00:00This is your complete bike computer comparison
between the Garmin Edge 840, the Hammerhead Karoo 3 and
00:05the Wahoo ROAM V2. I've been putting these units
through their paces over the last...well quite a
00:10long while in fact, but in particular here in the
island of Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands doing
00:15epic climbs, epic rides, epic everything on this
bike with these three head units. To figure out
00:20all the differences, and where they work well, and
where they maybe differ quite a bit. The tourism
00:25board of Gran Canaria actually reached out and
offered to sponsor this video, but more about them
00:28of course a little bit later on in the video. For
now though, I've got a whole bunch of different
00:32topic areas I want to cover on this and so for
that let's jump back over to the desk so I have
00:36things a little more organized... So here we are with
the very first section, which is the pricing. In
00:40this case here are the prices on the screen right
there. The thing to keep in mind is that these are
00:44all in the general ballpark, also keep in mind
the Garmin Edge 840 has two different versions:
00:49One without solar, and one with solar. The solar one
simply extends the battery life using the solar on
00:54the outside edge there. That is the only difference
between these models that are identical from a
00:59feature and functionality standpoint. Next up we
got another quickie which is the mounts that
01:03are included in the boxes, there. All three of these
include mounts that are out front mounts which is
01:08nice. Most by computers do today, and in the case of
both the Garmin, as well as the Hammerhead mounts,
01:14you can also mount a GoPro or something like
that below that mount if you buy an accessory
01:18for it. It's not included in the box unfortunately
but you can put either bike lights or GoPro's or
01:24action cameras whatever you want on the underside
there. In the case of the Wahoo mount, it's got a
01:28so-called 'aero mount' so it's more aerodynamic
and thus you can't mount anything on the bottom
01:33there but it is more aerodynamic in theory than
the other two in fact years ago I even actually
01:38arot tested Wahoo's Arrow mount in a wind tunnel
check out that video up in the corner okay so next
01:43up we've got the display touchcreen and kind of
general usability of that display as you can see
01:48there's three different types of displays here in
the case of the Hammerhead crew you've got more
01:51of like a cell phone type display in the case of
the Garmin you've got less colors but still very
01:56very visible uh it's not quite that cell phone
look to it and in the case of the waho you got
02:00even less usage of those colors in the different
display elements in terms of seeing these three
02:05units outside in both sunny conditions as well
as night conditions and literally everything in
02:09between there's no real problems on any of these
they're all perfectly fine that said I've seen
02:15some comments say that the Hammerhead has like
the clearest or most visible display out there
02:19and honestly it simply doesn't it is not hard to
see just be very clear about this it is perfectly
02:25fine to see but if you were to objectively look
at these three displays from the view of a py
02:30list uh you'll find that in super bright sunny
conditions like I've been riding in the Canary
02:34Islands and other places you'll find that the
Hammerhead crew isn't quite as visible off angle
02:39when you're looking directly straight down at
it like like this camera above me here uh it is
02:43more clear but as you pull back the same position
that you'd be riding a bike that's when you start
02:47to see some of those minor differences there again
it's not really a big deal going to the other end
02:52of a spectrum at nighttime also no problems with
any of the three units I saw some complaints that
02:58said that the crew was just way too bright and
things like that at night honestly hasn't been
03:02an issue riding at night with it it's perfectly
fine and viewable and especially if you switch
03:06it over to dark mode uh but again it's just not
like a too bright sort of thing and inversely the
03:10other two are perfectly fine too so then what
about the touchcreen well in the case of the
03:14Wahoo doesn't have a touchcreen so that makes
that easy in the case of both the Garmin and
03:17the Hammerhead no problems even in dumping rain
I did a test here with the crew out in dumping
03:22rain while I'm running along it's part of my full
review zero problems there and the same goes for
03:27the Garment I did a test when that first released
showing in the rain as well and no problems with
03:32the newer touchcreen on the Garin ed40 compared to
some of their past units so then the last item is
03:37what about responsiveness in terms of the user
interface and lag and things like that in the
03:41case of the Wahoo it's pretty good you could
rotate through stuff there's definitely some
03:44delay there but it's not too bad if I look at
the Garmin I can tap into things it definitely
03:49feels the fastest of the three uh looking at
the Hammerhead it's certainly the slowest of
03:54the three and probably the best example is just
