Pity we have no one online from Wahoo Engineering to discuss this issue. As a community we are ideal firmware integration testers.
Let’s consider what could reduce runtime, in no priority order:
- Battery degradation or environment, or
- WiFi consumes power (much more than BT) but isn’t supposed to operate during ride. MAYBE WORTH CHECKING PHONE ISN’T OPERATING HOTSPOT DURING RIDE?
- Bluetooth (BT LE), version 5.0 on Roam 3 but power control wasn’t standardised until version 5.2. However, with short range I would guess no more than 10mW Tx power. Firmware could change power and comms activity. However, I think BT will have negligle impact compared to other piwer consumers.
- Backlight LEDs, my guess at the brightest display (400nits rough guess), I assume 40mA for white LED Vf so could consume ~100mW. For any TFT display, backlight is 80 to 90% of power consumed.
- Processor , power consumed by processor and memory will be less than display but firmware can definitely affect power.
- GNSS chipset, these days much lower consumption than older chips. I suspect they’re using u-Blox current design.
FIrmware version WH49 is latest and was released Nov 2025, Elemnt app for smartphone had several updates since, now at 302141 15th April 26. Given that WH49 has been on mostsRoam 3s for almost 6 month, only Wahoo app updates. Why are drain reports recent? Maybe worthwhile testing on ride without Wahoo app on phone active?