable is Trailforks, which is no longer available with the latest Garmin 1050 head unit we just took a look at.
Riding with the Wahoo ELEMNT Roam V2
The other trademark feature of Wahoo’s computers since the beginning was its Perfect Zoom approach to displaying data fields. With the ability to show up to 11 fields, when you’re setting up each screen, you rank the metrics from most to least important. Then, with the up and down buttons on the right side of the unit, you can ‘zoom’ in or out depending on what data you want displayed.
With this, you can tailor what you want to see on the fly, which also means Wahoo can get away with not offering separate profiles for different bikes. If you like to see different data when riding your mountain bike or gravel bike — say you have a power meter on one and not the other — you can set up the main screen for each to eliminate any dead fields using the zoom function.
This does come at the expense of some customisation — I like to have power at the very top of my screen as it’s the easiest to find with a quick glance. The zoom goes from the top to the bottom of the screen, so if I’m riding a bike without a power meter, I either need to have a blank data field or move this metric somewhere else.
Hardly a deal breaker, but it is a compromise.
With 64 vibrant hues at its disposal, Wahoo has always used colour with a measured hand. While it now has exponentially more hues at the Roam’s disposal, the computer hasn’t become a technicolour dreamcoat; Wahoo only uses colour to draw your eye to something important or communicate key information. Most of this is on the mapping page, but there is also the option to use coloured data fields. So, for things like power, heart rate, gradient, and others, colour is assigned to a zone, and the entire box lights up with that colour when you’re in that zone.
This is one of those things I didn’t realise how much I was missing out on until I had it. Once you learn the colours, a significant amount of information can be conveyed just through your peripheral vision — quite handy when you need to pay attention to what the person in front of you is doing or look ahead on a techy climb. This same colour-code-ability is also possible with the LEDs on the side.
Freeride Summit Segments
Wahoo introduced the Summit feature back on the original Roam, responding to Garmin’s Climb Pro. Essentially, when you get to a climb that is at least 3% average gradient and or more than 250m long, the computer alerts you about what is ahead and then jumps to a special screen. This can be customised as well and can be defined by small, medium, and large hills.
This shows the profile of the climb, colour codes the gradient along with your current progress, and a few climbs-specific metrics that can be customised.
Previously, you needed to be on a predefined route for the computer to do this, but a firmware update about 12 months ago allowed the computer to offer this without a preloaded course. It’s a nifty feature, no doubt, and it works surprisingly well on singletrack. It’s very handy if you’re headed for trails you don’t know all that well.
There’s also the lookahead map elevation, which shows you the elevation profile of what is still to come. Again, this is handy if you’re riding areas you don’t know like the back of your hand, so that you don’t blow up going hard over a false summit.
Mapping
Speaking of mapping on the ELEMNT, we’ve mentioned that global base maps are available for the device — and they’re free. These maps have become significantly more detailed over the years and easier to read as Wahoo has implemented more colour to the screen.
Routes can be synced from just about every third-party service you may use — including Trailforks — or created in the ELEMNT app.
With a course loaded, the Wahoo guides you using chevrons, alerting you to turns with sounds, banners with the name of the street or trail and the LEDs flashing which way to go and then flashing green when you’re headed the right direction. If you miss a turn, the ELEMNT quickly reroutes to get you back on track.
Wahoo uses Open Street Maps data for its base maps, which have a surprising level of detail for mountain bike trails. You don’t get the colour-coded difficulty ratings as you do with Garmin’s maps, but there is enough info there to get around a trail network you’re unfamiliar with or navigate your way out if you get turned around.
With that said, the real downfall is the lack of a touch screen. On my Garmin Edge 830, you can swipe and tap your way around a map to figure out where you need to go or drop a pin and have the computer take you there. Even looking around on the map is an awkward button-pushing marathon. In that case, it will be a much quicker process just to pull out your phone — where you can create a route in the ELEMNT app and send it to the device.
Flow’s Verdict
Wahoo’s ELEMNT Roam V2 is a fully featured head unit that’s easy to live with. Garmin is the 800lb gorilla in this space, and the Roam V2 is priced the same as the Edge 540. While the Garmin definitely does more things, many of these things aren’t features most people really need or necessarily want — cycling dynamics, stamina insights, Grit and Flow metrics, First Beat training and recovery times, etc. The same goes for things like weather forecasts on the head unit. It’s nice to have, but you’ve already checked the forecast on your phone, so why do you need it there, too?
What the Roam V2 does have is a longer 26-hour battery life. For an extra $150 AUD there is the version that converts some of the dead space in the bezel to a solar charging panel. While the LEDs on the sides to and left side of the screen are nice, I’d trade them for solar charging.
As a head unit, it displays more data than anybody knows how to use, and the clever use of colour to highlight and draw attention to critical bits of information at a glance is something the others the others haven’t done in a meaningful way.
While the lack of a touch screen is the biggest drawback to this computer, the clever use of phone integration means that Wahoo can sort of get away with it — it’s not like anybody rides without their phone nowadays anyway! Even still, it’s well past time for Wahoo to unveil a computer with a touch screen.
I’ve used every ELEMNT device since the original — except for the Bolt V2, but Wil has — and bar a few small things like the Dual Band satellite location, it’s identical in a smaller package. In the same vein, I’ve used every generation of Garmin Edge computer bar the latest 1050.
Through all of this, the most significant difference was the fact that the Wahoos just worked. Whereas Garmin’s, from the very first Edge 500 all the way up to some of the most recent computers, have been plagued by gremlins hiding in the software. Simple things like pairing sensors after you’ve started an activity, periodically refusing to connect to your phone and forcing you to unpair and re-pair and deleting rides if the wind blew the wrong direction. Heck, I’ve even had an Edge 820 that would swap between Metric and Imperial units at random. To this day, my Edge 830 and 1030 occasionally won’t sync with my phone or activate LiveTrack.
While Wahoo computers have historically had some of their own issues, there have been none like these. They are a little simpler than the offerings from Garmin, but their most consistent quality is that they work without much fuss.
The Roam V2 is an evolution of the Roam, and Wahoo has made a lot of the new features like the Freeride Summit Segments backwards compatible to the Roam and Bolt V2.
If you want an easy-to-use head unit that offers plenty of data without all of the fluff, the Roam V2 will more than suffice.