simply swiping down you can just see there's just
03:58a lot of lag Ross the board there that said when
you're out riding like once you open up the ride
04:03screen there and get in the ride this swiping left
and right is pretty efficient in all this there's
04:07no problems there it's just pulling down from the
top there that tends to be slow and tends to get
04:12slower as the ride goes on uh versus when I'm in
a ride here again no problems like this and then
04:17simply swipe down it's instant to go through those
pages the point of this section though is to not
04:22worry about this section all three are fine in
the sun all three are fine in the dark all three
04:26are fine in between all those three things all
three have a perfectly usable screen touchcreen
04:30scenario uh and all three of them are fine while
you're rotting swiping between data Pages don't
04:35overthink this section despite what the internet
might tell you the next question is what about
04:39the ease of use and the usability of the three
devices there are some people that want a super
04:43easy to use device without a lot of features and
some people that want all the features I think
04:48all three companies would agree that Garmin has
the most features and even if they don't agree
04:53there's just no competition there they have the
most features but as you add more features this
04:58is true of any software platform out there you
have to intrinsically increase complexity to
05:03deal with all those features and Garmin has of
course increased that complexity over time does
05:07that mean the Garment unit is harder to use no it
just means there's more menus and things to dig
05:12around into and more places you can get lost
finding those features for daily riding it's
05:17pretty straightforward you just tap it and you
start riding like it's not that hard just like
05:21it's true for the Wahoo as well start ride just
press start it's as simple as that and also in
05:26the case of the Hammerhead you want to ride you
just either press the yellow button right there
05:30or press this and then press the yellow button
all three devices are pretty easy to use you just
05:34simply tap and start going and when it comes to
the core functions all three devices are easy to
05:39use there as well and one of those core functions
is going to be the differences in the data pages
05:43and data fields all three devices have pretty much
every data field you want on there so things like
05:48your speed and distance and time and ascent and
calories and all that kind of stuff all of them
05:53are all there not a problem there where you start
to see some of the differences on them is some of
05:57the graphical data Pages things like the charts
and stuff like that Hammerhead and Garmin tend to
06:01have more of those natively built in versus huahoo
doesn't have as many of the different graphics and
06:06charts on the unit itself while you're riding on
the flip side one feature that Wahoo does have
06:11that the others don't is the ability to instantly
increase or decrease the number of data fields on
06:15a single Data Page just by pressing the up and
down one so you essentially can order your most
06:20important field in this case my power average over
3 seconds and then you can say you know what my
06:24second most important third most important and so
on all the way down to your total list there you
06:28still have multiple Pages by just simply tapping
the page button there but it does allow you to
06:32change kind of the focus area mid rde if you want
to again some people really like that some people
06:37just simply never use it uh it gives you that
flexibility there and on the flip side Garmin also
06:41has their connect IQ Data fields and data pages
and apps that we'll talk about a little bit later
06:46on but that allows you to expand out all those
data fields as well with thirdparty apps that are
06:50almost always free that said one thing of note is
that Wahoo lacks any sort of bike profile concept
06:55so like Road biking versus gravel biking versus
mountain biking which means that that's not going
07:00to feed into straa either uh and for some people
again that won't matter but if you have multiple
07:04bikes in particular if you have multiple biking
genres that you do and you want different data
07:08Pages or data fields for that the lack of that on
Wahoo continues to stand out compared to virtually
07:13every other bike computer out there on the market
today now we get to the most complicated of all
07:18the sections uh there is a lot of nuance here in
this next one which is mapping and navigation so
07:23let's just start off how they're the same and
then we'll dive into the differences first off
07:27all three offer mapping and navigation so on the
mapping side all three offer free downloadable
07:32maps pretty much of every country in the world
so there's not really any problems there how you
07:36download those Maps differ slightly on different
units uh but at the end of the day you can get
07:40maps onto the unit and they include them for
free no matter where you are in the world so
07:44then we get on to actually navigating something
and navigating comes in a couple different forms
