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!
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.
Vaporware.
And that name… ooph
Hi Ray, it’d be great that you clearly state if the hr function works with swimming earlier in your reviews. I think this is a deal-breaker for many swimmers. Please consider this and us. Thanks.
Yup, when it’s known, I do always state it in the review within the appropriate section.
In this case, it’s not a review – and the company themselves doesn’t yet know.
Cheers.
You should tag all CES related posts identically, especially if you are linking to tag CES2017 at the end of each post. For example this post is tagged ces2017 instead of CES2017 and previous one about Suunto watch is tagged ces-2017. I’m monitoring CES2017 tag for changes to get notified whenever there are changes, but this does not work well, if tag is different for each post.
Hmm, I show them all as identical.
Each post is tagged with both CES, and CES2017 (no spaces or dashes, I never use dashes). The only exception appears to be the GoPro Karma one, which I forgot to tag with either tag (just fixed).
What app/platform are you using for tag notifications? Wonder if there’s something quirky going on there.
It’s a browser based plugin, but I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with it.
Click on CES2017 link at the end of this post and the one with Suunto, and look at the URL.
In Suunto’s post URL is link to dcrainmaker.com
And even ces2017 and CES2017 tags are treated as different tags.
I see CES2017 and ces2017 as identical, unless I’m missing something.
I do see the issue with the Suunto post having a space in between for some reason. Reset that back to CES2017. My guess is that WordPress sees the space and puts a dash in there. Either way, it was the only post using that odd tag.
Thanks!
I’m still waiting for the first running-watch that gives you audiofeedback (time, distance, pace, hr) after every km/mile like any running-app can do.
This is not THE watch I was waiting for?
I think a lot of ppl running with samrtphone+app do it because of audio-feedbacks. I can’t understand why any running-watch-manufacture didn’t implement this feature yet.
Actually only “apple watch 2 + nike app” do it.
Anything around at CES ? Running-watch with audiofeedback?
+1. That was about the only thing I liked about the AW2 Nike +app. I hope Garmin introduces the feature, adding avg lap pace, HR, etc.. I guess I am getting lazy as I get older, the downside for me at 73 is my hearing isn’t what it use to be, I blame the Army:)
Does this watch connect to Ant+ devices?
No.
Is optical HR really serious?
Not sure what you mean. Optical HR is these days the defacto standard on wearables. You don’t have to use it, but every company is going to put it in there for basically any product above $125.
I know that every wearable manufacturer wants to be in on the health monitoring business. I am guessing that Misfit/Fossil is included in this group. But why sports-related features? OHR? This is a misfire or a joke. There is *no way* this device will generate significant market penetration. They are way behind, a year out and have what appears to be a relatively undistinguished product. The music component is relatively unique, but this will be a money pit and never launched, I think. Uncompetitive now and more uncompetitive in 12 months.
Misfit has always been activity tracking and sport focused (Fossil less so). They were one of the first to actually do swimming support in a wearable that didn’t have a watch face.
While I agree that the road seems bumpy and confusing going with a random Android fork (vs Android Wear), a $199 price point will sell well if executed correctly. Plus, they’ve got big box retailer support in Best Buy, etc…
Exciting news! Misfit dropped their own fork (I guess they bumped into too many problems…) and they go for AW 2.0 now.
‘Late summer’ is too late for me tough, I’m keen on an AW based fitness capable watch for this season, I’ll go for a Polar M600 in the next few weeks. RunIQ is a faliure, LG Sport is too expensive, chunky, and still not marketed in the EU, the other AW watches are just not sport-cabable enough.
It would have been nice to have an allrounder watch in terms of design, but I hope I will get used to that bulky feature locker M600. :)
link to wareable.com
Sounds similar specs to Amazfit Pace, but more expensive and worse battery life. Display seems nicer though.
Any chance you can review all the gps enabled smartwatches that have flooded the market. Im dying to buy one, example gear s3. But finding a proper review and information about how it works for running is totally missing.
Reviewing ‘all’ the watches would be a wee bit tough. But I tend to pick and choose which ones have the most interest.
RunIQ seems interesting, if I may put in a request.
Vapor has pleasant optics and is priced low enough. Going through the thought exercise of buying one it seems more like a women’s watch. Playing it out further out, I am not sure how either one of my girls would like it since they now have “serious” Garmin’s. I think the key for acceptance would be if they can adjust the screen datafields to match what they used to, and their runs show up automatically on Strava like they do now.
I wonder if the Android fork will be Fossil Group’s new watch OS vs. Android Wear. The likelihood of supporting two competing watch OS’s long term is low. Interestingly, the Wear device price-points are much higher.
The New Balance folks are working to get me a unit in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, I did play with a unit briefly at CES. It seemed to me like more or less any Android Wear watch. Meaning, at first glance I’m struggling a bit to determine how it’s much different than something like the Polar M600 (Android Wear).
Has a custom run app like Polar, though does come with Strava app pre-loaded.
Not saying it has to be different, just providing a bit of clarity following some albeit short hands-on time. Unfortunately the main product team had left CES by time I got to the booth, and the folks running the booth hadn’t seemed to have ever even touched it before. So I’m looking forward to spending more time with it and getting more details.
I read that the New Balance RunIQ GPS watch gives audiofeedback. That would be awsome!
But while looking for details on their website I wasn’t able to figure so out. They sell a bundle with wireless headphones by Jabra called NB PaceIQ and say that they fully integrate with RunIQ to give you on-demand running stats.
So I’m not sure if the watch gives audiofeedback or if that feature is integrated in the headphones or if you only get audio-stats while connected to a smartwatch.
I hope NB sends you the bundle and am waiting for your hands-on :-)
In the meantime NB’s support-team answered:
“To tell you the truth, as long as you have the “Audio Feedback” turned on in the watch interface, you will receive automatic updates straight to the either the PaceIQ or any set of bluetooth headphones that you have connected.
The button on the PaceIQ is actually going to be something that is dedicated that you can press any time to check your vitals and time.”
Hi Ray,
Realise this is offtopic, but just wondered why have you not reviewed Gear S3 Frontier yet?
Honestly haven’t seen much interest for it by readers.
I vote for it.
Petter – for what it’s worth, I did purchase this watch from Best Buy and tried it out for 2+ weeks. I ended up returning it because of the poor software design and the lack of support. I have the Vivoactive HR and went back to using it because the HRM is more reliable and the fitness tracking is far superior.
Keep in mind that I wrote this review on 12/24/16, so I was using the beta version of the iPhone software. I believe Samsung released the official Gear app for iPhone within the past week. So I can not confirm whether the Samsung Pay is now included or not.
Here’s a copy/paste of my review on Best Buy:
Overall summary:
Beautiful OLED screen watch with above average battery life and very mediocre app and sport activity support. If you are an android user and do not care about tons of apps or sport activity features, I would recommend this watch. Otherwise I would skip it.
I purchased this watch after reading reviews about how beautiful the watch is and how the battery life is good and it will eventually be fully compatible with iPhone.
I used an iPhone 7Plus for about 1 month with this phone. I installed the beta version of the iPhone Gear 3 app. Here are my findings:
Pros
– imo it’s the best looking smart watch out there, the OLED is absolutely gorgeous
– watch exterior design looks nice, like a watch, not like a toy or too bulky
– the battery lasts 3-4 days with ~30m-1hr usage
– intuitive rotating bezel interface
– many great looking watch faces
Cons
– Basic workout functions are extremely limited. I did normal run, the watch stopped recording GPS after 45m and told me congratulations. This was during the middle of a 1h30m training run.
– the golf GPS would not let me select the proper hole on a golf course with 2 nine hole courses.
– the optical heart rate monitor is functional at rest, but during activities it is “approximately accurate at times”. It’s worse than my Garmin Vivoactive HR in accuracy. On a scale of 1-10, Scosche Rhythm+ being 10, VAHR is 7, S3 is 4-5.
– no Samsung Pay option for iPhone app
– when announcement is made, it said iPhone app compatibility. I waited 1 month, but still no software released.
– may be too bulky for some (it’s slightly smaller than the Garmin Fenix 3 HR)
I’d like to see a review of the Gear S3 as well, or even a brief hands-on type article. The reviews that exist for Gear and Android Wear watches tend to gloss over fitness features pretty poorly (like “has GPS so it’s great for runners” and that is the end of the coverage).
In most reviews I’ve seen the S Health app is fairly sub-par in comparison to the host of apps we’ve become accustomed to (endo, strava, etc…). The form factor of the S3 looks great but I’m hoping a manufacturer gets a similar form factor model out in Q2 that runs AW 2.0 so we can take advantage of fully functioning apps.
Just read that this would now be an Android Wear 2.0 watch instead of their custom OS. They would significantly undercut Huawei and LG at 200 bucks.
Hi. Your reviews are great. I see that the Vapor is finally arriving, are you testing the “final” version? Seems that Vapor and the Spartan Trainer are head to head in features for Tri.
I’m not currently testing one, but I may consider picking one up.
I’m not sure if the Vapor is really a tri watch though at this point, moreso an Android Wear unit that’s similar to others as a mainstream fitness watch.
Thanks Ray. I found a good deal and went for the Tariner. Hope it arrives soon
Hi Ray, as noted I bought the Suunto Trainer (sorry for the typo) and I am really pleased although the heartrate data when swimming is definetely higher than the real one.
The Vapor seems nice but the non-GPS factor made me disregard it one year ago. Now I see that they came out with the Vapor 2 this time with GPS Built-In.
The device seems very nice, the question would be its sports data accuracy, are you testing it?