Colin checks out the new Wahoo ELEMNT Roam 3
The middle child of the Wahoo ELEMNT family, the Roam, has been updated following the release of the SIZEABLE Ace earlier in the year. The Roam 3, launched alongside the Bolt 3, has been upgraded to the new software system, also sporting a new form factor and screen.
The beauty of the Roam V2 was the simplicity it brought along with a deep feature set, detailed maps and intuitive operation. However, the lack of a touchscreen was a black mark against its peers in the same price range.
The new Wahoo ELEMNT Roam 3 sees the addition of a touch screen, an updated user interface, a speaker and more. Let’s dive in.
What’s new on the Wahoo ELEMNT Roam 3?
While Wahoo has made some adjustments to the form factor and packaging, the big headlines here are the touchscreen and the new operating system.
The display sees the same transflective thin-film transistor, colour touch screen as the ELEMNT Ace. This not only brings with it the ability to touch, swipe and tap your way around the device, but also bumps display colours from 64 to 16 million. This is most noticeable on the map pages, but it also gives some of the colour-coded data fields a bit of extra POP!
With that said, the anti-glare coating, combined with the new screen, does make the display seem like it’s always a bit dim, and at the right angle in bright sunlight, it doesn’t match the Roam V2 for outright readability.
The form factor of the device has changed, substantially reducing the size of the bezel and eliminating the LEDs on the sides and top. Overall, it’s more compact, but the screen has actually gotten bigger, now measuring 2.8in. It’s also a touch heavier, now weighing 107g.
All new operating system
This new and improved screen has also allowed Wahoo to trickle the latest operating system from the ACE down to the Roam 3. You get the updated home screen allowing you to choose from different bike profiles, select routes and workouts and see how much juice all of your paired sensors and electronic drivetrain have remaining. That last one has come in handy several times, being able to clearly see that the battery in my GX Transmission drivetrain was dead before leaving the house.
Wahoo has incorporated quite a bit of the user experience we’ve become accustomed to with our smartphones into this new operating system. There is an always-on status bar at the top that displays the time, GPS, Wi-Fi and phone connection status and battery. A swipe from the top of the screen opens a control panel where you can adjust screen brightness, speaker volume, enable the screen lock and toggle things like notifications, custom alerts and the like.
During my time with the Roam 3 so far, I have encountered an inconsistent sync issue, where rides would sometimes upload to the app using just a Bluetooth connection, and at other times, it would require WiFi to transfer data. A bit of digging around online showed that I wasn’t the only one to experience this issue; however, after recommendations from Wahoo, unpairing, repairing, and reauthorising all of the third-party apps I use has solved the problem.
Many (myself included) raked Wahoo over the coals for not adding touchscreens to its previous generation of devices. Even with all the swippy-swipey-tippy-tappy interface, the Georgia-based outfit has retained all of the buttons, and they have some of the same functions as the previous computer. Despite the touchscreen, I’m so habituated to using the buttons on a Wahoo computer that I find myself reverting back to pressing them to navigate the device.
Wahoo has kept the zoom feature, where you can view more or fewer data fields by pressing the arrow buttons on the side. However, with the ability to create different ride profiles that show a unique set of metrics, this feature is arguably no longer a necessity.
With the completely new operating system, much of the setup still occurs through the companion app. However, Wahoo is migrating everyone from the ELEMNT app over to the main Wahoo app. This started with the ACE, as Wahoo realised maintaining and updating two apps when everything could be run through one wasn’t the best use of resources.
If you’re upgrading from one of Wahoo’s previous-generation computers, it’s nothing more than a minor inconvenience, and everything easily migrates across.
What’s inside the new Wahoo ELEMNT Roam V3?
Beyond the screen
Just like the Roam V2, the new headunit has access to GPS, GLONASS, BEIDOU, Galileo, and QZSS satellite constellations and also sees dual-band, multi-source GNSS connectivity.
What this means is that if the computer is struggling to triangulate your position due to mountains, steep canyon walls or heavy tree canopy interrupting the signal to one network, it can utilise the other satellites to fill the gaps.
There’s also a built-in barometric altimeter, compass and gyroscope, Bluetooth LE 5.0, ANT+, ANT+ FE-C and Wi-Fi Connectivity, and USB-C charging.
Battery life
Wahoo claims the battery lasts up to 25 hours. Obviously, there are numerous factors that come into play and affect how long a computer will last; however, after a 5-hour 45-minute ride with two Bluetooth sensors paired, navigation running, and the screen set to auto-brightness, it had dropped to 69% from a full charge.
