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WKO 2 vs 3. Worth the upgrade price?

William JenksWilliam Jenks
in General Training Discussions

I'm a Mac user and I run WKO version 2 on my Mac using Fusion.  (This whole emulation thing annoys the crap out of me, but that's a rant for another place...I will shortly share my thoughts on RaceDay in another post.)

Is the upgrade to WKO 3 worth buying?  OK, it's not a huge amount of money (~$65), but I'd sure not want to drop even a nickel that put me backward. :-)

Quite apart from the Mac thing:

I gather that the main feature upgrade is the quadrant analysis.  I'm not denying that's useful; I just don't know how useful it is.

Does it otherwise work more efficiently or have a nicer layout or other such improvements?  (Or am I missing a major feature upgrade?)

Regarding the Mac thing, does anyone have any comment on how well it behaves on a Mac with Fusion?

 

Thanks,

William

 

Comments

  • manconamancona
    I upgraded becuase of the new device agent with much better support for the garmin edge 500 and forerunner 310XT. The ohter feature i like is the comparision view were you can pick multiple rides or intervals and it will overlay the graphs and data so you can do a very easy comparison.

    If you arn't interested in either of those features, or QA, then skip it.
  • Al TruscottAl Truscott

    I upgraded from 2 >> 3 a bit after it came out, and use it on a Mac via Parallels. I have no functional system related issues. I don't see any real difference in how I use it after the upgrade, but then I download all my workouts from my Garmin 305 and iBike "power meter" into their Mac applications, then move over to Windows and import easily workouts into WKO +. I think the newer version's Device Agent allows for direct import from many devices, but not the ones I have. Even if I had a Garmin 500 and Power Tap, say, I still would import via the Mac >> PC route, as I don't want to use the Windows side for anything unless I absolutely have to: Computrainer and WKO are the only things I do there. I even keep the internet connection turned off at all times, to protect myself from that unclean environment for PCs.

    I don't use the quadrant analysis; despite reading about in the new book, I just haven't figured out the value for me. And I don't do workout comparisons either. The interface still looks just as ugly. No discernible changes there.

    Bottom line, no, I don't think you need to upgrade.

  • William JenksWilliam Jenks
    Not that I'm inherently uninterested... but I read through the "Training and Racing..." chapter and found it vague on how to take advantage of it.

    Is the better support only in terms of data download only or does wko 3 now know how to deal with data that aren't recorded every 1 second? As I recall, there's a big warning somewhere about TSS not being accurate with "smart recording", and I vaguely recall that 310xt is incapable of recording every 1 second.

    I currently have a forerunner 305 and an edge 705. I occasionally borrow my son's 310xt (for races if he's not using it), and I just exported the data from garmin's software before importing it on those few occasions.

    I find for indoor runs with the footpod that you practically HAVE to use "smart recording" on the forerunner 305; with 1-second recording, the speed/pace recorded is HUGELY noisy and surely not good for TSS calculations, either.

    I think I can live without the comparison tool (and I'm pretty handy with other graphing software if I ever feel the need...), so that particular one feature wouldn't sell me.

    Thanks!
  • William JenksWilliam Jenks
    Al - your post must have come in just as I was composing the last reply... sorry.

    You describe how I get all my data in as well... download into Garmin software, export and import. (It sounds worse than it is... not really THAT inconvenient)

    I too keep my Windows partition hermetically sealed from the universe. :-)

    I think I'll poke around on the Wattage list to see anything good there...probably should have done that first!
  • Leigh BoyleLeigh Boyle
    as a pro to upgrading, WKO no longer supports v2.2. I was getting the evil error that locks you out ever few weeks and they said the only way to fix it was to upgrade. FWIW, haven't had any problems since and I'm also on a mac with parallels. I also download and then import. image
  • Cary BlancoCary Blanco
    I'm on a mac with Fusion - I drag TCX files from Mac OS to the Win environment in to WKO 2.2 - I have no plans to upgrade unless I have to.
  • Tom GlynnTom Glynn
    I upgraded several months ago. The prime reason was simply to stay current with the latest software updates.

    The only real change I see is the quadrant analysis, which I glance at, but hardly ever use.

    Not sure it's really worth the price
  • manconamancona
    One other thought, you get two licenses with WKO 3.0 and you can control them yourself so it is easy to move from computer to computer without having to wait for the training peaks support to get back to you.

    I have WKO installed on my home desktop computer and work computer now. Not that I really need it in two places but it is nice having the option to.
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