Wahoo RPM Cycling Speed Sensor for Road, Gravel and Mountain Bikes, Black

The Wahoo sensor is a small module-like sensor that has both Bluetooth and ANT+ and attaches to the crank. There’s no magnet, unlike some of the old style cadence sensors and this one is JUST for cadence (see my links above if you are looking for speed also). Like your smartphone’s motion detection; this uses a gyroscopic sort of chip and likely accelerometers.It’s small, unobtrusive, made of matte-black plastic, waterproof (IPX7 – waterproof to about five feet), compatible with most anything that will accept ANT+ or Bluetooth 4.0 signals (it’s so-called low energy Bluetooth) – most biking phone apps (Android or iPhone), bike computers, watches, etc. The battery lasts a long time, the company says a year and that's about what I have found, and is a replaceable, standard coin cell type CR2032 battery (no having to recharge it all the time) so you don’t need to buy anything special. And the device has a one year warranty.For the bike weight weenies out there it weighs in around 7 ounces and is only about an inch and quarter wide and an inch tall, and three-quarters of an inch thick. So it’s thin enough to fit on pretty much any bike. If your crank arm is closer than that – well, I guess you’re out of luck for mounting it to the crank arm but you instead can attach it to your sneaker (more about this later). I have seen a few reviews where people mentioned that it would not fit their crank arm because of clearance – but wow; that’s close.Just like Wahoo’s website itself the box it comes in is slick and modern but not garish, each part packaged in plastic bags. Included is the sensor; with the battery installed, the gel-like rubber mount holder, zip ties, shoe mount holder, 3M double-sided tape, and a quick start guide and an important product info guide.You may notice that as soon as you take it out the little occasionally flashing blue light will come on, indicating that it has detected movement. Is the battery worn down a bit from all of the movement as it was shipped to me? Possibly, but unfortunately there’s no easy way for Wahoo to stick one of those little plastic pieces in between the battery contacts and the battery to keep it from discharging; as it needs to be waterproof. No way to do it without removing the battery for shipping. My advice is to just check your battery level in the Wahoo Fitness or Wahoo Utility app – more about the apps later.The included installation instructions were okay, pretty generic but really there’s not much that you need to figure out. But I decided to double-check the installation instructions on their website just for fun.Installation is one of three ways. Unfortunately I can’t review the first two methods as I did not try them, but I can go over them quickly and review the last way.Using the heavy-duty double-sided tape that is included, the sensor can be for attached directly to the crank arm. The tape is the good stuff. Yet… I’m not sure I can bring myself to trust it, despite a lot of good reviews by both road cyclists as well as MTB’ers. A lot of people use this method, lots, yet I decided to go with the zip tie option. But the double-sided tape course is probably the easiest and fastest way to attach it, you just have to make sure that your crank arm is clean and place the double-sided tape on it, stick the sensor to the other side of the tape, and give it a good squeeze and you’re all set.The second option for mounting is a plastic mount with holes for your shoe laces to go through, so that it can be mounted to a shoe or sneaker. You slide the sensor into the mount, lash it to your shoe laces and you’re done. Good option if you are going to use it on multiple bikes, or a bike trainer at the gym operhaps.The last method for mounting the cadence sensor is to use the small rubbery gel mount that the sensor just slips into, like a glove. It’s very secure, and the mount has a slot at either side for the included zip ties to go through. So you have two attachment points with this mount, which I like.Attaching it was simple, though as I mentioned above if your pedal crank is really, really close to any part of your bike when you are pedaling it may not clear it, I would guess that this would be very few bikes and the rubbery mount adds next to nothing to the thickness of the sensor. I’ve read a few reviews from people who had a problem with their crank arms being too close and had to return the sensor, you’ll need to do a quick check of the distance that your crank arm clears your frame at any place. This mounts on the non-gear crank arm, by the way.It’s very inconspicuous, yet if you want to see the colored indicator LED through the gel mount it’s pretty easy to (from the opposite side of the bike). In the daytime you can still see it, though of course you have to get fairly close if it’s in bright sunlight.Mounting was quick and easy, with a quick snipping of the zip tie ends. I may cut off and redo the zip ties a bit at some point but it is very inconspicuous.So one way or another you should be able to get it mount and work with pretty much any bike – road, mountain, hybrid, gravel, cyclocross, recumbent, etc; people even use it with spin bikes.Pairing to my Garmin Forerunner 620 was simple too, exactly the same as connecting any other sensor. The pedals have to be rotated a bit to wake the cadence sensor up, once you see the light come on you can stop rotating it. I then set up current cadence in one of the fields on the first data screen on the watch along with speed, heart rate, and distance. A secondary data screen that I can switch to shows lap cadence and average cadence. The accumulated data after a ride is downloaded by Garmin Express on your computer or phone, showing your cadence along with any other