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:
Ok, not much left this week. Sorta a lull. But hey, if ya need a GoPro Hero 8 Black or AirPods, it’s still on sale!
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.
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.
⚡⚡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.
⚡⚡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.
⚡ 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.
⚡⚡⚡ This is a crazy super strong deal. Note the Epix received all of the software updates of the Epix Pro. This deal keeps floating between $399 and $429 - frankly, at either price it's an awesome deal.
⚡ 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
⚡⚡ 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.
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, as noted last week, I planned for this past week to be pretty quiet as I prep for this upcoming week
Like I said, it was gonna be busy. It’s gonna be like this for the next few weeks. And, a few ‘hopeful’ things didn’t quite make the cut for last week. They’ll spill into this week.
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) Amazon Halo Wearable Announcement: Like most people, I’m part curious, and part side-eye to the wearable that listens to your voice. While this type of device realistically won’t capture my specific workout needs, I am curious from a review standpoint. There’s been a lot said about the device, but honestly, most of what has been said is easily disproven (no, you don’t take naked photos…but yes, the microphone is listening all the time…but also yes, you can physically turn that off if you want). I’m not entirely sure yet what part of the market this will impact. Sure, Fitbit is the most obvious. But I don’t think it takes much of a chunk (if any) from Apple, Garmin, or others. At least not at this point. But if we know anything about Amazon we know that this is only the beginning. And some of the integration at scale is super interesting – such as their plans to create ‘Labs’ like projects with health/medical institutions (similar to what Apple does), to get mass participation. Anyway, review eventually, whenever I get a device.
2) The Best Indoor Smartbike Non-Review Ever: The Bowflex VeloCore is…umm…something else entirely. Eschewing power output and other cycling focused metrics it…err…wiggles. I suppose they’d prefer the term ‘sway’. Or ‘tip’. Or…I have no idea. But, what I do know is that Iain Treloar absolutely nailed this piece.
3) An exercise in pointlessness: Emma Pooley on her world-record Everesting: For the most part, I’ve ignored the whole Everesting ‘thing’ lately. Perhaps because I live in a spot where it’d require about 578 repeats of the largest climb near me. However, if you’re like me, then this is the piece to read. Not because it’ll inspire any desire to Everest yourself, but because Emma’s like Iain, an awesome writer that has an astounding way with words. Seriously, just go read it.
4) A Rare Peek Inside a DJI Drone Factory: This is pretty crazy, especially the point where the drones are automatically triggered to fly off the assembly line (literally) for a series of automated tests.
5) Zwift’s New Pace Partners: While bots aren’t new to Zwift, and while I thought this concept would be stupid at first glance – I actually kinda like the idea of joining a pace partner for a given wattage target. When I look to do a Zwift ride I usually glance at the schedule and then realize I’ve supposedly got 3 mins to make the race start…while I’m still sitting on the couch in street clothes and my bike isn’t even on the trainer. The idea of an ‘always-on’ group ride is interesting. Will probably give it a whirl this week.
6) Into aero testing? Then here’s a quick survey (under a minute) for you to help out the GoldenCheetah folks work on their AeroLab 2.0 and prioritize features.
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, Wahoo, Polar, and a few other firmware updates.
GoPro Hero 8 Black Firmware Update: Adds webcam mode for Mac (and beta for PC), also enables HyperSmooth 2.0 High & Boost modes to more resolutions. Most notably Boost is now supported in SuperView.
I’ll likely be deferring to Iain on this one. I mean, sure, if they want to send one to me – I’m happy to put it through its sways, but for now, Iain will have to hold the torch.
Is Eurobike happening next week? You mentioned it in a video saying new trainers are typically announced here, but I can’t find any other info online about it.
No, Eurobike was postponed from what was this week, till late November.
Realistically, that won’t happen – Eurobike just hasn’t realized it yet. None of the sports tech brands I’ve talked with have any plans to announce anything there during that timeslot.
Instead, they’re announcing this ahead of the normal Eurobike timeslot. We saw Elite’s Direto XR, Elite’s Sterzo, Wahoo’s KICKR 2020/5, and Wattbike is set to start shipping their ATOM 2020. There’s probably a few others I’ve forgotten. However, I don’t expect much else near-term, nor any further trainers this year.
