The biggest complaint levied against Wahoo computers over the years has been the lack of a touch screen. Garmin, which is the silverback gorilla in the space, has had touch screen Edge devices for eons, but even some of the new players like Hammerhead had a leg-up when it came to tapping, pinching and swiping right.
With the new Wahoo ELEMNT ACE, the Georgian outfit has delivered that and more in a BIG fashion.
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Would you look at the size of this thing?
The most striking feature of the new ELEMNT Ace is the size. It’s significantly larger than the previous flagship unit, the ELEMNT ROAM, with a 3.8-inch display with a 3:2 aspect ratio, transflective thin-film transistor, colour touch screen.
Wahoo says it aimed for the wide screen (most head units utilise a 16:9 aspect ratio) to add a bit of peripheral vision on the map screens. You’ll see a number of the latest generation of head units opting for AMOLED displays, like the Garmin Edge 1050, which sees a 3.5in screen.
While TFT screens are often thicker and heavier, they are also brighter, cheaper and can have longer lifespans. Wahoo has also applied an anti-glare and anti-reflective treatment to the screen to ensure you can see it, even in direct sunlight. The photos are a bit deceiving and the anti-glare/refletive treatment is very effective in the real world.
That massive screen also requires quite a lager bezel and form factor around it to package the buttons, battery, and all of the seniors inside. Measuring 125 x 70 x 20mm, to put that in perspective, it’s similar in size to an iPhone 5 (123.8 x 58 x 7.6mm), and the ACE tips the scales at 214g (including the leash).
Speaking of that bezel, it’s now customisable, and Wahoo will offer it in a range of different colours.
With that size factor, if you have an out-in-front mount, the ACE is not going to fit. Wahoo does include a well-finished aluminium mount, but it’s 31.8mm. Unfortunately, the zip tie puck is no longer included, so you’ll need something else, like a K-Edge Boost mount or similar, for your mountain bike.
Wahoo has still opted for the same button layout as its previous head units, with three along the bottom, two along the right side and the power button on the left. While the touch screen is responsive, you need to be deliberate in some of your gestures, like pulling the dock up from the bottom of the screen. In the rain or with gloves on, it responds like any other touch screen. Pro tip: if your touch screen isn’t working, lick your gloved finger, and it will. If it’s raining, use the buttons.
What’s inside the Wahoo ELEMNT ACE?
According to Wahoo, the bulk of the form factor beyond the screen is the battery, which is claimed to last 30 hours. With a power meter, light, heart rate monitor, screen on auto-brightness and navigation, after a three-hour ride, the ACE was down to 82% battery.
With a bit of back-of-the-napkin math, that would equate to about 6% per hour and 16 hours and some change in total. For what it’s worth, the ROAM lasts 17 hours in a similar setup.
While navigation is always battery-heavy, we contacted Wahoo, and it said the solution to achieve 30 hours was to change the backlight from auto to five seconds — I’m yet to try this out, but will update once I have.
Inside the device, it sees accelerometers, a barometric altimeter, a gyroscope and dual-band GPS and can access the GPS, GLONASS, BEIDOU, Galileo, QZSS, SBAS, and NavIC satellite constellations. What this means is that the ACE can connect to more than one satellite network to better triangulate your position in environments where signals might be reflecting off trees, buildings, canyon walls, mountains, or inside the Derby Tunnel — well, maybe not the last one, but you get the idea.
Wahoo has also integrated a speaker into the device to allow for voice turn-by-turn directions, just like you get with Google Maps. A feature that was added just before the embargo lifted was a double tap of the screen makes a thunderous bell noise — I nearly pooped my pants when I accidentally discovered this feature, you’ve been warned.
Wahoo ELEMNT ACE device setup and Wifi integration
Despite adding a touch screen, the ELEMNT Ace still relies on the Wahoo companion app for setup. However, the launch of the ACE marks the beginning of Wahoo migrating all of its users from the ELEMNT App to the Wahoo app.
Danny Brkic, Wahoo’s Australia/New Zealand Regional Sales Director, tells us that as time passed, they realised it was a waste of resources to continue to develop and support two apps across its ecosystem of devices when everything could be folded into one. The ELEMNT App isn’t going away right now, but it will eventually degrade as updates will stop.
Other than the fact that you can also access Wahoo X (formerly SYSTM) workouts and record activities directly on the device, it feels familiar. You will need to port over all your permissions for third-party apps, but once that’s taken care of, it will sync to the most popular services like Strava, Komoot, Training Peaks and Ride With GPS. One notable omission from that list is Trailforks, which was also excluded from the Garmin 1050.
The setup in the app will make it familiar to anyone who has used a Wahoo device before. All the menus look the same; everything is where you would expect it to be.
The Wind Sensor
On the front of the device there are two holes, which is a wind speed sensor. This serves dual purposes: so the computer can provide a more accurate temperature reading and offer real-time insights into how the wind is affecting your ground speed.
This is no doubt a more road and gravel-focused feature; however, drag does still affect mountain bikers, too — hence why the not-a-skin-suit-but-absolutely-a-skin-suit has returned to the Downhill World Cup. I’m reaching a bit here, but I digress.
In practice, it shows whether the wind is providing a boost or handicap live on the computer — denoted by the box’s colour and wind speed. The app then shows you in no uncertain terms where the wind speed was playing a role in how fast you were travelling.
I think its utility is more reserved for curly bar bikes, and even then, I’m a little sceptical. That said, it could open up some interesting functionality and integrations with things MyWindSock down the road.
I can also see it packing up with mud over time, as one muddy ride in and some splatters had already found their way into the forward-facing vents.
The device is IPX7 rated, so it should survive a spray with the hose to clear it out. Wahoo warns against using compressed air or sticking anything in to clear it out and recommends rinsing with warm water if needed.
I also noticed on a rainy gravel ride when water fills the opening on the front, it seems to be small enough that surface tension prevents it from running out of the port on the bottom and blocking the opening. I asked Wahoo about this, and it said: “Rain and mud will negatively affect accuracy.”
A whole new user experience
The whole user experience on the computer has changed with the ability to swipe on the screen, and that’s never been more apparent than on the home screen, which appears as soon as you fire up the computer.
There are now bike profiles where you can customise the metrics shown and data pages to suit each type of riding you do. The zoom feature is still there where the buttons on the side will adjust the number of metrics shown on the screen, but it’s arguably not really needed any more. It’s still nice to have, though.
What I do love about the new home screen is the sensor battery status bar. This is something no other head unit — to my knowledge — does and even when you dive deep into the menu systems of other computers’ this information is not always available.
From the home screen, you can also access routes and workouts.
In your ride, if you swipe down from the top, it opens a control centre screen similar to your phone, making essential things like screen brightness and speaker volume available at a single tap. To Wahoo’s credit, the menu system, regardless of whether it’s on the computer or in the app, is highly intuitive — everything is where you expect to be. You don’t have to go layers deep in a labyrinth of directories to silence notifications, lock the screen, adjust brightness or speaker volume.
With all of that real estate, you can have up to 12 data fields showing at once. This is WAY too much information, but the numbers are large enough to read at a glance, and Wahoo’s lovely colour-coded metrics for things like power, heart rate and grade convey key info at a glance.
There are a couple of interesting quirks I uncovered in the firmware. For example, the Garmin Varia rear-facing radar works as normal, but the Trek Carback pairs as a light and radar and shows all of the settings in the sensor menu but doesn’t do the radar part. You can even turn the light on and off using the ACE but it won’t show the dock on the side when cars approach. I asked Wahoo about this, and it was the first they’d heard of it. They are looking into what might be happening.
Mapping and navigation on the ELEMNT ACE
Wahoo’s mapping and navigation has always prioritised a balance between detail and readability.
This is most apparent in its use of colour to draw your attention and communicate something to you. Different hues and the width of the lines indicate the size and surface of roads, paths and trails as well as water and greenspace. And that continues with the ACE. The bigger screen and the ability to pinch and swipe are all significant improvements, and so is the use of the speaker, which provides voiced turn-by-turn directions.
However, Wahoo seems to have overlooked its display of mountain bike trails in Dark Mode. The dotted brown lines used to denote trails are just about impossible to see in dark mode. I asked Wahoo about this, and the spokesperson replied that they would look into improving the visibility here.
From the map page, you can access your synced routes and have the ACE take you to a location either from your saved locations or finding somewhere on the map.
Worldwide maps are available for free download, and all of the data — including for the MTB trails — is gleaned from Open Street Maps. In my experience, it’s good enough, but it can be a little incomplete. With that said, so is Garmin’s Trailforks map integration, but each has enough info to limit how often you need to pull out your phone when you get turned around at a new trail network.
The routing and on-screen cues are easy to understand and appear with ample notice, so you’re not constantly banging u-turns.
When you’re following a course, the ACE denotes your path with chevrons that are even colour-coded based on the gradient of the climbs.
The ACE also sees the Summit feature, where, as you approach and climb with a gradient of at least 3% and that is more than 250m long, the computer changes to a special screen showing a colour-coded elevation profile along with some select metrics.
This feature works both following a pre-loaded course and freeriding. It works better than you’d expect on singletrack and is handy for not falling for the false summit on nasty climbs at trail networks you don’t know, like the back of your hand. It’s even more helpful on gravel riders, where watching your computer and seeing your progress is easier so you don’t burn all your matches too early.
Features still to come
Wahoo ELEMNT ACE has only just arrived, and there has already been a firmware update, with some minor changes like UX tweaks, adding support for Strava Live Segments, and improvements to the music control page. Wahoo has also added the ability to change the settings of a device in the Wahoo app while the computer is offline and then sync and update the next time it connects — that’s a big one folks have been pestering the brand about for eons.
But Wahoo has already laid out the addition of multi-language voice turn-by-turn directions, in-ride navigation improvements and battery optimisations, third-party data integrations, additional map layers, and more coming over the next year.
Early verdict
As of launch day, I’ve only had the ACE for about two weeks, and with a device as fully featured as this one, I’ve only just scratched the surface. But I can make a few early determinations.
The headline here is the size. This is one CHONKY bike computer. It’s big, heavy, and priced at $999.95 AUD; it’s pretty darn expensive, too. I think a lot of mountain bikers will be turned off by the size factor, as even on a stem mount, it’s still in the danger zone, hanging over the front of your bars. Speaking as someone who has seen more than one head unit disappear into the bush, never to be seen again, the leash is a must for the ACE.
For those who are familiar with Wahoo computers and their user interface, the ACE is a marked improvement and a fantastic implementation of the touch screen. The touch screen itself isn’t as sensitive as your phone, or even the Hammerhead Karoo, but is less frustrating than some Garmins — it works well enough, and you can also do everything with the buttons as well.
The screen is sharp and colourful even in full sunlight, and I appreciated things like the double tap to zoom on the map page. I think for gravel riders, bike packers, and folks who utilise a lot of mapping features, the ELEMNT ACE has a lot of merit in this current form.
I appreciate having a good bit of data in front of me, but I struggled to fill the screen. I really hope that Wahoo shrinks the device down to the form factor of the ROAM and BOLT as well.