07:48one being downloading a route somewhere so from
straa Kimu to rivo GPS Etc uh two being that you
07:54just instantaneously want to go somewhere you put
a dot over there and say I want to go to this Dot
07:59somewhere across town or the city or whatever the
case may be and then three being navigating back
08:05home somewhere so if you say I want to return
to my starting point or return to my home Point
08:09again all three of these do that just fine then
we get to the question of rerouting on the Fly
08:14you're going down the road you miss a turn how do
all three of these different units deal with that
08:18and the answer is they deal with it just fine
they reroute you based on the maps they have in
08:22the unit does not require internet connectivity
and you'll basically catch up somewhere down the
08:26road on that particular route I've been putting
that through this pce over the last little while
08:30and I haven't had any failures from any of these
three uh their internal routing engines are very
08:35very good these days and all three companies have
grown up and really kind of nailed the art of that
08:40so the question is where are those differences
well the first one is actually going to be the
08:44map styling and the user interface itself as
you're seeing on the screen right now they are
08:48different map Styles and how they look and I find
in general I actually prefer Hammerhead styling
08:54uh you can see there that bright section that
orangey color that is the heat maps that are based
08:58on sunos heat map map data now depending on where
you are in the world you're going to get varying
09:02levels of success with that uh if you're in Europe
or a lot of the US you're going to probably have
09:06pretty good luck with that in other places where
sunto heat map data isn't as strong perhaps parts
09:11of Australia uh it's not going to be as good it
just depends on how many suto users are out there
09:16cuz that's where that data comes from so when you
look at on the unit it makes it super clear as to
09:21where people are actually rotting with my route
overlay on top of that garment also has their
09:25own popularity routing data which is arguably a
much better data set than any that Hammerhead has
09:30the display of that data doesn't tend to be like
super awesome it kind of gets lost in the shule
09:34of everything meanwhile the Wahoo one tends to
be the most minimalist with what it displays on
09:39the display from a mapping standpoint really
just focused on here's your route and here's
09:43the main road that around you it kind of like just
gets rid of all the Clutter everywhere else again
09:47it's all kind of what you want from a personal
preference standpoint the other big difference
09:51between the three of them is when you want to
go Rogue with the unit itself uh meaning that
09:55you have no planned routes you have uh no like
anything else you just want it to tell you to go
09:59do something so in the case of Garmin you can say
hey I want a 50 km ride and it'll go out and give
10:04you a 50 km ride based on all that heat map data
and generally speaking those rides are very very
10:09good you can even tell I want to go to the west or
the east or the South or whatever you want uh and
10:13in my experience those tend to be very good rides
in the case of both Hammerhead and Wahoo you can't
10:18do that at all likewise only Garmin has a point
of Interest database on there where you can search
10:23for things like bike shops and restrooms and water
shops and coffee shops and all that kind of stuff
10:27on the Fly uh versus the other unit you'd have to
use your phone to find the exact location or know
10:32the name of the thing you're going to in order
to route to it meaning if you were to sum up
10:36this entire section if you've got a planned route
from stra cud or something like that you're not
10:40going to see much difference between them what you
do tend to see the differences is if you're just
10:44doing ad hoc routing on the Fly uh that's where
the Garin is going to give you more ability to
10:48do that uh without any sort of connectivity
versus the other two will require some sort
10:52of connectivity from your phone to be able to do
that kind of planning on the fly now one you're
10:56probably likely to use the navigation features
the most is when you are traveling so let's swing
11:01back into the port for a real quick second now
as I mentioned earlier on this video is actually
11:04sponsored by the grand Canary tourism Board of
course I've been coming here like I said for
11:08about a decade riding running hiking like doing
all the sporty things in fact this past weekend
11:13my wife raced here she did the challenge family
triathon great event for the entire family we
11:17went out here the kids cheered all day long from
the swim to the bike to the run and when they had
11:22enough cheering then I got them ice cream and of
course after that they just simply played on the
11:25Beast for a while while watching her race she won
her age group by the way from a cyclist standpoint
11:30there's of course epic rides here you can do
really long rides I've done 5 six plus 7h hour
11:34rides in the past but it's also great for a lot of
shorter rides too like yesterday morning after the
