Wahoo Elemnt Bolt v2 Utils

Disclaimer

1. The programs and information provided here are not official Wahoo products; this is a private, non-commercial project.
2. Use at your own risk: It may void your warranty, damage your device, or cause unexpected issues.
3. The programs have not been tested in all environments and are not specifically optimized or fault-tolerant.

Auto-generated Points of Interest with gpx2poi & poi2db

(my Bolt with a rubber protective cover: low zoom level of the entire island of Bornholm plus street-level view as if riding)

A distance or bikepacking cyclist could miss nearby food and water if POIs aren’t marked on their map.

• Finding --poi-types=water,food within a 500-meter --poi-radius along your route:
  OpenStreetMap servers can be queried for features within a geographic polygon using the Overpass API. Gpx2poi constructs a simplified polygon (a buffered line) from all route points in a GPX file downloaded from Komoot or similar services. It retrieves hundreds of features within this polygon and writes them to your_route.geojson. I test results with poi2tcx and a TCX viewer
• Getting POIs onto the Bolt:
  Poi2db adds these features as POIs to the Bolt’s "Save my location" table on the device. The SQLite database file is accessible via Android Debug Bridge (credit: AndroidAndyUK).
  Manual POIs are not affected.
• Pros:
  • POI generation and updating the Bolt takes only a few seconds and uses very little disk space
    (tested in real life with 60 km tours; usually recommended to split long distances for smoother re-routing on a bike computer)
  • POI visibility is independent of the zoom level
  • no additional POI-capable device is required
  • freely definable POI radius in contrast to navigation cues
• Cons / Known issues:
  • the Bolt uses a single heart icon for all POI types, so different types aren’t visually distinguished. (Setting poiType to 1 instead of 0 in the database has no effect. Reversing the Bolt app might reveal why)
  • currently, it's better to restrict to either --poi-types=food,water or --poi-types=camp for example – not both – so the heart icon meaning is more predictable (still you cannot tell a restaurant apart from a fuel station); I've excluded bars/pubs from water because of bike safety, you might want to re-add it.
  • extra step required: when updating routes in Komoot or similar, you must copy them to this project and rebuild the POI list
  • no auto-POIs available when detouring (outside the specified POI radius)
  • at low zoom levels, too many POIs can clutter the map, though this isn’t an issue at street level. Not sure if Bolt allows you to hide all POIs.
  • manual POIs added before auto-generation get buried under hundreds of auto-POIs. However, manual ‘save-my-location’ POIs added during rides (e.g., ‘bring me back to this tent pitch after checking out the city for food’) appear at the top and are easy to find.
• Installation:

   	$ ./setup.sh     # installs ADB, python-libs etc to the project's subdir 'local', so your system stays clean
   	$                # requires Linux, Python 3 with pip
   	$ ./gpx2poi.py --help
   	$ ./poi2db.py  --help
   	$                # 1. download _selected_ GPX files to "routes"-directory
   	$                # 2. enable Bolt's debug mode and connect USB cable
   	$ ./gpx2poi.py routes/*.gpx      # Saves POIs for all GPX tracks to local geojson-files
   	$ ./poi2db.py  routes/*.geojson  # Recreates POI-list on the Bolt

• Other approaches:
  • adding POIs manually via smartphone companion app = pain
  • self generated maps with POI-symbols = best approach but nasty setup and regular generation requires significant time and disk space
    • https://github.com/yokuha/Wahoo-maps
    • https://github.com/treee111/wahooMapsCreator
    • https://github.com/vti/wahooMapsCreator-docker (!)
    • https://www.rennrad-news.de/forum/threads/aktuelles-kartenmaterial-f%C3%BCr-wahoo-elemnt-bolt-roam-elemnt-selbst-generieren.175315/
  • custom navigation cues in FIT or TCX (not GPX) files will give a text warning when approaching the point + water tap icon
    • I could neither reproduce that with FIT nor TCX on my Bolt (in non-riding route-map overview mode; TCX food and water icons showed up in GPSVisualizer only)
    • afaik Wahoo shows icons only within a pretty small radius along the route (poi2db isn't limited)
    • RwGPS premium feature? $$$

    •   <CoursePoint> 
        	<Name>Water</Name> 
        	<Time>2023-10-19T17:13:09Z</Time> 
        	<Position> 
        		<LatitudeDegrees>x.xxxx</LatitudeDegrees> 
        		<LongitudeDegrees>y.yyyy</LongitudeDegrees> 
        	</Position> 
        	<PointType>Water</PointType>   <!-- or: Food, Danger -->
        	<Notes>Water!</Notes> 
        </CoursePoint>

  • navigate to POIs with your smartphone when hungry/thirsty = increased battery usage; needs mounting options on the handlebar; increased risk of damage

Wahoo Basics

• Bolt runs an old Android operating system which is accessible via USB-Cable and the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) tool
• consider WebADB via Chrome browser (using WebUSB) when unable to install or run ADB for some reason (though some security/privacy risk)
• Bolt authorizes ADB in debug mode:
  1. power up without USB-Cable plugged in,
  2. press POWER+UP+DOWN simultan. (1 or 2 times)
  3. plug in cable
  4. check with adb devices
• Bolt supports file formats:
  • FIT (newer Garmin binary with smaller filesize), annoyingly requires Garmin FIT SDK
  • TCX (older easy Garmin plaintext XML)
  • GPX (easy plaintext XML)

See Also

• my stared cycling tools on GitHub: https://github.com/stars/andre-st/lists/cycling
• screen recording on Wahoo devices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSMxnPvunco