
Gear Review: Wahoo Elemnt Bolt - wbraun
https://joshua0.dreamwidth.org/65779.html
======
jwise0
Hi, HN! Author, here. Yeah, I was a little disappointed by the GPL and
attribution issues, too. But also, I feel a little bad not having given them
too much time to respond, or too much heads up that I was gonna write a piece
about it. So if anyone has a way to reach out to them, I don't want to trash
them too much, and I'd be really happy to update that blog post!

But also, the other side of this is that the attribution issue is, perhaps,
only 50% of my thrust here -- the other 50% being that it's actually a really
cool device inside, and it's neat to see how they managed to build a device
that's (mostly) competitive with Garmin's rich feature set so quickly. And so
that, I think, might be what would be even more interesting to HN, rather than
just torching them. If they opened the platform up to tinkerers a little bit
-- perhaps if they 1) unlocked the bootloader; 2) provided /system images; and
3) enabled a switch to give you access to adb -- then it would be a really
really cool form factor of a toy for a lot of different uses.

~~~
chippyhawkeye
Hi, I just sent you an email, I searched my inbox and spam and didn't see
anything from you. Not sure what happened there. We're working on getting the
GPL and attribution issues all sorted, that was ignorance on my part versus
anything willful. Sorry about your photos and such, if it makes you feel any
better I did it to myself at one point as well...

-Chip from Wahoo

~~~
kingosticks
Chip, while it's great to hear you are working on this, I'm struggling with
the idea of someone being ignorant to this. Or do you just not know where your
software comes from?

~~~
rhencke
It's honestly very common people are unaware.

[http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2009/11/08/gpl-
enforcement.html](http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2009/11/08/gpl-enforcement.html)

> I'd say that 98% of the violations I've ever worked on since 1998 have been
> unintentional and due primarily to negligence, not malice.

(author of the above statement led FSF's GPL enforcement for many years)

~~~
kingosticks
Fair enough. At least this one is being fixed!

------
SteveCoast
Saw one of these the other day and proved that it used OpenStreetMap data,
couldn't find any attribution anywhere but I didn't have the device for long.

... so it's violating the ODbL too.

------
gumby
> t turns out that it wasn't Wahoo's engineers at all that were responsible
> for the firmware update service, but instead, it belonged to MediaTek.

Most people don't realize that Mediatek (and allwinner and all of those little
Chinese SoC/chip vendors) aren't really in the merchant chip business.
Remember getting data sheets, perhaps spec'ing chips with second sources
(Intel had to get AMD to second source their early x86 parts or nobody would
risk buying them).

Well when you can't get a data sheet from Mediatek or their ilk it's not
because they are holding out on you _per se_ \-- they probably don't have one.
They would prefer to sell a chip (perhaps a customer-specific one) with a blob
of proprietary code and a custom kernel etc and just hand the whole lot over
to the customer for a single application. Sadly, a lot of customers go for
this.

------
petee
I enjoyed this quick breakdown -- if it doesn't get traction on HN this time,
I'd love to see this reposted if/when the author gets a reply from the Wahoo
CEO about sources and attribution.

Plus, besides GPL, LGPL and Apache2, I'm interested in knowing what other
licenses they are violating

~~~
ycombinete
There's a response in the current top comment of this HN comment thread.

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URSpider94
First off, I have to say I’m surprised and disappointed at their response.
I’ve met members of the Wahoo team at CES and have been using their gear for
years, it’s uniformly well-designed and the connectivity is pretty much
bulletproof, which is pretty amazing for the glob of IoT gadgetry that is a
modern cycling sensor network. I hope they come back with an update.

Second, the ELEMNT is a terrific cycling computer, but it’s so optimized for
cycling that I expect it would be useless for any other activity. If you want
something to use for biking AND hiking, I strongly suggest that you look into
a Garmin triathlon watch.

~~~
jwise0
I was kind of surprised too. I have some conjectures about the internal
politics from the output that I observed (super friendly, super helpful
support team; development team knew it was an issue, and had orders from
above?).

And yes, the ELEMNT is an ok cycling computer, but I think with a few bug
fixes, it would work 'at least tolerably' for hiking (that is to say, at least
as well as the Garmin Edge 510 did). The Edge 510 was not a great hiking
computer, but for 'datalogging with a separate battery from my phone, and
capable of speaking ANT+ to my heart rate monitor', it at least captured
correct data...

~~~
ebikelaw
I'm surprised you thought this thing had more bugs than Garmin. My Garmin
randomly inserts week-long periods of time into my bike rides, and I'm not the
only one: there is an entire site dedicated to un-ruining your Garmin .fit
files at [https://www.fitfiletools.com/](https://www.fitfiletools.com/) . The
way a Garmin suspends and resumes your ride takes more time as your ride gets
longer. At the last rest stop on a 200-mile ride my Garmin spent about 2
minutes just resuming. And you mention that the wahoo gives cues after turns,
but my Garmin does that and worse. Garmin gives cues on mountain roads where
there's no choice, and fails to give them at the intersection of two roads
where you do need to make a choice!

------
endless1234
Cool review! But I have to disagree with "As far as I can tell, the ELEMNT
BOLT does everything the Garmin does, but about 10% worse" \- the Garmin Edges
might have a better spec sheet, but IME, the software/firmware just does not
work properly far too often. Crashes, freezes, general jank. The Bolt has been
a joy to use in comparison. A bit surprised it's just Android under the hood!
Maybe it's helped them in adding features and fixes relatively fast?

------
slededit
The Linux kernel sets the standard here of not really enforcing the license.
Complying is additional cost and companies are not going to do it unless
forced to. SoC manufacturers are not going to stop supporting android just
because they're forced to release their changes.

We're long past the days where it was questionable if open source would gain
traction and everyone had to be deferential. License holders should start
setting the standard of enforcing the terms of the license they chose.