11:38family and I finished our breakfast they headed
to the pool and I just simply head up into the
11:42mountain SP about 2 and 1 half hour ride nothing
too crazy in the cool Parts there's tons of other
11:46sports here to do as well I was out doing a lot
of running and hiking and an absolute boatload of
11:50swimming I've swam every single day at least twice
a day out doing testing of GPS watches making a
11:56great place to escape to in the fall winter and
spring cuz you don't need a coat or anything like
11:59that for any your activities but in the highly
unlikely event that you do get bad weather the
12:03hotel I'm staying at back there actually has two
Kicker bikes in there I'm not kidding two Kicker
12:08bikes with whift the whole thing is absolutely
insane maybe I'll do just a video on that just
12:12because I've never had a hotel have kicker bikes
and that's pretty darn cool and of course the food
12:17is good too which is like the two things you
need as a cyclist uh anyways definitely check
12:21out island of grand Canary if you're looking
for a place to escape to as an athlete it is
12:25a pretty awesome spot okay so what about climbing
and climb related metrics uh so when you're going
12:30up a mountain uh obviously I did a ton of that in
Grand Canaria and in this case I'm using the climb
12:35Pro equivalencies on each these three units they
all call them different things but it's the same
12:39general concept of showing you information about
that climb automatically and for all three units
12:44they do this both for Planned routes as well
as on the fly so if you're just rotting along
12:49without any planned route and you're going up a
hill it'll be like hey I know where the top of
12:52this climb is automatically here's your distance
to the top of the climb here is the uh average
12:56incline both upcoming as well as total left here
is your total altitude left to go to the top all
13:02that is pretty good and in my testing all these
three did very very similar across the board uh
13:07Hammerhead has improved the European Maps back
a couple months ago and that does seem to have
13:11made a pretty good difference in the upcoming
elevation gradient numbers so like 8% 7% Etc being
13:18more accurate in Europe or in the past it was
really pretty like random sometimes as to when it
13:22was accurate so then looking at a different sort
of segment what about straval live segments all
13:26three of them support straval live segments that
means that if you have a Strava premium account
13:31or basically a paid account uh they'll pull in
those Strava live segments that you favored it
13:35and then show you your progress on that segment
against your competitors or against the K Etc now
13:40while all three have this feature there are some
notable differences in this case Hammerhead for me
13:44easily Takes the Cake uh one both Hammerhead and
Wahoo support multiple concurrent segments meaning
13:50that you can have two or three segments that are
overlapping showing up at the same time you just
13:54simply tab through them Garmin only supports one
segment at a time being shown that really notable
13:59on sometimes those big climbs where you may have
different segments some to the very top some do
14:04like a turnoff Point Etc that you just simply
would not see in the case of Garmin now if straa
14:09life segments aren't your jam don't worry you can
disable it across all three of them no problems at
14:13all uh so it'll never show you any of that at all
so continuing to dig deeper what about structured
14:18workouts all three of these do support structured
workouts so the ability to have a pre-planned
14:22workout that comes from some sort of training
platform like training Peaks or train a road all
14:27three of them do support that Wahoo also supports
their own system platform as well for pulling in
14:31workouts from that and then Garmin supports every
other platform on the planet and this is one of
14:37those things where this is where you see the
big difference uh for Garmin if you don't have
14:40training Peaks or trainer road because they have
final Surge and exert and again like literally
14:45dozens and dozens of different companies out there
push structure workouts to Garmin then when it
14:49comes to actually doing that workout outside you
can see some of the side by side right here I find
14:54that both the Garmin and Wahoo implementations
really understand the structured workout
14:59mindset of an athlete and how that is supposed to
work Hammerhead doesn't seem like they understand
15:04that they're just missing some core data fields
and data pages when you're actually doing that
15:08workout that you want to know and the display
of those Target ranges is just really weird
15:13uh see even Wahoo agrees right there uh still
the Hammerhead has been adding and making some
15:17changes to the structure workout even the last
firmer update two weeks ago so they do seem to be
15:22listening to the feedback from basically everyone
on that and hopefully they'll be able to address
15:26some of those gaps here soon lastly for lack of
any where else to stick this Garmont also has
15:30their power guide feature which kind of fits into
structure training in a way power guide allows you
