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:
We’re currently in the lull between Amazon Prime Day a few weeks back, and the start of Black Friday type sales in November. Still, there’s some decent options out there. Oh, you can always access all deals at dcrainmaker.com/deals
Also – Backcountry.com has a 20% off one item sale right now. While it’s not valid for most of the sports tech products you might want, it is valid on plenty of other supporting gear you probably buy. Using this link you’ll see the 20% coupon on the homepage to add to your cart. Plus, it helps support the site here.
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. 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.
⚡ 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.
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:
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) Full presentations from Garmin Developer Virtual Conference Now Available: You can watch most of them, and while I haven’t yet had the opportunity to listen to them all, there’s usually some solid behind the scenes nuggets in these presentations. Often especially from the business track ones (like this one). Also, semi-related, it’s cool to see nearly 30,000 people have streamed my full 45-minute-long ‘State of Sports Tech’ presentation. But even cooler is the intelligent comments in the comments section there. YouTube often has the (usually correct) reputation of the comments section being a dumpster fire. But this is a nice example of that not being the case. Also, somewhat astoundingly, assuming people made it past the first 60 seconds, almost 60% made it then the full 45 minutes. That’s crazy for YouTube. Which isn’t to be like ‘Oh, people liked it’ – but to point out that there is an audience for some long-form fitness tech on YouTube. Kinda like last year when DesFit and I did a 34+ minute long video together discussing the year in smartwatches…that now has 300,000 views!
5) Magene P325 CS Power Meter Kickstarter Launches: I generally think Magene actually makes good products. They primarily focus on the Asian market, with most depth in China. But they also partner with some major western sports tech companies for OEM of equipment. Thus, I’m a bit surprised to see a very well established company on Kickstarter. All about marketing. I haven’t tested this unit yet. Maybe soon.
6) Fitbit posts pretty good Q3 results: Of note is that this actually wouldn’t have likely included any meaningful number of their newest Sense/Versa 3 units, since those only started shipping the last few days of the quarter.
7) And yes, Peloton posted strong Q3 results: As did Garmin, but in the case of Peloton, they managed to ship some 243,000 smart bikes out to consumers. Yet the waiting list is mostly into the December to January timeframe right now. Kinda crazy. Still, for the next quarter they’re expecting to ship roughly the same number of units out – which tells you that they haven’t quite found a way to add additional manufacturing capacity yet.
8) Livestream with Dave from Chase The Summit: Since there was no ‘Week in Review’ last week, I didn’t have a place to stick this. But you can sit back and listen to an hour-long chat on sports tech geekery, plus lots of random historical DCR bits and bobs.
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.
Do you know when you’ll be able to post your review of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3? Trying to decide between it and the Venu since the Sense has not gotten great reviews. Thanks for all your in-depth analysis of these products!
For your point about ‘if people make it past 60 seconds” of your YouTube video, I hope I’m not skewing the stats. I check every few days to see if YouTube has yet added the autocraptions so I can follow the video. (Still a no). On a slightly related note, I got the Edge 1030 and Varia 510 from the Amazon Prime Day. The 510 refused to pair with the 1030. I went through the process with Garmin support, still no dice. I sent it to Garmin HQS, and they sent me a Varia 515 as a replacement. Sweet! Pairing went without a hitch. I did a ride the other day, and found that “seeing” the multiple cars behind me, and just about to pass me, make me much more comfortable out on the road, where I can’t hear them and have sometimes been caught by surprise when they whiz pass.
Yeah, the auto-caption situation sucks. It’s been escalated within YouTube support and is now with engineering somewhere. Essentially, I can’t get any auto-captions generated for really any of my videos since late September. Which means I can’t then correct/fix them like I often do.
Hi Ray – thanks for all the exhaustive reviews. Really enjoy the long format articles – such a rare pleasure in a world of 280 characters and listicles.
I’ve noticed that Wiggle have started their Black Friday deals and have the Garmin 1030 at £299. Seems like a steal, but will I miss not having the ‘+’?
I’ve used two cadence sensors from magene. The first one failed pretty quickly (after about 300 km), I think because the battery cover thread was very fragile, and it was impossible to close the battery cover tightly. Now I use the slightly updated model (called 210 I believe), and after one full season of cycling it is still good.
I always enjoy your keynote and I can usually get my wife to listen to some of it, too. Now I have to figure out how to get her interested in the year in review videos you do. It is always fun to see you with Des or Shane.
