Wahoo’s early Elemnt Bolt & Roam cycling GPS computers have long been praised for their simple interface, intuitiveness, long run times, and just bug-free firmware, even many years after their release. Well, that was until last week, when an issue with how these older devices tracked GPS time led to many riders losing GPS tracking, ride recording, or simply ending up with corrupt files after the end of their activity.
Oops!
Thankfully, Wahoo software engineers have been on the case. And it looks like Wahoo solved the problems for these older Elemnt computers, which some of us have been relying on for more than 8 years. Hats off to supporting old tech, even while they’ve sold us on a couple newer generations since.
First-gen Wahoo Elemnt Bolt & Roam crash with bad GPS dates
A few weeks back, an old friend rode out to my house for a quick couple day visit. We caught up, did some nice riding together, and when he saw my new touchscreen Wahoo Elemnt Roam v3 he commented how his 8-year-old, first-generation Bolt was still going strong and had been trouble-free after years of buggy Garmin head units before that. Well, it seemed like he cursed it. And just over a week later, he texted me that it might have been his fault. Bad karma, or something.
The issue was simple but pretty shortsighted. For both the original ELEMNT BOLT and original ELEMNT ROAM, Wahoo had only allocated a limited 10-bit system to track time on these early devices. So all of a sudden, Elemnts reset their internal clocks to January 1st, 2006, and couldn’t be fixed. And since GPS communication and subsequent ride tracking rely on accurate data, satellites kept telling your GPS the correct date and your Wahoo computer disagreed. That date error then cascaded into unpredictable and often flawed locations. And when your location jumps around, ride tracking and navigation go out the window. Sometimes you would end up with a complete .fit file that thought it was living in 2006 (which could be corrected with some post-processing). But just as likely, the Elemnt corrupted your activity files.
Up to 8-year-old Wahoo Elemnt cycling computers get GPS fix
Bugs are a part of life with any electronics. And Wahoo has done a pretty good job with functional, over-the-air firmware updates to these devices over the years.
But our worry – along with many legacy Elemnt users – was that Wahoo wouldn’t be able to easily fix, or maybe wouldn’t really care to fix the issue for these very old devices.
But much to our welcome surprise, Wahoo jumped on it last week. They quickly identified the problem, figured out a fix about three days later, ran it through their own beta testing over the weekend, and had a firmware patch ready last night. I even received an email this morning explaining to me how to update it.
Time for more updates!
Wahoo firmware updates are pretty simple, but most often not automatic it seems. You can update them either on the device paired to WiFi or in the relevant Wahoo app – Elemnt for these older devices or Wahoo for the latest gen 3. I figured it was time for me to update all three generations of the Roam that we still use for various ride tracking and product testing.
Yes, all three needed an update. And I actually needed to update the gen1 GPS twice to be up to date. But now everybody is current, and back to normal – delivering long battery-life, simple interfaces, and excellent navigation.
Thanks to Wahoo for supporting these older legacy devices! It looks like a fix for the even older, original Wahoo Elemnt from 2015 will still take a bit longer. But they are working on it, and you can keep track of the status and see how to update your devices, here.
WahooFitness.com
