Heads up! Here’s your massive list of sports tech deals! This includes the Garmin Forerunner 965 for just $499, Garmin Epix for $449, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium for $735, the GoPro Hero 12 Black for $299, and plenty more! Go check out the full list here!
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5 Easy Steps To The Site
1
In Depth Product Reviews
You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.
2
Read My Sports Gadget Recommendations.
Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
3
Have some fun in the travel section.
I travel a fair bit, both for work and for fun. Here’s a bunch of random trip reports and daily trip-logs that I’ve put together and posted. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been.
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My Photography Gear: The Cameras/Drones/Action Cams I Use Daily
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
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The Swim/Bike/Run Gear I Use List
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2023 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
Does this mean, one shouldn’t buy the Nike+ hardware such as Fuel Belt or Sportwatch? I’m just curious since a few of my friends actually use and like the app on their iPhones and were considering the Sportwatch.
At this point if it’s me, I wouldn’t buy any Nike hardware. Anyway, I am just curious as to your take on this since you follow the industry much more closely.
Apparently it may have something to do with the mythical iwatch. I say ‘may’as nothing is certain, but it Apple and Nike have quite close associations and some articles I have read believe iwatch would completely undermine Nikefuelband. Food for thought
In general, I haven’t recommended folks purchase the Sportwatch in some time. As for the Fuel Band, I’d likely shy away from it – but at the same time, I think in many cases it’s best to actually base your activity tracker platform based on what your friends are on. Social motivation is a big part of it, and if you’ve got 70% of your friends on the Nike platform, I’d probably still go that direction.
Ray, that would make the best if not the most surreal race report if you raced the North Korean marathon! It has got to be on your schedule for next year. Maybe you should crowd fund the entry??
@Lin
Reading what Apple is planning, I have a feeling Apple products will make Nike hardware obsolete.
(Health monitoring focus in iWatch and iOS 8)
May be getting out of the business before investing more into it.
The gif race report is seizure-inducing. Agreed not a fan.
In North Korea, instead of chasing a “rabbit”, a pack of hungry dogs chases YOU!
Hmmmmm……I’ve had a nagging feeling that somewhere lurking in the darkest shadows of the Nike announcement Apple is actually the company thats orchestrating things.
Wasn’t Nike+ (?) built into various Apple products…. isn’t Apple about to launch a wearable? Apple has a long history of not liking competition other than were its forced to by Anti-trust laws or business expediancy.
Time will tell.
Nike dropping fuel band is just about getting an underperforming product line off the books before the end of the fiscal year. The product was poorly designed and managed and had some success only because of the brand name. The margins in the industry are also much lower than in Nike’s more traditional industries. The entire devices foray seems pretty ill-advised.
I’m not sure what Nike is thinking partnering with Strava and others, but I imagine Strava is hoping to grow their user base. Strava users are predominantly cyclists, triathletes, and some gadget focused runners. There is a much bigger potential user base out there of more casual runners and runners who have been using running specific software. Nike fuel points are poorly designed and meaningless. Strava is counting on Nike users realizing this and switching over.
It would also be interesting to see the DCR readership by country on a per capita basis, i.e. which countries have the highest rate of DCR readership.
Simply a huuuge congratulations for building such a readership. Could this ever become a full time job for you?
Do those runners think about the great violations of human rights taking place in that country. There are prison camps in N Korea housing people whose greatest sin has been to speak out against the leadership. Millions have been starved while the leadership enjoyed luxury western goods, anyone wanting to familiarize themselves with NK would be well advised to read ‘Nothing to Envy’ for an insiders view of what goes on there. South Africa was isolated towards end of apartheid years with sports ( South African teams and events) being boycotted, every bit of political and economic pressure had a cumulative effect resulting in that dreadful regime becoming a thing of the past. Anyone promoting NK as a tourist destination of whatever sort is just making it easier for the dictatorship there to prolong their sick antics. Sorry for the rant.
What is the green circle next to Australia? Is that New Zealand? I’m an Aussie and I am sure the kiwis won’t be happy that you show them as part of the continent of Australia.
