Week in Review–July 6th, 2020

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!

Sports Tech Deals of Note:

Here’s a smattering of current sports tech deals. The Apple Watch Series 5 one is probably one of the most solid ones.

	Product	Sale Price	Amazon	Other site	Sale Notes
	Apple Watch Series 10 - $50 off $399/$499 (cellular)	$349	Amazon
	Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium - $75 off	$725	Amazon		This is a nice little deal for this unit which just came out.
	Fitbit Ace LTE Kids Activity Smartwatch - 22% off	$179	Amazon		This was just announced this summer, and is their first full smartwatch focused on kids activity tracking and gamification.
	Fitbit Charge 6 - 38% off! $159	$99	Amazon		This is the go-to sale price for the Fitbit Charge 6. It happens often, but it still doesn't take away from the fast that it's argueably the best bang for your buck fitness tracker out there.
	Fitbit Inspire 3 - $30 off	$69	Amazon
	Fitbit Sense 2 - $70 off	$179	Amazon
	Fitbit Versa 4 - $40 off	$119	Amazon
	Garmin Edge 1040 Cycling GPS - $100 off!	$499	Amazon		This is a good deal, especially since it's gotten virtually all of the Edge 1050 updates, and then a boatload more. That said, it wouldn't surprise me to see this drop further to $449, as it did this past summer.
	Garmin Edge 540 - $100 off	$249	Amazon	REI	⚡⚡This is the lowest price we've seen on the Garmin Edge 540 to date, which has gained virtually all of the new Garmin Edge 1050 features as well. This is kinda an insane deal for this unit.
	Garmin Edge 540 Solar - $100 off	$349	Amazon	REI	This is the lowest price we've seen on the Garmin Edge 540 Solar to date, which has gained virtually all of the new Garmin Edge 1050 features as well.
	Garmin Edge 840 - $100 off	$349	Amazon	REI	⚡⚡This is the lowest price we've seen on the Garmin Edge 840 to date, which has gained virtually all of the new Garmin Edge 1050 features as well. This is one of my main units I use daily.
	Garmin Edge 840 Solar - $100 off	$449	Amazon	REI	This is the lowest price we've seen on the Garmin Edge 840 Solar to date, which has gained virtually all of the new Garmin Edge 1050 features as well.
	Garmin Edge Explore 2 - $40 off $299	$269	Amazon	Competitive Cyclist	This is a great little unit, though, with the sales on the Edge 540 and 840 series, you might want to look at those instead.
	Garmin Epix Pro Series - 20% off! $899/$999	$649	Amazon	REI	⚡ This is the lowest price to date for the Garmin Epix Pro series, likely due to the Fenix 8 coming out a few months back (Epix as a brand was merged into the Fenix 8 branding). Still, if you don't care about diving or voice bits, this is an incredible deal.
	Garmin Epix Sapphire/Titanium (Gen 2) - $400+ off!	$449	Amazon		⚡⚡⚡ This is a crazy super strong deal. Note the Epix received all of the software updates of the Epix Pro. While we saw a slightly better deal at $399 for a day back in October, this is otherwise the lowest price we've seen it sustained at.
	Garmin Fenix 7 Pro - 31% off (All Variants) $799+	$549+	Amazon	REI	⚡ This is the lowest price to date for the Garmin Fenix 7 Pro series, likely due to the Fenix 8 coming out a few months back. Still, if you don't care about diving or voice bits, this is an incredible deal.
	Garmin Forerunner 165 Music - $50 off!	$249	Amazon		This is the first time we've head a meaningful sale on the Forerunner 165, released earlier this year, down to $249 for the Music edition, and $199 for the non-music edition.
	Garmin Forerunner 255/255S - $100 off	$249	Amazon		This is Garmin's mid-tier running watch, and is a very polished option with good multi-band GPS, and of course, a boatload of running metrics.
	Garmin Forerunner 255/255S Music - $100 off! $349/$399	$299	Amazon		This is Garmin's mid-tier running watch, and is a very polished option with good multi-band GPS, and of course, a boatload of running metrics. This model also includes offline music such as Spotify and Amazon Music.
	Garmin Forerunner 265 - $100 off	$349	Amazon	REI	This is the first time we've seen the Forerunner 265 on sale, and it's solidly priced right now at $349
	Garmin Forerunner 265s - $100 off	$349	Amazon	REI	This is the first time we've seen the Forerunner 265 on sale, and it's solidly priced right now at $349