~~~
michaelt

      License holders should start setting the standard of
      enforcing the terms of the license they chose.
    

As I understand things, the prize if you're successful in enforcement is... a
copy of the GPL appears in some sub-menu somewhere, and you get a dump of the
GPL-derived source code. This dump might not compile, might not be possible to
flash onto the device, and might not provide all functions.

I can understand why a philanthropist with the money to pay for such a legal
battle might spend it on other things instead.

~~~
jcelerier
> This dump might not compile, might not be possible to flash onto the device,
> and might not provide all functions.

no, since there are some LGPLv3 parts they would break the license if there
was no easy way to go from their dump to a device with modified code.

~~~
stefan_
Wow, you have to be crazy to just blatantly ignore LGPLv3. Coming into
compliance with the kernel style GPL is easy enough, but v3 is a whole other
ball game.

If I was Garmin, I'd fund one of the guys they stole from to fund an
injunction. Wahoo is a US company, it's easy enough.

------
flyinghamster
I have one of Wahoo's cadence sensors, which I use with Strava on my phone,
and have liked it. I was considering getting one of their heart rate monitors
as well. But seeing this casual misuse of GPL and Apache2-licensed software
doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

As for GPS weirdness mentioned in the article, I'm wondering if there are some
shenanigans going on in Android, or if I ran into some GPS jamming or some
sort of selective availability? I took a ride along the Illinois side of
Mississippi River north of the Quad Cities, and while I was near the Quad
Cities nuke plant, my phone's GPS altitude readings were ridiculous - the
altitude profile for my ride showed altitudes over 2,000 ft, when there are no
such places in Illinois that high, save at the top of some skyscrapers in
Chicago. This was consistent on both the outbound and return trips, with the
anomaly occurring just south of Albany. Northward, the altitude readings were
what they should be (in the ~600-700 ft range).

~~~
alexlrobertson
Altitude is a tricky thing with these kinds of devices. They’re usually based
on pressure readings from a sensor inside the device but that reading can be
affected greatly by a number of factors.

See [https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/wahoo-elemnt-
users...](https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/wahoo-elemnt-
users/L7skAUrsVwk)

~~~
ebikelaw
With all the people riding around with these sensors now, shouldn't it be
possible to synthesize a very accurate basemap elevation from the reported
barometric and GPS readings?

~~~
07d046
Strava does this

~~~
alexlrobertson
Got a source?

Strava segments in my area often have _very_ wrong altitude data. Chicago is
extremely flat yet there are segments that report gradients of over 10%,
sometimes as much as 27%. I believe they are thrown off by buildings and the
frequent elevated train tracks.

[https://www.strava.com/segments/1504604](https://www.strava.com/segments/1504604)

~~~
07d046
[https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
us/articles/115000024864-An...](https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
us/articles/115000024864-Announcing-Strava-s-Elevation-Basemap)

I'm guessing segments just use the elevation data of the activity that they
were created from, hence why they can be wildly wrong.

------
TallGuyShort
I wonder if an email from the copyright owners of Mapsforge or Twitter4J to
the CEO would be more effective than from a consumer...

------
loeg
Huh. I have one of these but obviously didn't do this level of analysis on it.
It's a great little bike computer, IMO. I wouldn't try to use it for hikes.
Shame about the license violations.

------
lostmsu
HM, what is the advantage of having that as opposed to just using your phone,
especially at this price point?

You could even have it charged from the dynamo.

~~~
zython
Battery life mostly.

I've used the device for 4 hours this week and the battery dipped from ~50% to
~40% (that is witout backlight and other variables which might consumer more
energy)

I believe they are also weather proof (mine didnt mind some water splashed
onto it).

A Dynamo to power my phone would unnessecarily add another drag coefficient
and slow me down.

It is also claimed that the device is more aerodynamic than the competing
devices from GARMIN and also a phone based solution.

The device also has some very nice LED indicators for metrics like heart-rate
(blue when resting, green in sweetspot, orange/red when burning matches and
dipping into non-aerobic zone).

I could go on but this list covers most of the reasons I bought the unit.

~~~
kingosticks
All of this plus the screen is more readable, it's way, way easier to use
whilst hurtling down a mountain (actual buttons) , it's considerably lighter
whilst having longer battery, it never falls off the mount onto the road
(where the screen promptly cracks).

You could use a phone (I did for a bit) but the experience is worse in every
single dimension. Until, of course, you get really lost and need Google
maps...

Actually, I have also found it extremely useful when navigating unmarked trail
races. It's small and light enough to keep in your pocket and the mapping
beats anything on a GPS watch. I use it to track my progress too, no problems
with elevation for me but there isn't much of that in the UK anyway.

I used a Garmin for about 5 years but I got the Bolt last Summer and I have
found it considerably more reliable. The worldwide maps are great too.
However, on the basis of the complete disrespect for OSS I will stop
recommending it to others and I won't be buying another. Shame.

