Wahoo Fitness & COROS decided to meet, in the form of a real partnership as possible. They don’t merge (marry), but exchange data and borrow some of each other’s stuff. This was definitely not on my bingo card this year, at least, not this way.
Today’s announcement actually has four important things to it:
1) Data will flow back and forth between Wahoo and COROS (different types of data)
2) KICKR RUN integration on COROS watches will soon be developed
3) Wahoo will start selling some COROS watches on their site
4) There will be deeper software integration in the future
However, there seem to be limits to what this relationship can have. Specifically, no children. I asked, and they said there is no integrated hardware engineering effort planned; this can only be a software condition. Yes, I still have my doubts about that. But more on that in a second.
Field Connections:
First, let’s talk about the software platform side. In their joint press release, they noted that this integration is about providing each group of athletes with better data, specifically:
“To give athletes greater flexibility in choosing the hardware and training platform that best suits their needs, endurance technology leaders COROS and Wahoo Fitness have announced a new partnership. COROS athletes and Wahooligans can now share data and integrate KICKR RUN seamlessly, lowering the barriers to building a better athlete for all of us.”
Likewise, the CEOs of both have equal ratings, but from two different names. First, the CEO of Wahoo (Gareth Joyce):
“We’re proud to bring COROS to the Wahoo ecosystem and create a more connected running experience together. Indoor and outdoor running now live together, giving athletes a complete view of their performance, no matter where they run. This partnership strengthens what we’ve built with KICKR RUN, providing runners with tools that work together easily.”
Then the CEO of COROS (Lewis Wu):
“Our partnership with Wahoo demonstrates a shared commitment to delivering the best training experience for athletes. By bringing together Wahoo and COROS technology, we can connect indoor and outdoor training into a seamless and rewarding experience for athletes. Ultimately, this partnership is about creating more value for athletes and delivering an experience that truly matches how they train.”
With that out of the way (handy to have a record sometime down the road), here’s what happens:
1) Two-Way API integration: This patch here will sync a completed workout from Wahoo to COROS, and vice versa. This means that when you complete a workout on the Wahoo bike computer, it will appear in the COROS app. Likewise, if you complete a workout on a COROS (or Dura) watch, it will appear on the Wahoo side. This exercise will appear in the history details of different applications (with the attribute from which device). And in the case of COROS, it will also populate the weekly distance widget on the watch, as well as the training load widgets on the watch. The activity itself will not appear on the watch as a completed activity, but the summary data will be included in the training amount/load. Wahoo and COROS say they will also update their API to sync across all scheduled activities, and scheduled routes. But those won’t be there at launch.
2) Integration of KICKR RUN: COROS watches will now pair directly with the KICKR RUN via Bluetooth. Specifically, COROS watches will use the proprietary Bluetooth channel on the KICKR RUN that Wahoo says will provide those watches with more accurate and faster tracking data, rather than the existing KICKR RUN FTMS connection on other devices. In addition, this new connection will send in all metrics, including the time of the connection down and the cadence.
API integration across the board will be initiated from any application. Which means you can start the pairing process from the COROS app or the Wahoo app.
Some Hardware Tidbits:
Next, there are a few hardware details of note here. First, Wahoo will start selling the Pace 4 & APEX 4 on their site. Apparently, it’s been two years since Wahoo killed off the Wahoo RIVAL GPS Watch, so this looks to be their next wearable step. Interestingly, however, they have confirmed that COROS will not be selling any Wahoo products on their site (ie, no KICKR trainers/etc… on the COROS site, which seems very unlikely).
In addition, coming soon, there will be custom Wahoo watch faces available within the COROS app to download to your watch:
And then, later this year, there will be custom Wahoo watch bands for the COROS watches, and the Wahoo-branded Pace 4. Hopefully they’ll do the flashy thing they did with the new Pace 4 Black Crystal edition they launched this week.
However, when pressed on whether this integration will surpass the clock bands on the hardware side, they noted that they have no plans for other hardware babies to come together, saying:
“Besides the watchbands we don’t have any additional hardware integration planned, but we have plans to do more in terms of software integration in the future!”
Which would have been a good segue to the next episode.
Interview with both CEOs:
If you’re looking for more details and insights, check out the two DesFit interviews above, with both the Wahoo Fitness CEO and the COROS CEO. It goes into the history leading up to this relationship, as well as a list of other ‘Why’ type questions now covered here in this post.
Move forward:
To me, this is an interesting relationship of sorts. On the other hand, there are clear benefits for consumers of both types here. There’s no doubt about that, especially once they’ve got scheduled workouts and syncing route pieces, although admittedly neither company has the best tools in the industry for creating routes or structured workouts (many users of both platforms probably get their routes from Strava or Komoot, but hey…I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth).
But somehow, this seems like an unusual relationship, from a business point of view. It’s more like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” than anything. After all, the ‘enemy’ of both companies is Garmin, and there is no doubt that this may give both companies a better overall game compared to Garmin, as Garmin’s greatest strength is the unity within their platform between different product categories. If you have a Garmin watch, there is an incentive to get a Garmin bike computer instead of an out-of-network COROS or Wahoo product.
So in that sense, this is starting to create a ‘network effect’ for our competitors that could be interesting for a long time, especially if they start to rely on some of the features that Garmin sells very well (like more training-oriented metrics).
The problem, however, is that it is a long-term challenge. I don’t see a world where either company buys another, or merges. The truth is that I think there will be very little interest from existing Wahoo users to be found by a Chinese company, and equally, very little appetite from COROS and their other home markets to be found by an American company. Stop the confusion of what you might call that combined business – as both brands have a reasonably strong following.
Which leads to the second problem that Wahoo and COROS are still competing in the bike computer segment. COROS says they are very much keeping their bike computer (Dura) as part of the brand. And both companies sell heart rate sensors, though I suspect very little revenue for both these days.
So while I think this is good from a consumer point of view, the business side of this partnership remains unclear to me. But hey, sometimes weird stuff is better than nothing at all!
With that – thanks for reading!
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