15:35to go ahead and load up a race course the actual
file like a GPS file uh of a route that you may be
15:40doing from there it will give you the actual power
targets for each chunk of that particular route
15:44so a different Power Target when you're going
up a climb and then based on a climb gradient
15:48it'll change those power targets and so on uh and
you can adjust that in real time as well neither
15:52other unit has that so it's something to keep in
mind if you want that kind of feature the next
15:56category is things like physiological metrics and
this will be a relatively straightforward category
16:01because there's only one company that has it
Garmin neither Hammerhead or Wahoo have any sort
16:06of physiological metric so things like training
load training recovery training status load Focus
16:11all those kind of various stamina Etc uh those
are all things that are only on the Garmin unit
16:15that Wahoo and hammerhead haven't even tried to
touch likewise only Garmin will actually give you
16:20suggested workouts so if you want to put a Fondo
on your unit uh it'll tell you which workouts to
16:25do every single day basically give you a coaching
plan uh for that particular either race that you
16:29have the other two don't do that same goes for
having a complete calendar of your upcoming
16:33workouts and all that kind of stuff that's only
on the Garment side now a lot of people don't care
16:37about that at all and that's perfectly fine but
it is a pretty big differentiating factor between
16:42Garmin and the other units if that is a feature
that you care about speaking of physiological
16:46metrics one that kind of get grouped into that
is Crash detection uh neither of the other two
16:51units have it only Garmin has crash detection so
if you do crash in the case of grar it'll notify
16:56your friends and family automatically uh that way
can call for help or something like that versus
17:01the other two units will just shrug and kind of
laugh at you so next up what about battery life
17:05uh now all three of these have the claim battery
life on the sheet right there that you can see but
17:10let's talk about real world battery life now
certainly if we look at those claim specs we
17:14would see that the hammer has the least amount
followed closely by Wahoo and then Garmin is
17:18just way beyond their competitors reality check
from the real world that's pretty much the way it
17:23works out as well here is a battery chart from one
ride right there showing my actual data from that
17:27ride the Hammerhead ended up about 12 1/2 hours
the Wahoo ended up about 23 or so hours and the
17:33Garmin was on track for 32 hours of battery life
all three units were configured the exact same
17:38in terms of like brightness levels as well as
sensors connected and all that kind of goodness
17:41so they're pretty even across the board so you
can get even more battery life if you want to
17:46especially in the case of the Garmin you can not
only decrease the display brightness which tends
17:50to be the biggest driver of battery consumption on
these three devices but also decreasing down from
17:54multiband or dual frequency GPS to a more basic
GPS uh set setting for areas that don't have a
18:00lot of GPS complexity will drastically increase
your battery life okay so next up we got sensor
18:05connectivity how do they handle connecting things
like power meters and heart rate straps and all
18:08that kind of stuff all three of them support
pretty much all the majors that you can see
18:12right there all that stuff is covered of both
amp Plus and Bluetooth smart now the elephant
18:17in the room is that the Hammerhead crew 3 does not
support Shimano di2 displaying that stats uh I've
18:23covered that in my entire review that's a big old
like thing where Shimano has basically blocked and
18:28banned and hammerhead from supporting that despite
every other device on the planet supporting it
18:32just fine I don't know if that's going to change
there is a third party app called ki2 which you
18:37can download and install on your Hammerhead crew
device but that's not yet available for the crew
18:433 once it is then that solves a problem for you
it's available for the crew 2 already so it's
18:47not a problem there uh but right now it's not
yet available for the crew 3 beyond that there
18:51are a crap ton of other sensors out there that
are somewhat Fringe but if you've got one then
18:56you probably want that connectivity that are large
only supported on the Garmin platform via connect
19:01IQ for example AOS sensors for time trial bikes
or things like that is only the Garmin side of
19:06stuff so that then Segways nicely into thirdparty
Integrations and apps which basically has kind of
19:11two layers to it the first is connectivity to
third party platforms like Strava and training
19:15Peaks Etc all three got you covered there for
all the major platforms out there but as is the
19:20common theme here if you get to a platform that's
not one of those top like 6 to 10 that's really
19:25only going to talk to Garmin which connects to I'm
guessing hundreds if if not thousands of platforms
19:30out there platforms you've never heard of and
will'll probably never hear of but if you're one