About £227 to get a genuine dual-sided powermeter – the 40% discount is a lot so I guess retail it’ll sit nearer £400 but if they pull it off the likes of Stages charging £700 for an inaccurate Shimano based PM are going to have to have a rethink you would suspect. Whilst pedals will always be able to command a premium for their installation and portability ease, this seems like a bit of a shot across the bows of the likes of Favero as well at £600.
Could this be a little bit of a prod that, if they get something accurate to market, we start to see another little downward jump in PM pricing (the fact that you can get an early bird single sided for £120 is mind boggling!)
A mention of IQ squared should be made. We have seen no reviews of the actual production unit. Until a manufacturer actually ships the product being sold can we consider buying it. Too often the product being offered changes during the solicitation period. They will downgrade the offerings or it will not actually happen.
IQ sent a product to DCR, which was entirely operable but they have subsequently changed it according to their posts.
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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.
Do you know when you’ll be able to post your review of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3? Trying to decide between it and the Venu since the Sense has not gotten great reviews. Thanks for all your in-depth analysis of these products!
Sorry to read Peanut 2’s mishap guys. Hope the recovery is easy and fast.
Likewise, and lots of healing thoughts + support to The Girl, having a bedridden toddler is my idea of hell!
For your point about ‘if people make it past 60 seconds” of your YouTube video, I hope I’m not skewing the stats. I check every few days to see if YouTube has yet added the autocraptions so I can follow the video. (Still a no). On a slightly related note, I got the Edge 1030 and Varia 510 from the Amazon Prime Day. The 510 refused to pair with the 1030. I went through the process with Garmin support, still no dice. I sent it to Garmin HQS, and they sent me a Varia 515 as a replacement. Sweet! Pairing went without a hitch. I did a ride the other day, and found that “seeing” the multiple cars behind me, and just about to pass me, make me much more comfortable out on the road, where I can’t hear them and have sometimes been caught by surprise when they whiz pass.
Yeah, the auto-caption situation sucks. It’s been escalated within YouTube support and is now with engineering somewhere. Essentially, I can’t get any auto-captions generated for really any of my videos since late September. Which means I can’t then correct/fix them like I often do.
:(
Hi Ray – thanks for all the exhaustive reviews. Really enjoy the long format articles – such a rare pleasure in a world of 280 characters and listicles.
I’ve noticed that Wiggle have started their Black Friday deals and have the Garmin 1030 at £299. Seems like a steal, but will I miss not having the ‘+’?
I think you will miss the + ? The + has the newer low energy GPS Chip from Sony and is really faster for Route calculation.
Thoughts on the Descent MK2?
Not impressed with Magene’s quality. Got a heart rate sensor that would stop transmitting after 40mins.
Good to know! Did you buy the magene’s cadence sensor? I wish to know if it is good, because it is very cheap!
I’ve used two cadence sensors from magene. The first one failed pretty quickly (after about 300 km), I think because the battery cover thread was very fragile, and it was impossible to close the battery cover tightly. Now I use the slightly updated model (called 210 I believe), and after one full season of cycling it is still good.
Thanks!
I think the bald chap was the linesman not the ref but minor detail, still funny.
am i the only one who missed the podcast with shane ?
I always enjoy your keynote and I can usually get my wife to listen to some of it, too. Now I have to figure out how to get her interested in the year in review videos you do. It is always fun to see you with Des or Shane.
Am I the only one missing the Fit file podcast???
I’m missing it as well
About £227 to get a genuine dual-sided powermeter – the 40% discount is a lot so I guess retail it’ll sit nearer £400 but if they pull it off the likes of Stages charging £700 for an inaccurate Shimano based PM are going to have to have a rethink you would suspect. Whilst pedals will always be able to command a premium for their installation and portability ease, this seems like a bit of a shot across the bows of the likes of Favero as well at £600.
Could this be a little bit of a prod that, if they get something accurate to market, we start to see another little downward jump in PM pricing (the fact that you can get an early bird single sided for £120 is mind boggling!)
“if they get something accurate to market”
And thus, the most important question.
A mention of IQ squared should be made. We have seen no reviews of the actual production unit. Until a manufacturer actually ships the product being sold can we consider buying it. Too often the product being offered changes during the solicitation period. They will downgrade the offerings or it will not actually happen.
IQ sent a product to DCR, which was entirely operable but they have subsequently changed it according to their posts.
Hmmm, another kickstarter power meter, I will put down money that it goes as well as IQ2 and Limits