The RW Takeaway: Runners will like the Rival’s massive battery and on-board GPS, but may find the price hard to swallow if they don’t also plan to utilize the watch’s extensive cross-training features.
- Touchless Transition feature automatically detects and tracks changes between running, cycling, and swimming.
- Personalize watch displays and features and easily edit and upload workouts via the Elemnt companion app.
- The large watch face, intuitive controls, and easy set-up offer excellent user experience.
Price: $379
Battery: 24 hours in GPS mode; 14 days in watch mode
Weight: 54 grams
A household name among data-hungry cyclists, Wahoo is much lesser known among runners (save for those whose cross training demands they hop on an indoor bike every now and then). The brand is a powerhouse in the field of heart rate monitors and other data-tracking wearables. So it makes sense that Wahoo has now made the jump from our cyclist friends to us runners with a powerful multi-sport watch. Enter: the Rival. Designed with specific attention to the needs of triathletes, it’ll serve many runners well—with a few exceptions, as both runner-in-chief Jeff Dengate and I have found.
Pros
- Nine workout tracking profiles
- Long battery life
Cons
- GPS can be unreliable
Full-Day Battery in GPS Mode
The Rival is big on battery, with a full 24 hours of juice in GPS mode—which is about double what you’d get on watches like the Garmin Forerunner 45. But, while you’ll get a solid week or two’s worth of runs between charges, the GPS’s functionality depends on where you do them. In testing, we found that the watch locks a signal fast and stays well connected on the open road, yet it frequently gets lost under heavy tree cover and around skyscrapers. Even around buildings just three or four stories tall, we found the distance and pace unreliable. For trail and city runners, this might be a model to skip for now. But if most of your miles are around the block in the suburbs or in wide-open parks, your splits will be spot on.
A solid green ring indicates the Rival has locked in a strong GPS satellite signal.
From Water to Wheels
What separates the Rival from standard running watches is the seamless transitions feature. The watch is able to automatically sense when you change from swimming to biking to running, which is an especially helpful feature for biathletes, triathletes, and swim-runners during a race. Plus, the Rival’s hand-off feature enables it to sync with any paired Elemnt computer when it comes into proximity, so you can easily see speed and power displayed on the bike. In the connected app, you’ll be able to review the swim, bike, and run legs of your workout and edit them as needed—or just beam them to Strava as soon as you finish.
Designed with Fewer Distractions
While there’s no stress or sleep tracking*, Spotify, or wrist-based payment methods, we don’t mind. Wahoo designed both the Rival and the Elemnt app to be as simple and easy to use as possible, and I’ve found that less on-board fluff helps me navigate the watch quickly. (More of the customizing settings are found in the app, so the watch’s interface offers fewer pages to fuss with.) To start a run, I’ll just tap the middle button to select the running profile, and then once more when it gets a GPS satellite fix. I can leave my phone at home and still see accurate wrist-based optical heart rate and elevation metrics—though live tracking and text notifications do require Bluetooth connection.
You can customize the Rival’s data fields and activity screens from within the connected Elemnt app.
Dengate’s experience was similar, and he dubbed the convenient flexible displays his favorite feature. “You can set the order of preference that you want to see certain metrics within the app, and then change the screen’s layout on the fly—no hunting through endless menus on the watch itself,” he said. “I typically like to see just time, distance, and pace, but I can squeeze the two bottom buttons at the same time to add HR or cadence quickly.”
Made for Wrists of All Sizes
The Rival definitely makes a statement on a small wrist, but that larger size also means it was easy for me to read the massive screen. I also liked that you get five buttons and no touchscreen, as I’m awful at fiddling with touch displays with sweaty or gloved fingers. The strap is long for my six-inch wrist, but it’s very accommodating for the extra leftover strap with two (instead of one) bands to secure it, so there’s no tail flopping around. Runners who have the opposite problem with sizing will find they have plenty of holes to fit the strap to their wrists.
The Rival is available in Kona White and Stealth Grey (shown above).
The Bottom Line
I appreciate that the Rival bucks the trend of offering many extra add-ons (like health-tracking and music) that can invite clutter and distractions. But fewer of those features warrants a lower price point. Though its multi-sport offerings are robust, it feels a bit pricey at $379 if you’re solely a runner and rarely cross train. Many will be better served by a watch like the Coros Pace 2, which offers simple running essentials for about half the price.
*UPDATED: According to Wahoo, sleep tracking will become available via a firmware update by December 2020.