With a bit of bar napkin math, that equates to 6.5% per hour, meaning at that rate the ELEMENT Roam would last 15.38 hours. Over the last dozen rides I’ve done, I’ve started with a fully charged battery and made note of the overall drain, and it’s been within one per cent of this figure. Wahoo doesn’t explicitly state what settings the 25-hour number was achieved with on the Roam. However, for the Ace, the brand noted you had to swap the screen brightness from auto to five second, which did make the math, math. Most people use bike computers with the screen on auto as it’s the default setting, so this roughly ~15-hour battery life is a more representative, real-world figure.
Following on from the ACE, the Roam 3 gets a speaker instead of a beeper. This allows for voice cues when following a route, and also enables a double-tap of the screen to ring a bike bell.
Mapping and navigation
The new Roam doubles the memory to 64GB, meaning there is more room onboard for maps, which, following a recent update, have become even more detailed, including things like street names, points of interest, shops, and even Strava Segments if you have the right membership to the orange app. Wahoo has also added map layers so you can see as much detail as you want, without any extra clutter. Worldwide maps are available for download — though you need to be connected to Wi-Fi.
The mapping information is gleaned from OpenStreetMaps, which includes a surprising amount of singletrack — at least in Australia. That said, Wahoo hasn’t added trail names to the maps like it has street names. Other devices like the Hammerhead Karoo 3, which also takes its maps from OSM data does display trail names, so the info is available. We’re not sure why Wahoo hasn’t opted to include this on the map.
With that said, following a route, the turn-by-turn directions will give the name of the trail you’re meant to be following.
On the maps, despite the significant infusion of extra colours, Wahoo has still opted for dotted brown lines to denote singletrack. And just as with the ACE, if you are using Dark mode, it’s extremely difficult to see these lines on the map. We raised this with Wahoo when the ACE was launched, and a spokesperson says it was something they’d look to improve. Hopefully, a firmware update will be available soon.
Routes can be created from pre-existing FIT, GPX, or TCX files, imported from a third-party app like Ride with GPS or Strava, or even by sharing a location from Apple Maps or Google Maps.
Like the Ace, the Roam 3 gets the Summit segments. As you approach a climb with a gradient of at least 3%, that is more than 250m long, the headunit swaps to a special screen showing a live colour-coded elevation profile along with select, customisable metrics.
This works whether you’re following a route or are free riding. It’s a feature we’re particularly fond of while exploring at trail networks we’re not super familiar with, as it allows you to see exactly how far you have to go on a climbing trail or just how long that nasty pinch on a fire road lasts.
Flow’s Verdict | Riding with the Wahoo ELEMNT Roam 3
The best bike computer is one that fades into the background after you’ve set it up, and so far, that’s precisely what Roam V3 has been. It just works. Once you’ve set up your screen and alerts, it does what it says on the tin, building on what these computers have done well. It’s not a revolution of ground-shaking features, but it’s definitely a solid evolution of the device.
Wahoo has granted my wish and downsized the ACE into a more manageable package. It’s essentially a smaller version of that computer, although it has eliminated the wind sensor, which isn’t a significant loss.
The new firmware is pretty stable at this stage, since it was launched with the ACE last year. The UI is intuitive, and everything is where you expect it to be, with regular updates. Since the unit arrived, Wahoo has updated the maps, added a passcode security function and fixed the Google Maps routes function, among other things.
Being able to set up bike profiles is handy, so you don’t need to rely on the zoom to avoid dead data fields.
I prefer to have power metrics at the top of the screen so they are easily visible at a glance. However, I also don’t have a power meter on every bike. The zoom function worked from the bottom up; if I didn’t want to have dead data fields, I needed to move power to the bottom to utilise the zoom function. On the Roam 3 with individual bike profiles, this is no longer an issue.
I have had one ride so far where the device locked up and needed to be reset (holding the power button for ten seconds until it restarted). I’d also experienced this once or twice with the previous Roam V2 and lost part of a ride. Annoying when it happens, but it’s quite rare. The Roam 3 also automatically recovers the activity, which, as a Strava nerd, I greatly appreciated.
The touchscreen isn’t as good as the one on your phone, but no bike computer is, in my experience. I do wish the screen were a bit brighter.
The only real issue I’ve come across so far with the new ELEMNT Roam is how long it takes to start up. I timed it out at 34 seconds!
If you have a Roam V2, I probably wouldn’t be jumping through hoops for an upgrade, given the $749.95 AUD price tag. However, if you have an older Roam V1 or are swapping it from something else, the new Roam 3 is a nice and well-sorted little headunit.
