BikeScoutThe companion your bike computer deserved.
BikeScout talks to your head unit directly over Bluetooth — no vendor cloud, no account, no cable. It plans routes, pushes them with POIs intact, pulls finished rides back off the device, and puts weather warnings on the screen in front of you. One companion, across manufacturer brands: Wahoo ELEMNT today, Garmin Edge in development.
The app, as you'd hold it
Real screens, rendered by the app's own code — not mockups.
And up close
The same code, zoomed in on the moments that matter.
Push a route straight to the head unit
Pick a route, tap Send, watch it land — phone to device, over Bluetooth. Your marked stops (water, food, café, viewpoint) travel with it and show up along the route on the device, and a push you regret can be cancelled mid-transfer without confusing the unit.
Why it's rare: the official app routes everything through the vendor cloud and Wi-Fi — and its provider sync strips POIs. On a 755-route test device, 0 survived.
See the route the way you'll ride it
A grade-shaded elevation profile with your POIs planted on it and your live position projected onto the line. Found a café worth a detour? Search real OSM places near any point and splice them in — via-point or there-and-back — then send the new line to the device.
Why it's rare: neither official app can edit a route at all, let alone reroute around a place you just found.
Rides come back off the device
Every completed ride still sitting on the head unit shows up in one list next to the ones already on your phone. Pull one, or all of them, over Bluetooth — then let them upload themselves to Strava, oldest first, even through dead spots and rate limits.
Why it's rare: the current official app removed .fit export and USB file access; the surviving alternatives are desktop-only.
Rules that speak up on the device screen
Your own reminders, on the device in front of you: drink every 30 minutes (but not on a steep descent), rain expected in 25 minutes, headwind building ahead, heart rate drifting. And a sunscreen reminder that models UV, your Fitzpatrick skin type, and accumulated riding-in-sun — it stays quiet when the sun can't burn you.
Why it's rare: stock firmware ships fixed alerts only; no official app pushes weather — or anything of yours — to the screen.
The receipts
Side by side with the official Wahoo ELEMNT app (v3) and stock firmware. Every claim below is verified against the device's own protocol — not marketing folklore.
| Capability | BikeScout | Official app |
|---|---|---|
| Send a route, phone → device | Over Bluetooth, no cloud | Cloud + Wi-Fi only |
| POIs survive to the device | Typed stops the unit displays | Stripped in sync — 0 of 755 test routes kept any |
| Edit or reroute a route | Via-POI or detour-and-rejoin | No editor |
| Plan a route in-app | Tap the map, pick road or gravel | No builder |
| Download rides to the phone | Over Bluetooth, with progress + retry | Removed in v3 |
| Turn a ride into a route | One tap, on the phone | No path |
| Read the loaded route back | Yes — even a Komoot course | Not exposed |
| Custom alerts on the device | Your own rules, your own words | Fixed firmware alerts |
| Weather on the device | Rain, wind, temperature look-ahead | None |
| Sunscreen reminders | UV × skin type × time in sun | None, anywhere in the category |
| Live tracking | Own backend; pause-aware; link expires | Vendor cloud only |
| Voice control | On-device, English & German commands | None |
Findings from a reverse-engineered, on-device-validated protocol and the app's research notes. "Official app" refers to the current Wahoo ELEMNT app; firmware limits are the device's own. Wahoo could ship any of these tomorrow — riders would win either way.
A ride with BikeScout
- 01
Pair
The app takes the head unit as its one Bluetooth central — and a single tap hands it back to the official app whenever you want.
- 02
Plan
Import a file or a past ride; draw from scratch; splice in the bakery. Send it — stops included.
- 03
Ride
The head unit runs the show. The phone feeds it weather warnings and your rules, and streams a live link to whoever worries about you.
- 04
Afterwards
Rides pull back over Bluetooth, match up with what's already on the phone, and upload themselves to Strava.
One companion, across brands
Why this exists
Head units are great instruments and their companion apps are an afterthought. BikeScout is what happens when the phone app takes the job seriously: the device stays the instrument, the phone does everything around the ride — planning, weather, nagging, sharing, archiving — without asking a vendor cloud for permission.
Pre-release · built by a rider, tested on real hardware · this page carries no tracking