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Week in Review–January 3rd, 2016

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The Week in Review is a collection of both all the goodness I’ve written during the past week around the internet, as well as a small pile of links I found interesting – generally endurance sports related. I’ve often wondered what to do with all of the coolness that people write, and while I share a lot of it on Twitter and Facebook, this is a better forum for sending it on to y’all. Most times these different streams don’t overlap, so be on the lookout at all these places for good stuff!

So with that, let’s get into the action!

DCRainmaker.com posts in the past week:

Here’s all the (albeit limited) goodness that ended up on the main page of DCRainmaker.com this past week.

Sunday: Week in Review–December 27th, 2015
Monday: The Wahoo KICKR Desk In-Depth Review
Tuesday: The Didn’t Get What You Wanted $500 Gadget Giveaway
Wednesday: A Few Days of Christmas in Seattle
Sunday Morning: Giveaway Winner: The You Didn’t Get What You Wanted $500 Gadget Giveaway
Sunday Afternoon: A Newark Airport Layover Runaround

Stuff that I found interesting around the interwebs:

Here’s a not-so-small smattering of all the random things that I stumbled on while doing my civic duty to find the end of the Internet

1) Shooting GoPro Hero4 Session’s into the air with an air cannon: Because…awesome.  Seriously, this is cool stuff – just because it is (sent in via Richard K.)

2) There are now ‘surfing desks’.  For real.  Just like a standing desk or a bike desk, except, you sorta surf.  Good luck asking your boss for that.

3) Peter Sagan does Grease: Also for real.  Yes, one of the best riders in the pro peloton is singing and dancing in a musical.  Because, again, awesome. (via Velo News)

4) A day in the life of a pro team training camp: Interesting little snippets of what a typical day entails over on the Training Peaks blog.

5) Samsung announces new bio processor for health/fitness applications: I’m interested to talk with folks in the industry this week at CES to find out if this is something that others would actually use, or if it’s more fluff than anything else.  Chips are a bit outside my normal realm.

6) Update on WKO4 for PC: As many remember, the Mac edition released this past summer.  However, the PC addition looks to be delayed again.

7) Amazon Echo can now give you a workout: Echo is the Siri-like device that Amazon created to talk to you around the house.  Now, it can also be your gym instructor.

8) VeloViewer does 2015 Year in Review posters: This is cool.  Lots of folks are doing this (such as Strava), but I’m a sucker for pretty infographic posters like Veloviewer’s (there’s some stuff that doesn’t show in mine, as I don’t always sync unreleased products to Strava and usually forget afterwards to add them back in…doh!).  It also seems to have stumbled on some of my actual race bests this year, like this 10K race this year.

DCRStrava

Sports Technology Software/Firmware Updates This Week:

Each week I quickly highlight some of the new firmware, app, software and website service updates that I see go out. If you’re a sports technology company and release an update – shoot me a quick note (just one liners is perfect, or Tweet it at me is even better) and I’ll make mention of it here. If I don’t know about it, I won’t be able to post about it. Sound good?

Adidas Rolls out Windows 10 Universal App: This is notable, as they’re joining Garmin in going that direction.  Cool stuff, though, Adidas has historically always been the strongest sport/fitness device maker on Windows mobile devices.

Garmin FR230/235 Firmware Update: Improves pace accuracy, fixes handful of other items.

Garmin FR630 Firmware Update: Improves pace accuracy, fixes handful of other items.

Garmin HRM-TRI Firmware Update: Bug fix related to stride length accuracy.  Update via compatible watches.

Garmin HRM4-RUN Firmware Update: Same as HRM-TRI. Update via compatible watches.

Garmin Fenix3 Beta Firmware update: Battery drain bug fixes from last beta firmware update.

With that – thanks for reading folks!

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18 Comments

  1. morey

    totally impressed with your 5K time of 13:24.

  2. Luke

    Does the HRM tri software update just happen? I can’t figure out how to tell what software version my hrm tri is running, but I know my 920XT is up to date…

  3. Eli

    Too much pr in that Samsung post to figure it out. Photoplethysmogram and electrocardiogram? PPG makes sense (optical HR) but ecg too? Where to the electrodes go? BIA? Also needs electrodes and don’t think they can work in the wrist location. Only makes sense as a generic chip for everything where a device only uses one or two functions but having one integrated chip is still tint, cheap and lower power enough that it makes more sense then multiple chips for what people want

  4. Drew

    Hey Ray, seems you linked the Peter Sagan Greece thing twice… Rather than the go pro video which sounds awesome. Cheers

  5. OregonIan

    It’s not very clear, but it appears that the Sagan Grease production is an ad for… artichokes?

    Whole thing is ridiculous and I love it.

  6. Jonathan Nicholson

    Imagine you’ll be too busy w/ werables at CES, but if not here’s a free story idea: how good are generic commodified werables? I only wonder as I saw both of these at ALDI this past week and one looks like an almost straight copy of Fitbit Charge (tho it’s unit fits into band, is not permanently attached). Even if they only do 75% of what a brand name tracker does, the fact they cost only 25-40% makes them a potential value proposition, I would think. Just an idea.
    link to aldi.us
    link to aldi.us

    • mucher

      I think the Xiaomi mi band is a good example – $20-25 gets you an activity tracker with optical HR sensor – true, while the accuracy of both the step meter and HR sensor leaves a bit to be desired, it’s within 10% of ‘name brand’ activity trackers.

  7. Marcel

    Cool stuff! The 10k effort in Paris was actually a 9.9 km effort according to your Strava-activity. But what a time was that, wow!

  8. Massimo

    maybe you have mentioned it somewhere else, i might have missed it, but because i think it is a big deal, i would like to have your opinion about the latest beta firmware update for the Fenix3 that brings all the functionality of the FR630 (stress score, lactate threshold!!..) + more (new cool widgets not available on the store (myday, last run, last bike, last swim, last sport)). Will they update also the 920xt?

    • Yup, I talked about it a week or two ago when it first came out (within a ‘Week in Review’ post as well).

      I don’t know about the 920XT.

    • Damon

      So this is still in the Beta stage at the moment?

      How does one get the Beta downloads onto the watch?

      I can’t find it on my Fenix, along with the second generation of run dynamics. I’m told my watch is up to date.

      Thanks

    • Massimo

      the firmware is still beta, you can find it at:

      link to www8.garmin.com

      installation instructions are available (it is pretty easy, but you need to follow the steps because to have running dynamics you need to update also the hrm-run, and to have latest watch faces you need to update the fenix3 display).

      maybe my post was not to the point, what i wanted to underline was that not even in the change history of the garmin website there is any mention about the lactate threshold.Not that is a game changer (for me it detected the L.T. one time and auto adjust the heart zone), but i found it strange it was not mentioned, maybe to protect the marketing of the FR630 :)

  9. Phil A

    The Hero4 Session rocket is pretty cool.