Wahoo Fitness is a popular sports tech company renowned for their cycling and fitness accessories, such as heart rate monitors, cadence sensors, smart bikes and smart trainers, and fitness watches.
While Wahoo has been making various fitness watches for years, the Wahoo ELEMNT Rival Multisport GPS Watch is Wahoo’s first GPS watch suited for running and multisport.
It’s received great reviews – but what do our experts think?
In this article, we’ll walk you through the specifications of the Wahoo ELEMNT Rival Multisport GPS Watch, and how it performed when put through the paces.
| Pros | Cons |
| Able to track many sports activities | A little bulky and large for small wrists |
| GPS seems accurate and doesn’t drop | Difficult to get it docked in the charger |
| 24/7 data tracking, including HR and calories | No downloaded maps |
| Good battery life | No easy way to look at trends in HR |
| HR monitoring is super accurate, even when swimming | No structured workouts on the watch itself, though there are some in the app |
| Customizable display | No sleep tracking, training load, or recovery |
| The app is easy to use and tracks many stats | |
| Automatic mode shift in triathlon transitions | |
| Music/podcast control from the watch | |
| Phone notifications |
Unboxing the Wahoo ELEMNT Rival Multisport GPS Watch
The box of the Wahoo ELEMNT rival is a work of art in and of itself and sets the tone for a high-quality product. With a fold-out banner encouraging you to “Never lose focus,” the box is sturdy and covered with inspiring Triathalon images.
The graphics speak to the primary market for this as a multi-sport watch that offers more than just a GPS running watch.
Inside, you find the Wahoo ELEMNT Rival watch itself, the charger, and two compact manuals.
The watch was all charged up and ready to go, and very easy to set up and sync with the companion app offered on App Store and Google Play.
The watch is slightly on the heftier size, weighing 53 grams and measuring 15.3 mm thick. The watch face itself is 46.5 mm.
These specs put it in the same size category as other GPS watches like the Garmin Fenix 6 Pro or Garmin F945, which is also a GPS triathlon watch.
Wahoo ELEMNT Rival Multisport GPS Watch: Features and First Impressions
While the Wahoo ELEMNT Rival Multisport GPS Watch is the first foray into the world of GPS sports watches for Wahoo Fitness, they certainly swung for the fences.
With 10+ separate modes to record numerous sport activities, including; Indoor Cycling (KICKR), Outdoor Cycling, Running, Track Running, Race Running, Treadmill, Lap Swimming (Pool), Open Water Swimming, Strength Training and Yoga.
And as if this wasn’t enough, you can also configure additional sports modes on the watch through the app.
Other features include: 24/7 data tracking with optimized analytics in ELEMNT Companion App; optical HR sensor display HR and calorie data in real-time; reliable dual-band ANT+ and Bluetooth connectivity; 12 pre-loaded workouts; STRYD integration allows runners to collect stride power data; vivid 64-bit color display with impact-resistant Gorilla Glass.
Battery life on smartwatch mode lasts 14 days, GPS last 24 hours, and HR mode lasts 24 hours. The lithium-ion battery is also rechargeable.
The watch measures 46.5 mm (watch face diameter) and 15.3 mm in thickness. It weighs 53 g (1.86 oz) and the display is 64-bit color (240 x 240 pixels). It’s also water-resistant up to 50 meters.
What really stands out about the Wahoo ELEMNT Rival Watch is that it’s fantastic for multi-sport use.
This includes a touchless transition mode that changes the sport modes on the Wahoo watch as you progress through a triathlon race or other multisport event.
And if the watch mistakenly transitions the mode before you’ve actually changed activity you can also “undo” the mode switch.
Related Article: Best Garmin Watches For Runners
You can also dial in your exact transition splits by editing the time for your transitions in the Wahoo app before your workout is uploaded to third-party sites like Strava or TrainingPeaks.
Therefore, your race data can be super accurate, without your first mile splits being skewed by the errant addition of extra transition time.
It should be noted that as a Wahoo product, the ELEMNT Rival Watch also has some Wahoo-specific features I didn’t use as I don’t have any other Wahoo exercise equipment. However, from reading reviews on Amazon, they seem to function pretty seamlessly.