Does this mean there’s not even a new wearable like a Garmin Vivosmart 5, possibily something that has both GPS and PulseOx in the pipeline? I was hoping to switch back from a Fenix 3 HR to a traditional watch on my “watch wrist”, putting a Vivosmart 5 / Vivosport 2 on the other …
I’m surprised that we even got an update to the 645.
Some users have reported that the update has fixed the altimeter recordings on the watch, and if this is really the case, then it does fix the most annoying problem I have with the watch.
If this makes the watch less of a nuisance, then I just might be able to postpone buying a new watch until the next generation of watches comes out
Yeah, it’s a great one. I almost didn’t read it when I saw Everesting – but having Emma Pooley in the title I’m like ‘Ok, I’ll give it a few paragraphs’. Glad I did!
The editor’s comments about engagement of readers around the two world records (Alberto Contador and Emma’s) is also a really fascinating bit of insight. Pooley is just so talented at basically everything she does!
Any chance you’ll do an overview of your thoughts/analysis on the Garmin ransomware incident? Sorry to keep posting this same question but usually you’re all over something like this.
I posted a respond somewhere, but in short, I honestly don’t think there’s much more I have to add at this point. Sites like BleepingComputer have really good deep-dives into information.
Most of my Garmin contacts are on the product side, rather than IT side.
Over time, I suspect we’ll get more. I think the big piece outstanding in my head is whether or not they (Garmin) purposefully shut-down their consumer-facing infrastructure, or if that was gotten to as well. Based on what they’ve said, I’m going to guess they actually proactively shut that down, since they noted that the attackers didn’t have access to that data.
Ultimately, as I said somewhere else – any attacker that’s determined enough will get to *ANY* company. Especially large companies that have greater surface areas and integrations/end points. There’s various things you can do to mitigate and make it more difficult, but at the end of the day, no computer/IT security plan is perfect (and usually humans are the weak link). As an IT security person you attempt to reduce those avenues, but getting that to zero avenues is simply not possible in today’s highly complex and integrated IT systems.
Thanks! Missed your other reply -sorry.
Interesting you think they shut down customer facing side. I was wondering if you think they’ll do more to make Connect app work better without needing the cloud?
Anyways, thanks for the response here!
I suspect we’ll see better offline support. I also suspect some of the bugs/quirks around offloading more than X activities will simply happen device-side rather than via GC (people couldn’t start a new workout if their device was out of space, as normally GCM takes care of offloading old activities). I wouldn’t surprise me if that change was already pushed out via firmware update.
Emma Pooley’s article is brilliant! If anyone is familiar with British newspapers — particularly The Guardian — she is cycling journalism’s Marina Hyde!
Thank you for highlighting the article by Emma Pooley. I have long been a big fan. She has an honesty about sport and an ability to express herself which is refreshing in in world where “media trained” interviews are common which, simply put, are boring beyond belief.
As a side note I hope womens cycling gets through this difficult time and emerges stronger. They deliver exciting racing time after time despite being marginalised and under funded. They deserve better from the UCI, ASO, broadcasters and all the other “stake holders” in the cycling industry.
Hi Ray, is there no more FIT File podcast? You guys have been very quiet during the last week’s or months – at least together. What’s happened? Missing the podcast…
Do you think the Amazon Halo could impact Whoop? As it hasn’t been released, i don’t know if it’ll be as comprehensive as Whoop, but considering they look the same and Halo is around a tenth of the subscription price of Whoop, for the general user looking for more recovery information that might be a cheaper and ‘ok enough’ option.
@Don – that has got nothing to do with Garmin. If someone wants to integrate with Garmin, they provide an API for a 5000USD fee. That means Tacx are the ones that need to do the integration.
Not quite yet. Was on vacation for a bit, and then the last few weeks have been pretty slammed.
Ironically, last week was viable, except the winds were simply too strong – well beyond spec at 70-90KPH. I’m willing to push the spec a bit…but not when I know I’m gonna kill it.
This is more current week than last, but any thoughts on the Gopro Hero 9 rumor leaks?