	Garmin Forerunner 955 - $100ish off!	$399	Amazon		This is one of Garmin's most popular running watches, and it's down to a very strong price. I often use this in my accuracy testing comparisons when validating other watches, due to it's very strong GPS performance. Note this is the base edition without solar. It'd be hard to find any better deal in sports watches today, from any company (given this has full mapping, tons of new features even this week, etc...). I say '$100ish', because it's usually been on forever sale at $499, so $399 is a strong price, though, it dipped to $319 for Amazon Prime Day.
	Garmin Forerunner 965 - $50 off!	$499	Amazon	REI	This is the lowest price we've seen ever on the Forerunner 965, since it's launch. It's still Garmin's top-end Forerunner watch, and I expect it to stay that way for a while. It's one I often use in comparative testing as a reference device.
	Garmin Instinct 2X - $100 off!	$349	Amazon	REI	This is a solid deal. Garmin Instinct 2X - $100 off!It's best thought of as an Instinct 2.5, as it has almost enough features to really be more of an Instinct 3 (which doesn't exist at this point).
	Garmin Tactix 7 Pro - 20% off	$1,049	Amazon		This is the largest discount we've seen to date on the Tactix 7 Pro unit. Note the other Tactix 7 Pro units/variants are also on sale for 20% off too (this link takes you to all of them).
	GoPro Hero 12 Black - $100 off!	$299	Amazon		The new Hero 13 just came out, which mostly just adds a bunch of new accessory options. If you don't plan to purchase those accessories, then this is a solid deal.
	GoPro Hero 13 Black - $60 OFF!	$399	Amazon	REI	This is the first time we have seen the newly announced GoPro Hero 13 Black on sale. Solid deal, this is my daily use action cam!
	Google Pixel Watch 3 (41mm) - $70 OFF	$279	Amazon		Click to add $70 coupon into the cart. Bringing price down to $279!
	Insta360 Ace Pro Action Cam - $50 off	$299	Amazon		This is the previous edition, as the Ace Pro 2 just came out a few weeks back, but this is still a very solid camera from a year ago.
	Insta360 GO 3S Tiny 4K Action Camera - $60 off!	$239	Amazon		This is a great deal for this tiny little thing, which should really be named the Go 4, given how many new features it has (including 4K). It also has all the Insta360 sport integration features with Garmin & Apple, to overlay your Garmin/Apple data automatically on your footage.
	Jackery Portable Power Station - $60 off!	$199	Amazon		This is something I use frequently when shooting out and about and I need to re-charge a crapton of drone batteries, action cameras, or just cameras and such. I also use it on trips to Eurobike and elsewhere to keep equipment charged. I've even bought a solar panel to hook up to it (surprisingly effective). Heck, I've even powered a KICKR trainer ride from it!
	Tacx Flux 2 Smart Trainer - $200ish off $899	$499	N/A	REI	I mean, I guess. Really, I don't see why anyone would buy this trainer at any price above $299. With the JetBlack Victory at $399 being more accurate, quiter, including WiFi, including Zwift Cog support (or mechanical cassette), including dual-Bluetooth, including Race Mode, and...one could go on and on.
	Tacx NEO 2T Smart Trainer - $200-$300 off $1,399	$899	Amazon		This is the go-to sales price for the NEO 2T, though has become more frequent over the past year. It's still an incredible trainer, and is the top-end non-moving trainer from Garmin/Tacx.
	Wahoo KICKR CORE Zwift One (COG V2) + Play Controllers $499	$499	N/A	Zwift.com	This package includes the KICKR CORE with the Zwift V2 Cog, but notably now also includes the Zwift Play controllers. Basically, this saves you about $100 or so, and is the first time we've seen them bundle it.
	Wahoo KICKR MOVE - $300 off! $1,599	$999	N/A	REI	⚡⚡ This is actually a very solid deal, and the first time we've seen this discounted. In fact, frankly, this is the first time in years it feels like Wahoo is actually doing a legit sale on something. Kudos.
	Wahoo KICKR ROLLR - $100 off $599	$499	N/A	REI
	Wahoo KICKR SNAP - Lowest Price Ever $499	$199	Amazon	REI	This is lowest we've ever seen the KICKR SNAP priced. While the trend has moved towards wheel-off/direct drive trainers, this is still really solid deal if your budget it tight. That said, if you're in Europe, Decathlon has the D100 on sale for $199 also, and in my testing, I'd go with that almost every time.