For example, it has a specific mode for using the Wahoo bike trainer (KICKR) and Wahoo smart bike.
In this mode, the Wahoo watch enables you to control the Wahoo KICKR BIKE, KICKR, KICKR CORE, or KICKR SNAP in three different modes on the KICKR equipment: level mode, ERG mode, and passive mode.
There are seamless app integration features for these devices as well, but I wasn’t able to take advantage of these or try them out.
If you are in the market for a smart bike or smart trainer as well, it would probably be best to use those products with this watch over the basic trainer I was using, so you get maximum use out of what this watch has to offer.
I didn’t use the altitude screen much, but that’s mostly because I live in a pretty flat area so my elevation data is pretty boring to look at. If you do a lot of climbing, either running hills or doing big climbs on the bike, this would be a super useful feature.
Another great feature is that you can customize the watch display in the Wahoo ELEMNT app. This allows you to choose between analog or digital displays with either a “simple” or “utility” layout. On top of this, you can also pick the color of the display.
Wahoo ELEMNT Rival Running Watch: The Road Test
I’ve been wear-testing the Wahoo ELEMNT Multisport GPS Watch for six months, which has given me ample time to assess all of the features and to get a sense of how it performs over time under a variety of situations.
Overall, I’ve been very pleased with the watch and would recommend it to anyone looking for a multi-sport GPS watch.
The ELEMNT Rival Watch: The Good Bits
First praise for the ELEMNT rival is the GPS. I found the GPS satellite signals to be extremely fast and reliable and the optical heart rate data was continuous and accurate across all sports modes.
The treadmill mode also worked really well. I found the distance calculation to be very accurate relative to the treadmill readout. Plus, I loved that I was able to adjust the final distance if need be.
Getting all your heart rate and calorie data on the watch during the treadmill run was also super helpful for gauging the intensity of your workouts.
There are also many other workout modes, so if you cycle, swim, use an indoor bike trainer, or even do yoga for example, you can get really accurate workout stats.
The yoga mode doesn’t necessarily offer any yoga-specific metrics, but like the other modes, it records your workout time, HR, and calories, and then when you’re reviewing your workout history in the app, you can see all your workouts categorized as yoga.
Then, you can compare just these workouts over time, or sort them based on sport for any other type of analysis.
In the app, I loved that you could manually customize your heart rate intensity zones, or even have the app automatically calculate them based on your resting and maximum heart rate.
Similarly, automatically calculating your cycling power zones based on your FTP test (or you can also manually enter them) proved to be a great feature for tracking the time spent in each heart rate zone, as once your workout is done, I could see the time I spent in each zone.
One nice thing is that you can get notifications from your phone on your watch. You can see who’s calling and you can receive text messages. However, you can’t respond to them.
When you’re streaming songs or podcasts on your phone, you can see the name of the track, can pause or stop the audio and can skip to the next episode or song.
This is a super handy feature when you’re mid-workout and you’re not feeling the slow song that accidentally comes on or you come across a podcast episode you have no interest in.
You can also manually enter a do-not-disturb mode or set the watch to automatically enter this mode at a particular time every day to keep notifications and noises at bay.
I like to track my daily steps and love that this watch has this option, negating the need for any other type of activity tracker.
In general, I really like the Wahoo companion app and all the data it enables you to view after your workout. For example, it’s really cool that you can see your overall run data such as distance, time, average pace, max pace, average HR, maximal HR, average cadence, max cadence, and calories.
You also get a graphic display of your running route as recorded by GPS, along with graphs of your pace, heart rate, and cadence over the course of the run.
In addition, another area where the app shines, is that you can see the same numerical data for each individual mile or split.
You can customize how often splits are taken, whether by a certain distance (in miles or kilometers) or a certain length of time.
I set my watch to take splits every mile in running mode and every 10 minutes on some indoor sports modes, for example. Then, in the app, you can see all the aforementioned workout stats like average and max pace, average and max HR, etc., for each split of the workout.
So, in my case, I can look at my mile-by-mile data on outdoor runs or each 10-minute chunk of an exercise bike workout.
The optical heart rate monitoring was also extremely accurate.