sensors and your stat.Again, setting it up was simple and quick on the Garmin Virb (see my Garmin Virb Review here) too, with the cadence screen showing up automatically once I scrolled to it on the dashboard. Once in use it shows a line graph, the amount of time as a reference, current RPM, highest RPM and average RPM. Just like the Forerunner, this data can be downloaded, exported, etc. Unfortunately the Virb only displays the data from one sensor at a time but the display of the data is more useful than the Forerunner in the form of the line graph.A simple pairing on the Wahoo Fitness app was equally as easy – in this case you use the app itself, not your phone’s Bluetooth pairing (make sure Bluetooth is turned on though). The real-time cadence display is a bit simpler on the Wahoo app but shows a line graph on the summary screen after you finish, again you can export or upload all of your data to the most popular fitness/biking logging websites through the app, as well as download raw data in various formats.Starting out for a ride requires the sensor to come out of sleep mode, which only takes a few seconds at which point it starts registering after that slight delay. Likely you won’t even notice this as rolling your bike out of the garage or moving it a bit is going to bring it out of sleep, but some devices make take a few additionally seconds to start logging the cadence in real-time display.Some reviewers have mentioned drop-outs and spikes and such but I see none of this, it seems to be consistent. And also accurate, when compared to manually counting my pedal revolutions while using a clock display. I saw no difference in RPM’s between my manual counting and the display, and both the Virb and the Garmin Forerunner show the same cadence. I don’t normally use the app for road biking but it seemed to also be the same when I did a quick test.While the cadence seemed to be accurate and consistent across all devices there is a lag between the actual physical cadence and the display of it on the various devices. From what I have read this is not uncommon for A) this device and B) other similar devices and watches, bike computers, what-have-you. Some don’t seem to have any delay, some may be a second or two, some may be a bit longer. I think the Wahoo Cadence Sensor works great, but this is one area where some people may find it annoying or something they wouldn’t use.Not for me though; even though I may sometimes train hard I’m not going to win any races nor expect to so my training and use of cadence doesn’t have to be exactly spot-on to the microsecond between actual cadence and displaying of it on whatever device I am using. And frankly – if you are watching it all the time you’re doing something wrong and you probably haven’t developed a good feel for keeping the consistent cadence that you should be maintaining anyway.With the Garmin Virb the lag for RPM update is around five seconds, with the Garmin Forerunner 620 it is around four to four and a half seconds. The Wahoo app is around the same range.The differences in lag times made me wonder if the lag is a combination of the sensor’s processing and transmitting of the data as well as the receiving device’s processing, logging, and display of the data? If it were just the Wahoo Cadence sensor’s lag it should be somewhat consistent across all devices, I would guess.Does the lag show up in the raw data or is it only in the real-time display on the devices I am using? A look back at the data after a few rides using a quick, totally down-and-dirty, visual comparison between cadence and speed while corresponding the data points to fairly level riding seems to show that the data logging itself is NOT lagging, just the real-time display of it on the devices. This, of course, is subjective without some really serious number crunching and heavy duty comparisons I believe. [Quick example at left – shaded light blue = cadence, blue line = speed, green line = elevation]Moving on…some people have mentioned spikes and drop-outs in sensor data, but as yet I have not seen anything like that. Occasional spot-checks using the clock on my Virb, manual counting of my cadence, and a level section of road and comparing it to the cadence from the sensor by displaying it at the same time on my Forerunner seems to show good accuracy every time.Like all wireless devices there may be the possibility of interference in many forms, and possibly slight incompatibilities, bugs with certain devices, and things along those lines. I have not experienced any of these.One thing that could help solve any problems mentioned above, as well as being something that you should do anyway – is to make sure the firmware is updated. This goes for all of your devices and sensors too!With the Wahoo RPM Cadence Sensor you must use the Wahoo Utility app to do this. It’s pretty easy and fairly quick, make sure you turn your pedals a bit when the app starts up to wake the sensor.Both with the help of the Scosche RHYTHM Bluetooth Speed/Cadence Sensor (which I reviewed it in this post) on my trainer bike and the Wahoo RPM Cadence Sensor I’ve been able to increase my average cadence somewhat, to an average of just under 90 RPM (outside real-world cadence), and am still working on it.It’s certainly been a worthwhile purchase for sure, and very useful (and very unobtrusive) addition to my cycling.So summing it up about the Wahoo RPM Cadence Sensor – for me it works great, and for the price it is a great addition for my bike training. I have had absolutely no problems or issues with the sensor so far, and while I would like the real-time display to have perhaps slightly less lag it is really a non-issue for me. For the price, and for how well it works and what it does I don’t think it can be beat – unless perhaps you are a pro.