DCRAINMAKER.COM Posts in the Past Week:

Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page this past week:

Sunday: DCR Video: Riding Zwift on the Actual Champs-Élysées
Tuesday: Garmin Acquires Firstbeat Analytics: A Quick Analysis of the Winners and Losers
Tuesday: Polar’s Unite Fitness Watch: Hands-on Details and First Run
Friday: Stages Bike (SB20) In-Depth Review

YouTube Videos This Past Week:

Here’s what hit the tubes over on the You of Tube, definitely don’t forget to subscribe there to get notified of videos the second they hit!

Stuff 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 (and in this case, some of these are from the past few weeks to clear out the backlog):

1) The Banned Vanmoof Ad: The ad was OK, but of course, the real magic was having it manage to get banned in France – and just drawing attention to the situation.

2) Google acquisition of Fitbit getting closer scrutiny from EU: It’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, Fitbit launches this fall. Given the company is still operating independently of Google, it puts them in a tough spot – unless they simply decided to go towards Wear OS anyway for new devices per their previously announced plan with Google.

3) Apple sleep tracking planned for over five years: While a good headline, I’m sure someone had it on a notepad somewhere to add sleep tracking. Ya know, given it’s been on every other competitive wearable company for 5-6 years. Plus, they did buy a sleep tracking company a few years later. That said, I completely agree on the REM sleep aspects of the interview.

4) Peloton rolls out Roku streaming app: It’s a super smart strategy to be as device agnostic as possible on the platform side (for those without bikes). They also rolled out Apple TV support back a bit ago this fall. Still, these apps lack significant amounts of workout target type metrics that the bike does have.

5) Lululemon buys Mirror for half a billion dollars: Well then.

6) Google Glass Part 2? Google buys North, a company focused on smart glasses. Ultimately, this product category won’t catch on in sports until GPS is integrated, battery life is 6-8 hours, do *everything* a watch or bike computer does, and the entire package looks like normal glasses. It’s this last line item and 2nd to last item that’s currently failing. (via Patrick)

7) Older Apple Patent around Cyclist Wind Resistance Shows up in News Cycle: However, this first came around 3-4 years ago when the patent was first applied for, but the patent hasn’t actually been issued yet best I can tell. Which, makes sense…cause it’s pretty much exactly what the PowerPod/iBike from Velocomp has been doing for probably a decade prior to Apple’s patent.

Sports Tech Device 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 are 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?  Oh – and if you want to get a head start on things, this page is a great resource for watching Garmin and a few other firmware updates.

Garmin Instinct Beta Firmware Update: Compass bug fix

Garmin Fenix 6 Series/MARQ BETA Firmware Update: Bug fixes

Polar Grit X Firmware Update: Some bug fixes, some tweaks to existing features

Suunto 7 Firmware/Software Update: Adds better integration to Google Fit, improved GPS accuracy, other tweaks

Wahoo ELEMNT/BOLT/ROAM Firmware Update: ‘Stability Improvements’

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Thanks for reading!