@ Gary – Yes I am from NZ and wondered that. Great fan of your site Ray
One of your readers from Canada! Love the site. Saw a video of running in Paris that was pretty cool.
link to youtube.com
172 in the Atlantic ocean? Is that Atlantis? They must really like the waterproof features of the products you test.
And 175 to the east of Madagascar. What gives?
175 is Mauritius, and the 172 is Bermuda. :)
Vote on strava features: link to strava.zendesk.com
Thanks for that!
I was hoping they also had a vote for Strava to remove their total time / moving time algorithm ;) It’s just plain terrible.
The Nike move is actually very easy to understand – Apple. Nike have a long history of partnering with Apple, with integration with many iPod and iPhone models. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, sits on Nike’s board, and he’s known to wear a Nike+ fitness band.
Considering it’s the worst kept secret in technology that Apple intend to enter the wrist worn market, with a key focus on fitness tracking, the existing partnership between Apple and Nike is perfect for this. When Nike say then intend to focus on the software, I think this is really a way of saying focusing on the Apple partnership, and getting the nike logo onto the display of whatever wrist thing Apple end up shipping, much like they did on iPods and iPhones previous. It makes no sense for Nike to try to compete with Apple if they can partner instead.
Would be also my reading of the decision. It’s still interesting to see the different strategies unfold. Intel buys Basis for 500 million and Nike closes their (semi-successful) Fuelband unit.
Suunto update also changed gpx outputs (at least on the 2S) – there are now a few more fields added to the file: altitude, energy, speed, verticalspeed and a second set of data for heart rate.
People who were using file editors to truncate the data (aka removing the cumulative distance field) that some sites (Strava, for example) had issues with might want to check how the new fields are handled.
Why Nike Is (Probably) Killing Off The FuelBand
Why wait for Apple to kill a bad product when you can team up instead?
link to fastcodesign.com
Convergence.
There is a group of folks who will NEVER wear a watch OR if they wear a watch will want a normal mechanical fashion piece. Those of us who DO WEAR a band from Nike, Fitbit or Garmin 24×7 are different and we are not only very likely to consider wearing a fitness “band” but we are likely to switch to a band which has fitness functions and integrates with our smartphone ecosystem of choice.
Since Nike has no ecosystem outside fitness they could see the writing on the wall. Tim Cook of Apple sits on Nike’s board of directors and an Apple wearable is just around the corner. It likely will see a convergence of fitness, watch, smartphone, apps and more in a single device. Samsung will improve (ie. copy) their Gear Fit and other players like Microsoft and Google will move into the space rapidly. Fuelband (and Fitbit with their band products) likely have little time left before a new wave of superior products that blend existing devices into one take their place.
@David “Samsung will improve (ie. copy)”
Would love to know how you “copy” vapourware!
Apple has done a fair bit of stealing itself over the years. As an example of the hypocracy Apple who are uber sensitive about there own intellectual property rights* blatantly stole the iconic 1944 Hans Hilfiker watch face design for use in iOS6. Apples response….. Silence. Only when legal proceedings were pending did Apple come to an out of court settlement reputedly in the 10’s millions of $ .
* laughably under the circumstances Apple has rejected a number of Apps submitted to the App Store because the clock icon in the Apps was too similar to its own. You couldn’t make it up
Apologies Ray I know this isn’t a debating forum but I find any evangelism towards a specific company/platform whether it be Garmin, Samsung, Apple etc on this site to be jarring especially when the reviews are so rooted in fact.
I’m completely agnostic when it comes to tech and platforms my only requirement is it does what I need it to do. For the record I don’t use any Apple products apart from a Macbook Pro as I find that the ludicrous Apple imposed restrictions make their products unusable.
You seem to be missing the point that to some the fact that Apple products have unbelievably ludicrous limitations is one of their main selling points.
Signed,
a guy who remembers the one-button-mice days (and the rationalizations)
Side note: Tonight, I noticed in the hotel gift shop that they were still selling CD-R and mouse pads. Yes, really.
I was impressed to see how many Australian readers there is. Proud to be among them. :-)
My god the race report looks like the guy who made it never heard about animated GIFs until 5 minutes ago.
Utterly awful, but now I know why Castelli stuff is so expensive, so that they can splurge on shit like that.