I compared the real-time and summary heart rate data from the Wahoo Rival watch with both a Polar HR monitor with chest strap electrodes and a Polar OH1 arm-based HR monitor that, like the ELEMNT rival watch, uses optical monitoring.
The ELEMNT Rival HR data was actually spot on with the Polar chest strap heart rate monitor, which is thought to be the gold standard in HR monitors.
The other feature I liked most was the cadence sensor.
I actually verified accuracy on the Rival watch data with my actual cadence running outside, running on the treadmill, using an exercise bike, and riding outside by counting steps or pedal strokes per minute for several one-minute trials during numerous workouts.
Only twice did the watch differ at all from what I counted, and by no more than 3 steps per minute on one of the minutes on a treadmill run.
Plus, to be fair, I can’t say with absolute certainty that I counted right; I was pushing the pace!
Since I’m working on increasing my running cadence, I found this feature to be really useful.
The ELEMNT Rival Watch: The Bad Bits
As to be expected, there were a few features (or rather, lack of features) of this Wahoo watch that I found disappointing.
I have one major gripe with the app. While it has useful features, such as the ability to edit your workouts before uploading them to third-party fitness apps, you can’t see a detailed history of certain fitness metrics once the current week has passed.
For example, if you’re interested in your daily step count, you can see your daily and weekly total in the app for the week you’re in, but once that week is over and the clock turns to 12:01 AM the next day, you can no longer access those metrics.
Thankfully, you can still see all your workout data in detail, including steps, but the 24/7 monitoring stuff elapses after the current week is over.
Also, there’s no way to monitor your 24/7 heart rate monitoring data over time. For example, you can’t easily see if your resting heart rate is trending up or down in the app.
You’d have to manually look at your heart rate on the Rival watch every morning and then manually enter it into another health tracking app independently.
I also wish the watch features a stair climbing mode because it’s an important workout in my training program.
The charging puck also has its pros and cons. It’s nice that the watch is seated in it and clips in for a secure pairing, but I found it hard to get it in there just right sometimes.
That said, the battery charges really fast, which is nice if you want 24/7 data capturing.
Best Uses for the Wahoo ELEMNT Rival Multisport GPS Watch
While I primarily for running and the ELEMNT Rival can absolutely be a great GPS running watch, it’s an especially good option for triathletes or runners who participate in multiple types of exercise in addition to just running.
GPS running watches that only capture running data would probably be better for runners who just run because at the price point for the Wahoo ELEMNT Rival Multisport Watch, you could get a GPS Running watch like the Garmin Forerunner® 645.
A running-specific GPS watch will have additional running-specific features like ground contact time balance, stride length, and vertical ratio.
With that said, if you pair the Wahoo Rival watch with the Wahoo TICKR X, you can get additional running dynamics (such as cadence and ground contact time) recorded and displayed on the watch for real-time feedback.
The Wahoo ELEMNT Rival GPS watch also syncs with the Stryd Power Pod, if you want to get instantaneous running power and critical cycling power data during your workouts.
Additionally, even if you don’t want to buy the extra accessories to get all of the running features, if you’re a runner who does indoor runs on the treadmill, the Wahoo ELEMNT Rival Multisport Watch could be a great option.
Wahoo ELEMNT Rival Multisport GPS Watch: Key Takeaways
Overall, I was quite pleasantly surprised and pleased by how well I liked the Wahoo ELEMNT Rival Multisport GPS Watch.
Because it is the debut GPS running watch or sports watch from Wahoo Fitness, I thought it was going to be really clunky both in terms of appearance and performance.
While the GPS watch is admittedly larger than I’d like, it’s not excessively bulky, and it’s far from clunky in terms of performance.
The Wahoo ELEMNT Rival earns my seal of approval in terms of being a good value for the price point, especially if you’re looking for indoor and outdoor workout tracking, and 24/7 heart rate monitoring, counting, and calorie burning.
I imagine that the advanced running analytics you can get with the TICKR would be really nifty and worth the added cost, but I didn’t have an opportunity to test this pairing myself.
If you’re looking for another good option for a GPS running watch, check out our review of the COROS Apex here.
