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Week in Review–December 13th, 2020

WeekInReview22

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:

There’s still tons of deals out and about, including some renewed/bigger Apple Watch Series 6 and SE deals, if you missed out on Black Friday.

ProductSale PriceAmazonOther siteSale Notes
Apple Watch Series 10 - $50 off
$399/$499 (cellular)
$349
Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium - $75 off$725This is a nice little deal for this unit which just came out.
Fitbit Ace LTE Kids Activity Smartwatch - 22% off$179This was just announced this summer, and is their first full smartwatch focused on kids activity tracking and gamification.
Fitbit Charge 6 - 38% off!
$159
$99This 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
Fitbit Sense 2 - $70 off$179
Fitbit Versa 4 - $40 off$119
Garmin Edge 1040 Cycling GPS - $100 off!$499This 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⚡⚡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$349This 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⚡⚡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$449This 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
$269This 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⚡ 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⚡⚡⚡ 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+⚡ 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!$249This 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$249This 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
$299This 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$349This 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$349This 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!$399This 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!$499This 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!$349This 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$1,049This 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!$299The 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!$399This 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$279Click to add $70 coupon into the cart. Bringing price down to $279!
Insta360 Ace Pro Action Cam - $50 off$299This 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!$239This 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!$199This 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
$499I 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
$899This 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
$499This 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⚡⚡ 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
Wahoo KICKR SNAP - Lowest Price Ever
$499
$199This 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:

Tuesday: Hammerhead Karoo 2 In-Depth Review
Tuesday: Tacx Boost Trainer In-Depth Review
Wednesday: The Massive 2020 Sportswatch Year in Review with DesFit
Friday: Behind the DCR Cave: How I Made A Smart Package Delivery Box

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 (also, this is really the last two weeks, as I didn’t quite hit publish on last week’s collection):

1) The dictator, the oligarch and the UCI president: If for some reason haven’t seen this piece yet, or read it, obviously, you most definitely should. It’s #1 on the list this week, despite being from last week.

2) Virtual Cycling and Real Cheating: Cracking Down on ‘Digital Doping’: A New York Times piece that I was quoted in a few times, discussing where Zwift stands here, mostly around the topics I discussed in this piece here.

3) The BikePaper Project: This is a 1.5” e-Paper display used on a bike computer, even with ANT+ sensor connectivity. As noted by the creator himself, this isn’t really a viable commercial project, but more of a hobbyist fun thing. Still, it’s always fun to see what people think up. Plus – these are the people that the bike computer companies want to hire. (Thanks KD!)

4) Could AI be the future of bike race coverage? Simply put – yup. At least for less important races. And we haven’t even begun to tap into what will eventually be possible here once beyond line of sight commercial media drone applications are commonplace (within a safe framework).

5) Meet the magnet bike fishers: These guys fish out old bikes, notably my older beloved Velib’s, from Parisian waterways.

6) Wristcam is a $299 Apple Watch Band: I’m struggling immensely to determine why I’d spend $299 for a poor quality camera on a wrist strap…all the size of a Babybel cheese round.

7) Fitbit Kinda Quietly Recalls Some Early Sense Units: We’re talking a few hundred units apparently, due to an issue with ECG failures. My bet here for the reason why Fitbit is doing this is since it touches on an FDA approved medical device. Versus I suspect other aspects of the device that might have seen failures might not have prompted such a recall/replacement.

8) 2020 Sportswatch Year in Review With DesFit: Just in case you missed it above in the link, here’s a super long-form chat with Des on all the watches released this past year.

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.

Garmin MARQ & Fenix 6 Series: Significant update with new features including sport-specific zones, Concept2 with PM5 module support, and a boatload of other tweaks.

Hammerhead Karoo Series Firmware Update: Largely minor tweaks.

With that – thanks for reading!

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14 Comments

  1. Rodrak

    Hi Ray,
    Regarding the E-ink project. I love e-ink on my Kindle i love BW display on my Suuntos and Bolt, but e-ink is dead end for bike computer. The referenced display guarantees 1000000 refresh cycles, thats 278 hours of ride with 1 second refresh rate, if you go 30kmph, thats 8300 km and than you may replace the display. Thats the weak spot of this lovely technology. Unfortunatelly.
    Cheers!

  2. Frank Goehner

    Hey Ray, any chance the fit files podcast with Gplama will start up again?

  3. Dave Messina

    Frank’s got a great question! Ever gonna get the podcast back up and running?!

  4. Pepe

    Hi Ray
    Can you post the .fit file from a run with Coros Pace 2 + Stryd?

  5. Bruce Burkhalter

    Ray –

    What are you thoughts on SPD power meter pedals coming to market in 2021? Think many will ship and will they be relatively accurate?

    Have a great holiday and stay safe!

  6. Duncan74

    Regarding #6 – it’s close to something I’ve been hunting for ages. I run without my phone 99% of time, and when I ride then I’ll have my phone, but zipped in a pocket. And yet there are loads of times I’d love to grab a quick snap for instagram or strava, but CBA to pull from pocket.
    So a really light, fairly low resolution camera, waterproof, that I could clip on (think old Ipod nano) would be a definite purchase. Literally 20 years ago there was a UKP20 thing that was size and thickness of 2 stacked credit cards.
    In other ‘back to the past’ technology then an FM radio for running. I’ve an old Sony MP3 with FM in it and some bose earbuds – when the bose finally break then I’m stuffed. All the wireless/bluetooth earbuds don’t have the cable to act as aerial.

    • Bruce Burkhalter

      Maybe a used, older GoPro? Or maybe a GoPro Session? Might be a little bigger than you are thinking but they are pretty cheap, relatively waterproof without a case, can take some abuse, and with the wide angle you don’t have to be too accurate with your aiming.

    • Duncan74

      GoPro and a clip is too big/heavy bouncy. I do have one, and have used it for paddleboarding.

      I’m after a sports version of link to getnarrative.com – simply press to take a snap, then ideally the photos upload via bluetooth app later, but even if I needed to plug into USB to download I’d be fine. Daft thing is this is really old tech – but somehow nothing has replaced it, or at least it’s been replaced by heavier, larger and with lower battery life devices.

    • Interestingly enough, an Apple patent surfaced yesterday for putting a camera below the screen of the watch itself. link to appleinsider.com

      Of course, Apple files boatloads of patents a year for things that never come true. But would likely solve the problem better than something on the outside.

    • Duncan74

      Bugger. They read my post and were darn quick to lodge it. ;-)

      Right, I’m off down the patent office now to protect my next idea. I’m going to add a telephone to a camera. Whilst it may sound daft that you want to talk to someone not there whilst you are taking pictures, trust me, it’s going to change the world….

    • André berger

      Maybe the Canon IVY REC can fit your needs? It looks like it can only be clipped hanging on to something in portrait orientation, but I think some kind of clip could be made and attached to get it straight. link to dpreview.com

  7. Andrew M

    The Bike Paper project could be a really good way of doing Garmin’s Extended Display, without the expense of using an over-spec’ed GPS unit as just a passive display.