19:34of the users of those platforms then you probably
want that connectivity so again you got to kind of
19:38figure out what you want from there you get into
the actual apps that run the devices themselves uh
19:43starting off on Wahoo doesn't support any apps
then you get to Hammerhead you can run Android
19:48apps on this so you can put Spotify on there
or uh this whiff companion app and things like
19:52that but those apps as of right now don't really
integrate with the rest of the Hammerhead data set
19:57or kind of features there so they're really just
running on the side just like an Android phone
20:01were and then you get to the Garment side of it
which of course has all of their entire connect
20:05IQ platform for data pages and data fields and
standad apps and all that kind of stuff uh for
20:10some people they'll never use any of that stuff
yeah other people might for other Integrations to
20:14other sensors or displaying other data types or
recording other data types okay so next up we've
20:18got the manufacturer provided phone and web and
kind of app Platforms in other words the things
20:24that support these devices well all three of them
have apps for your devices but are drastically
20:29different in the case of the Hammerhead crew
It app is basically just a connectivity straw
20:34to the Internet it's a tunnel to the internet
for connectivity there is really no features
20:38whatsoever in the app that you can actually
interact with you can't see like your ride totals
20:42or things like that uh up from there you've got
Wahoo where you can see your ride totals and ride
20:47stats you can change settings you can do quite a
bit you can do basically everything that you want
20:51to do uh but then one layer from there is garmin's
app which has tons of trending and Reporting and
20:57all the things in the world that you want some
might argue way too many things but those things
21:02do exist there and thus you have to at least
consider that it has way more features from an
21:06app stpoint a native app standpoint anyways than
the other two on the website side of things Wahoo
21:11doesn't actually have a consumer facing website
so that makes that easy Hammerhead does have a
21:15website that you can look at your past rides just
at an individual level you can't do like trending
21:19over months or things like that uh but you can go
ahead and plan routs there and the route planner
21:23is very good allows you to go ahead and pull
in files as well as uh URLs from major route
21:29platform so that all works pretty well and then in
the Garment side again a massive web platform that
21:34is just well beyond the other two ultimately you
see three different philosophies from the three
21:38different companies Garmin aims for the holistic
philosophy of they're going to cover everything
21:43that you might need you can get it from garmon for
free within their app their website everything all
21:47that kind of stuff is covered uh Wahoo kind of
straddles the middle ground there of they want
21:51to provide you all those core functions and then
Farm out the rest to thirdparty platforms so if
21:56you want more in-depth analysis of your rides then
go off to trending Peaks or something like that
22:00and then Hammerhead is really just focused on the
device itself uh yes they have the web platform
22:05for planning a route but that mostly comes from
Hammerheads history on the routing side once you
22:10get beyond that routing area there's just really
no other features at all except for things on the
22:14device itself okay so the last section then
is GPS accuracy as well as elevation accuracy
22:19and I'm happy to report all three of them are
great all three of them have multiband or dual
22:23frequency GPS all three of them have very solid
altimeters the Hammerhead crew 3 got it updated
22:28altimeter there and I haven't had any problems
from a sensing standpoint on my rides with these
22:32units I did have a single ride in the case of the
crew where did not correctly do its calibration
22:37at the beginning of the ride Hammerheads looking
into that software bug but that wasn't a sensor
22:41issue that was just the software didn't do the
calibration it was supposed to the beginning of
22:44the ride and thus its altimeter data was offset
from the rest of the ride in my written review
22:49though I go into tons and tons of data sets
from all three of those units if you want to
22:53look at that data more deeply okay there you go a
complete look at every single feature difference
22:58keep in mind my written review of this also dies
even more deeply into some of the stuff I just
23:02couldn't possibly cover without this video being
like an hour long but again all three units are
23:07great you're going to be happy with any of these
three units it just depends on which portion of
23:11which feature is most important to you and then
from that just look back at all these different
23:15sections and figure out uh which unit does it
the best for your particular needs as always if
23:19you found this video interesting or useful just
give it a like at the bottom there or subscribe
23:23for plenty more Sports technology goodness there
is it's going to be a busy June have a good one
