Wahoo Fitness & COROS have decided to hook up, in the most literal relationship way possible. They aren’t merging (getting married), but they are swapping data and borrowing some of each other’s things. This one was definitely not on my bingo card for this year, at least, not in this way.
Today’s announcement essentially has four core things to it:
1) Data is going to flow back and forth between Wahoo & COROS (various types of data)
2) There’s immediately going to be improved KICKR RUN integration for COROS watches
3) Wahoo is going to start selling certain COROS watches on their site
4) There’s going to be deeper software integration in the future
Still, there appear to be limits to what this relationship might have. Specifically, no babies. I asked, and they said there were no combined new hardware engineering efforts planned; this would purely be a software situation. Of course, I remain skeptical about that. But more on that in a second.
Platform Connectivity:
First up, let’s talk about the software platform side. In their joint press release, they noted that this integration is all about giving each of their respective athlete groups better data, specifically saying:
“Giving athletes greater flexibility in choosing the hardware and training platform that best serves 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, reducing the barriers to building a better athlete in all of us.”
Likewise, both of their CEO’s had quotables that were basically the same, but from two different names. First up, Wahoo’s CEO (Gareth Joyce):
“We’re proud to bring COROS into 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, wherever they
run. This partnership strengthens what we’ve built with KICKR RUN, providing runners with tools that simply work together.”
And then COROS’s CEO (Lewis Wu):
“Our partnership with Wahoo reflects a shared commitment to delivering a better training experience for athletes. By bringing together Wahoo and COROS technologies, we can connect indoor and outdoor training into a more seamless and meaningful experience for athletes.. Ultimately, this collaboration is about creating more value for athletes and delivering an experience that truly matches how they train.”
With that bit out of the way (handy to have on record for some time down the road), here’s exactly what’s happening:
1) Two-Way API Integration: This piece here will sync completed workouts from Wahoo to COROS, and vice versa. This means if you complete a workout on a Wahoo bike computer, it’ll show up in the COROS app. And likewise, if you complete a workout on a COROS watch (or Dura), it’ll show up on the Wahoo side. These workouts will show up in their respective apps history details (with attribution as to which device it came from). And in the case of COROS, will also populate into the weekly distance widget on the watch, as well as the training load widgets on the watch. The activity itself won’t appear on the watch as a completed activity, but the summary data will be included in the totals/training load. Wahoo & COROS say that down the road they’ll also be updating their API to sync across planned structured workouts, as well as planned routes. But those won’t be there at launch.
2) KICKR RUN Integration: COROS watches will now pair directly with the KICKR RUN via Bluetooth. Specifically, COROS watches will leverage a proprietary Bluetooth channel to the KICKR RUN that Wahoo says will give those watches more accurate and faster updating data, than doing so via the existing KICKR RUN FTMS connection for other devices. In addition, this new connection will send across metrics, including ground contact time and cadence.
The API integration across the board will be initiated from either app. Meaning you can start the linking process from either the COROS app or the Wahoo app.
Some Hardware Tidbits:
Next up, there are a few hardware tidbits of note here. First up, Wahoo will start selling the Pace 4 & APEX 4 on their site. Obviously, it’s been over two years since Wahoo killed off the Wahoo RIVAL GPS Watch, so this is seemingly their next wearable step. Interestingly, though, they confirmed that COROS won’t be selling any Wahoo products on their site (meaning, no KICKR trainers/etc… on the COROS site, which seems a little lopsided).
Further, coming soon, there will be custom Wahoo watch faces available within COROS app to load to your watch:
And then coming later this year, there will also be custom Wahoo watch bands for COROS watches, and a Wahoo-branded Pace 4. Hopefully they do that translucent thing they did with the new Pace 4 Black Crystal edition they launched this week.
However, when pressed about whether this integration will go beyond watch bands on the hardware said, they noted they have no plans for other future hardware babies together, saying:
“Beyond watch bands we don’t have any additional hardware collaborations planned, but do have plans to do more in regards to software integration in the future!”
Which is probably a good segue into the next section.
Interview with both CEO’s:
If you’re looking for some more tidbits and insights, check out the above dual interview by DesFit, with both the Wahoo Fitness CEO & COROS CEO. It dives into a bit of the history leading up to this partnership, as well as a slate of other ‘Why’ type questions now covered here in this post.
Going Forward:
To me, this is an interesting partnership of sorts. On one hand, there are clear benefits for consumers of both brands here. There’s no question about that, especially once they get the structured workout and route sync pieces up and running, though admittedly neither company really has industry leading tools for creating routes or structured workouts (most users of both platforms are more than likely to have their routes coming from Strava or Komoot, but hey…I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth).
But in some ways, this seems like a bit of an awkward relationship, from a business standpoint. Almost more like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” than anything. After all, the ‘enemy’ of both of these companies is Garmin, and there’s no question that this could potentially give both companies a better combined play against Garmin, since Garmin’s biggest strength is cohesion within their platform between different product categories. If you have a Garmin watch, there’s an incentive to get a Garmin bike computer rather than an out-of-network COROS or Wahoo product.
So in that sense, this begins to create a competitor ‘network effect’ that could be interesting longer term, especially if they start leaning in on some of the features that Garmin has marketed so well (such as many of the training-focused metrics).
The problem though, is equally that long-term challenge. I don’t see any world where either company buys each other, or that they merge. The reality is I think there’d be very little appetite from existing Wahoo users to be acquired by a Chinese company, and equally, very little appetite from COROS and some of their home markets to be acquired by an American company. Let alone the mess of what you’d call that combined entity – as both brands have reasonably strong followings.
Which leads into the secondary problem that Wahoo and COROS still compete in the bike computer segment. COROS says they’re very much keeping their bike computer (Dura) around as a product segment. And both companies sell heart rate sensors as well, albeit I suspect that’s a relatively small revenue stream for both these days.
So while I think this is good from a consumer standpoint, the business side of this partnership remains slightly fuzzy to me. But hey, sometimes fuzzy things are better than nothing at all!
With that – thanks for reading!
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