I’m admittedly late to the Gopro party and was about to pull the trigger on a Hero 8 (thanks to your reviews), but now wondering if it’s worth waiting a few weeks for a potential front screen and better battery door of the 9 (at probably higher price).
And I thought all content on the internet was 100% accurate…
That’s an excellent callout. I’m sure we’ll get factual data from GoPro in the next month or so if history is our guide on new releases… then again 2020 has a love/ hate relationship with precedence
I want to go back and apologize for my comment on this thread a couple weeks back. I am sure this type of question is extremely frustrating while under embargo. I also want to applaud your ethicacy and wit in being able to reply without violating any agreements.
Now that the GoPro webcam feature has moved out of beta on the Mac, is it now possible to run it and the QR code feature together, or is it still one or the other?
Also, has the ‘older stories’ link disappeared off your home page (under the five thumbnails), or was that just something I imagined?
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FAQ’s
I have built an extensive list of my most frequently asked questions. Below are the most popular.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Ray, are you going to review the Bowflex, or is Iain your guest reviewer for that one?
I’ll likely be deferring to Iain on this one. I mean, sure, if they want to send one to me – I’m happy to put it through its sways, but for now, Iain will have to hold the torch.
Is Eurobike happening next week? You mentioned it in a video saying new trainers are typically announced here, but I can’t find any other info online about it.
No, Eurobike was postponed from what was this week, till late November.
Realistically, that won’t happen – Eurobike just hasn’t realized it yet. None of the sports tech brands I’ve talked with have any plans to announce anything there during that timeslot.
Instead, they’re announcing this ahead of the normal Eurobike timeslot. We saw Elite’s Direto XR, Elite’s Sterzo, Wahoo’s KICKR 2020/5, and Wattbike is set to start shipping their ATOM 2020. There’s probably a few others I’ve forgotten. However, I don’t expect much else near-term, nor any further trainers this year.
Hi Ray,
love your work, thank you so much!
Does this mean there’s not even a new wearable like a Garmin Vivosmart 5, possibily something that has both GPS and PulseOx in the pipeline? I was hoping to switch back from a Fenix 3 HR to a traditional watch on my “watch wrist”, putting a Vivosmart 5 / Vivosport 2 on the other …
Thank you again & have a great day :)
Wooh wooh, 645 update. No wait, no new features. Boohoo.
I’m surprised that we even got an update to the 645.
Some users have reported that the update has fixed the altimeter recordings on the watch, and if this is really the case, then it does fix the most annoying problem I have with the watch.
If this makes the watch less of a nuisance, then I just might be able to postpone buying a new watch until the next generation of watches comes out
Thank you for highlighting Emma Pooley’s article! It really is a fantastic read. She is simply fantastic in every way.
Seconded. Go read that piece if you didn’t already!
Yeah, it’s a great one. I almost didn’t read it when I saw Everesting – but having Emma Pooley in the title I’m like ‘Ok, I’ll give it a few paragraphs’. Glad I did!
The editor’s comments about engagement of readers around the two world records (Alberto Contador and Emma’s) is also a really fascinating bit of insight. Pooley is just so talented at basically everything she does!
What happened to The Fit File podcast?
At some point we’ll have another episode.
Any chance you’ll do an overview of your thoughts/analysis on the Garmin ransomware incident? Sorry to keep posting this same question but usually you’re all over something like this.
I posted a respond somewhere, but in short, I honestly don’t think there’s much more I have to add at this point. Sites like BleepingComputer have really good deep-dives into information.
Most of my Garmin contacts are on the product side, rather than IT side.
Over time, I suspect we’ll get more. I think the big piece outstanding in my head is whether or not they (Garmin) purposefully shut-down their consumer-facing infrastructure, or if that was gotten to as well. Based on what they’ve said, I’m going to guess they actually proactively shut that down, since they noted that the attackers didn’t have access to that data.
Ultimately, as I said somewhere else – any attacker that’s determined enough will get to *ANY* company. Especially large companies that have greater surface areas and integrations/end points. There’s various things you can do to mitigate and make it more difficult, but at the end of the day, no computer/IT security plan is perfect (and usually humans are the weak link). As an IT security person you attempt to reduce those avenues, but getting that to zero avenues is simply not possible in today’s highly complex and integrated IT systems.
