Heads up! Here’s your massive list of sports tech deals! This includes the Garmin Forerunner 965 for just $499, Garmin Epix for $429, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium for $735, the GoPro Hero 12 Black for $299, (or Hero 13 bundle for $339!) and plenty more! Go check out the full list here!
I’m DC RAINMAKER…
Here’s how to save!
Wanna save some cash and support the site? These companies help support the site! With Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with either the coupon code DCRAINMAKER for first time users saving 15% on applicable products.
You can also pick-up tons of gear at REI via these links, which is a long-time supporter as well:
Alternatively, for everything else on the planet, simply buy your goods from Amazon via the link below and I get a tiny bit back as an Amazon Associate. No cost to you, easy as pie!
You can use the above link for any Amazon country and it (should) automatically redirect to your local Amazon site.
-
Check out my weekly podcast - with DesFit, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!
-
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.
4
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!
5
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.
Thanks again for your hard work on updates. It will be interesting if and how Garmin, TomTom, etc decide to play in the google/adroid and apple spaces. I think those with GPS fitness devices have a narrow window to position themselves in the google and apple worlds with their GPS devices so that bringing a phone on a run in addition to a watch isn’t needed for GPS. Better yet, with SIM cards in addition to GPS so that no separate phone is needed on runs or while biking at all. Because someone soon or eventually will.
I think I’m about ready to give up on fitness tech for now. The newer devices coming out still don’t have a fraction of the feature set, accuracy, or usability of the MotoActv from four years ago. Many of the devices (Amiigo and Mio Link, I’m looking at you) aren’t even close to being ready for prime time (especially at the cost for the devices), and the device designers are almost all stuck in a “I have a hammer, so everything must be a nail” mode where the only thing that counts are steps because those are easy to measure. Great if you’re a runner, I suppose, but it’s more than a bit mind boggling to see a Vivofit complain about my inactivity after an hour of swimming laps and then go on to tell me that a two hour heavy lift workout (with HRM, mind) is only burning 193 calories because… I dunno, steps?
I’d be more likely to get a decent calorie burned estimate from a random number generator than pretty much any of the current crop of fitness devices and their portals.
Not that it’s limited to just devices, I had to /facepalm at Endomondo insisting GPS be on when set to record a weight lifting workout or elliptical session.
I believe the operative phrase is “lolwut?”
The truly sad thing is I’d still be using my MotoActv (bad buttons and all) if it wasn’t that Moto summarily abandoned the thing when Google bought them, leaving the portal in a state so unstable and unreliable as to be useless.
Which is, of course, another issue. Why does every bloody damn one of these things have to upload to an online portal to at all be useful? I mean, other than that companies want to feed you adverts and collect your personal data to sell — and everyone’s okay with this? My Withings scale, all I want is to be able to look at the data graphed over time, certainly not a task requiring complex programming or a supercomputer to render, nothing that couldn’t be done by software on my local network — hell, my microwave oven has more than enough storage and CPU power to handle the job. And yet the only way to see the data decently is to go to Withings website where I’m fed the same bloody annoying adverts over and over and over (No, I do not want to buy your overpriced step counter, stop asking!) and get to wonder what creative ways they’ll find to sell every byte of data they collect.
Bleh.
Sorry for the OT rant, it is just something that has been getting on my nerves lately.
Myria, don’t give up, yet!
I have been as frustrated as you, in my case with the available fitness applications on Android. So I decided to build my own. After years of work, the first version is now ready and I would very much like you to give it a try.
From the things you mentioned:
No uploading ever needed – all done on-device if you prefer, but with easy export options directly from within the app.
When you select an indoor (non-GPS) activity, GPS is automatically switched off.
Calories are calculated with a bunch of different formulas, depending on activity type and available sensors: heart rate, speed/gradient based (walk, run, bike), or as last resort the activity’s MET.
It has already a good feature set, but more things will be added in the coming months.
If you have an Android device, I would really love to hear your opinion! What do you like? What is missing?
100% agree. Especially about the submissions to online services.
To borrow from Paul, the best comment in Ray’s winner post and revise to fit:
No one makes fitness devices that just work anymore… *runs away crying*
I share the frustration at times, but I think it’s temporary and things will continue to improve. Or, you can start a new lunch table for kids who are really, really frustrated with today’s fitness toys.
There was a similar bicycle theft bust in Vancouver recently, glad they caught that guy!
link to mediareleases.vpd.ca
Er, RunKeeper for Android was updated last week and features support for BLE cardio sensors now. They implemented that in a weird way, though: you get a tiny gray heart icon on the main tab that you need to tap to pair devices, then you get a tiny strip with HR data in the upper part of the display when you record an activity. It doesn’t even show HR until you start recording.
the TP WKO 4.0 or whatever they are calling it wasn’t an update at all. it was just a “hey don’t forget we might have an update to a product we long ago left behind, or we might not’ statement.