Wahoo makes great products. The battery lasts a long time and connection/pairing is very simple. Mounts perfectly to the hub of my wheel and will continue purchasing Wahoo products.

I have had this for about a month now and currently it is worth the purchase! I have it set up on my sunny indoor spin bike and it works. It’s pretty easy to use the app once downloaded, I use peloton app and I don’t think you can synchronize them, but I still am able to use both on my phone. I open the wahoo app, start my workout and switch to peloton and begin my workout from there. I then switch my phone back to wahoo app so I can keep an eye on my speed and cadence. I personally don’t mind that I can’t watch the class and see my speed at the same time this way, but if you like watching the class you can easily use another family members phone or a tablet and play your spin class app there. It’s a nice cheap substitute for the peloton system if you can’t afford it, I think between the bike, a speed and cadence sensor and a phone mount I spent $250 total. I can’t speak for how long the sensors will last but so far one month in they’re still going strong.

I used this on my rear dedicated trainer wheel, so the the hub is a but smaller than most fronts so I did not have much difficulty put it on like others using on their fronts said they had. It seems to be plenty secure even not being super stretched out like it would be on the front, so I don't think its going any where.After setting up to my specific tire size etc. and getting on the trainer it seemed to report higher speeds that what I felt I was going via the wahoo app. Though, I don't really have a way to verify since it could 1. just be the feeling difference between real road speed and being on the trainer 2. if I put it on my road tire and take it on the actual road my Wahoo app will show this speed sensor's speed and not compare it to the GPS reported speed, so I guess I will have to trust it unless I can run google maps or Waze split screen with Wahoo.....which I may try and report back. IN any case, to add speed/distance to my trainer rides in the same app as my outside rides is great even if it is off a smidge.

I use my bike a lot on a stationary stand (100 miles a week approx.). I purchased this and put it on my rear tire. My Bluetooth signal strength is great connecting to my iPhone. It was a little challenging getting my fingers through the rear spokes to get the unit attached to the axle so I used long needle nose pliers and that helped a lot.I use this with my Jabra Elite earbuds and it works without issue. Another nice thing is that I can switch between the app and Pandora and it doesn't loose track of my progress.I showed my wife and she wanted one as well. We are both very please with the product.The only thing I wish is that you can customize the screen to see certain stats. Since I I don't use the heart monitor by them that is just wasted space on the screen. I also wish you could switch from Mph to Kph while working out.

COVID has had me building my gym exponentially. During the warmer months, I was able to go outside for running and biking, so I was able to use GPS to track my miles. Enter the colder months, I moved my biking indoors with my stationary trainer for my bike, but I was unable to accurately track my distance. I did the research and found that this device was, within a reasonable price, the most accurate with the backwards compatibility for use with other apps. Gave it a go and I am loving it. Their app is clean too, with all of the info I need! If you want to track your RPMs, you'll have to get their other device as well, but I never cared about that, just the distance and speed. Even with the other device added, the cost is about the same than other more expensive products.

Works great on my stationary bike in the basement