Thanks! Missed your other reply -sorry.
Interesting you think they shut down customer facing side. I was wondering if you think they’ll do more to make Connect app work better without needing the cloud?
Anyways, thanks for the response here!
I suspect we’ll see better offline support. I also suspect some of the bugs/quirks around offloading more than X activities will simply happen device-side rather than via GC (people couldn’t start a new workout if their device was out of space, as normally GCM takes care of offloading old activities). I wouldn’t surprise me if that change was already pushed out via firmware update.
I think this is what Bowflex was going for but they couldn’t negotiate the rights —
link to youtu.be
Amazing!
Emma Pooley’s article is brilliant! If anyone is familiar with British newspapers — particularly The Guardian — she is cycling journalism’s Marina Hyde!
Thank you for highlighting the article by Emma Pooley. I have long been a big fan. She has an honesty about sport and an ability to express herself which is refreshing in in world where “media trained” interviews are common which, simply put, are boring beyond belief.
As a side note I hope womens cycling gets through this difficult time and emerges stronger. They deliver exciting racing time after time despite being marginalised and under funded. They deserve better from the UCI, ASO, broadcasters and all the other “stake holders” in the cycling industry.
Hi Ray, is there no more FIT File podcast? You guys have been very quiet during the last week’s or months – at least together. What’s happened? Missing the podcast…
Just saw the earlier question and Ray’s reply…
Do you think the Amazon Halo could impact Whoop? As it hasn’t been released, i don’t know if it’ll be as comprehensive as Whoop, but considering they look the same and Halo is around a tenth of the subscription price of Whoop, for the general user looking for more recovery information that might be a cheaper and ‘ok enough’ option.
Ray, thx for posting interweb stuff #2, that one bowflexed my day… brilliant stuff
First off, great video in the karoo 2!
Could you ask garmin if they have any plans for Tacx Training apps and specifically connecting them to garmin connect?
@Don – that has got nothing to do with Garmin. If someone wants to integrate with Garmin, they provide an API for a 5000USD fee. That means Tacx are the ones that need to do the integration.
The fee is long gone (officially Apr 2019, reality was far earlier). Similarly, Garmin bought Tacx in January 2019. :)
Any update on the Skydio 2 high wind test?
Not quite yet. Was on vacation for a bit, and then the last few weeks have been pretty slammed.
Ironically, last week was viable, except the winds were simply too strong – well beyond spec at 70-90KPH. I’m willing to push the spec a bit…but not when I know I’m gonna kill it.
Sheesh that’s windy. Looking forward to it, but don’t risk a guaranteed splash down for our sake.
This is more current week than last, but any thoughts on the Gopro Hero 9 rumor leaks?
I’m admittedly late to the Gopro party and was about to pull the trigger on a Hero 8 (thanks to your reviews), but now wondering if it’s worth waiting a few weeks for a potential front screen and better battery door of the 9 (at probably higher price).
I’ve seen the leaks. Albeit, last year there were leaks saying 8K recording…
And I thought all content on the internet was 100% accurate…
That’s an excellent callout. I’m sure we’ll get factual data from GoPro in the next month or so if history is our guide on new releases… then again 2020 has a love/ hate relationship with precedence
I want to go back and apologize for my comment on this thread a couple weeks back. I am sure this type of question is extremely frustrating while under embargo. I also want to applaud your ethicacy and wit in being able to reply without violating any agreements.
No worries – I try my best to thread the line!
Now that the GoPro webcam feature has moved out of beta on the Mac, is it now possible to run it and the QR code feature together, or is it still one or the other?
Also, has the ‘older stories’ link disappeared off your home page (under the five thumbnails), or was that just something I imagined?
Hmm, I think it’s one or the other still. I haven’t re-tried the QR stuff in labs, or seen if they’ve posted a new labs one.
No changes to the site, though, you can always access old posts by hitting the ‘Blog’ header at the top (or, link to /www.dcrainmaker.com)
Thanks for being a DCR supporter!
The app you link for Normalized Power states its not compatible with Edge 130 Plus.
I’m confused. I don’t think I linked to any app about normalized power (or the Edge 130 Plus) in this Week in Review post. Can you clarify?