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Week in Review: April 5th, 2021

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 a handful of sports tech deals out there right now:

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

Sunday: Week in Review–March 28th, 2021
Tuesday: Polar Ignite 2 Hands-On: What’s New & Different
Wednesday: Suunto adds Komoot Routes Turn by Turn Integration in Latest Update
Wednesday: Tacx & Garmin Increase Tacx App Integration, Plus Training Status Plans
Wednesday: Peloton’s $120 Credit & 10X Points for Chase Sapphire Cardholders (US only)
Friday: Review: Bike Mount for DJI Drones to use with Active Track

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, there’s a few things this week that were actually from a week or two ago – I’m just catching up on this list:

1) A deeper look at the Wahoo Speedplay Power Pedals (engineering perspective): For those that know Keith, he’s one of the most public power meter developers in the industry, and also behind many sports tech gadgets within the cycling world from a number of companies. Here’s his most recent look at the FCC filings from Wahoo, on their recently announced Wahoo Speedplay power meter:

2) ZwiftHub Closing Down: Congrats to Toby (the person behind it) on his new job at Wahoo. Unfortunately, it means at the end of the month, ZwiftHub is no more. Perhaps Zwift will consider acquiring it for a fair rate.

image

I do think this once again though shows how big a boon it would be for Zwift to actually have a proper/supported API, akin to what Strava has, for people to Create Cool Shit. It’s these sorts of projects that should eventually be built into Zwift (or acquired). But as Strava and their 20,000+ apps shows, there’s an incredible potential for 3rd party apps to fill in the gaps and increase the community around Zwift.

3) Peloton closes Precor acquisition – shifts focus to Commercial usage: In the grand scheme of sports tech deals, this is one of the bigger ones in recent years, as it will dramatically increase production capability for Peloton. However, when it was announced last December, it didn’t mention increasing focus on the commercial side of Peloton – it just mentioned getting gear to ‘members sooner. However, the new announcement specifically calls out using Precor to focus on the commercial aspect of Peloton (e.g. hotels/apartments/etc…), which by and large Peloton has treated as the red-headed stepchild over the years. Yet, it’s also a great place to introduce people to the Peloton brand with zero marketing cost.

4) A look at the 2021 Chip Shortage: This is a good dive into the semiconductor chip shortage and how it’s impacting the industry (including sports tech). While sometimes this will be obvious to you as a consumer, most times it won’t be: It’ll just mean delayed product launches behind the scenes, or perhaps limited availability without a reason. This is mostly the reason.

5) Casio launches new WearOS watch: Though, perhaps unsurprisingly, without solar capabilities. Given WearOS has the well-earned reputation of being the Cookie Monster of battery burn, the trivial amount of power that solar delivers in most watches probably wouldn’t last more than a song on WearOS. Still, good to see more options. Hopefully we’ll see Casio find a way to refine what they have sports-wise today, which in my testing of their GBD-H1000 (solar, with FirstBeat Analytics) seemed like a promising vision, but fell pretty far short in reality. For example, there was only one sport mode (running/hiking), which meant if you wanted to use it for a ride – it screwed up all your data.

5) Garmin engineer discussing dual-band GPS implementations: Nothing crazy deep, but some tidbits there for those that are interested.

6) Want a cargo bike emoji? One emoji developer is looking at submitting a cargo bike emoji for consideration, however, he is trying to nail down the design. Give a quick tap on this Twitter vote to help.

7) Equipping cyclists to identify bad bike intersections: This project equipped 700 cyclists with little beepers that they’d tap when they stumbled upon poor/clumsy bike situations. During the trial some 36,000 situations in Amsterdam were identified, giving city planners areas to consider upgrades for. Looking at the map, I’d definitely agree with most of the larger dots.

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 Swim 2 Firmware Update: Bug fixes

Garmin Fenix 5 & 5 Plus Series BETA Firmware Update: Bug fixes (including fixing a Physio True-up updating issue)

Suunto 5 Firmware Update: Adds turn by turn with Komoot, supports POI interest/navigation

Suunto 9 Firmware Update: Adds Tour battery mode, turn by turn with Komoot, POI, and Suunto Plus Red Bull app.

(Kinda a quiet week for firmware updates)

With that – thanks for reading!

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18 Comments

  1. Antoine Nguyen

    Did you notice that the SRAM AXS Power meter has dropped to 450 USD (from 600?), what a great deal now!

  2. Joe

    Damn. I haven’t used Zwift in a bit as it’s gotten nicer out, so this is the first I’m seeing about ZwiftHub. I load up ZwiftHub before literally every ride to help determine a route. What a huge loss.

  3. Andrew

    Not a single post on Instagram last month? Is the extra one in Feb the reason or are you going for two posts this month? I think the KFC cargo bike would’ve qualified?

    • Yeah, I’ve gotta be careful to not over-deliver here. Given the two Instagram posts in February, March would indeed seem to warrant a skip to keep things on the right progression. :)

      (Actually, I remembered at 12:05AM on Apr 1st, and then was like…well…crap me.)

  4. Keren

    Hey Ray,

    Will also be sad to see ZwiftHub go. But it seems ZwiftHacks has already come up with a solution? But Zwift should have something set up already as a matter of course. Good luck to Toby at Wahoo, he will do great there.

    To change the subject but to stay on Zwift. Not sure if you have seen this recent news, but Zwift finally did what they said they would do a year or two ago, and stopped supporting the Milestone Pod app from 1 February. You can still use it to run on Zwift but there is no way to see your data and stats anymore. Or even check the battery level. Lot’s of unhappy Milestone Pod users here:
    link to forums.zwift.com

    I also use a Milestone for my Zwift runs and they shut the app down without any warning. They should have said something at least that it was about to lose support.

    Maybe you can dig a little deeper about this? Seems Zwift just doesn’t care about the pod that they bought.

    Cheers!

    • Bummer, that sucks. Though, somewhat inevitable I suspect. Largely, as I bet that Zwift might not even have on staff any longer the couple people that were behind Milestone. :-/

  5. Onno

    I assume the purpose of the “Trending Now on DC Rainmaker” overlay isn’t to scare off visitors, but in its current form it’s doing just that. While it could be somewhat interesting in theory (but not too much, since I’m obviously already reading the site), having it pop up on every single page and obscuring the real content makes it more annoying than any 3rd party ad I’ve seen here.

    • Yeah, it’s something that’s being tested by the ad company I have the last week. It’s not quite where we want it yet. It seems fine on desktop, but a bit over the top for mobile. Appreciate the feedback – trying to find the right balance is always tricky. But I’ll keep trying!

  6. usr

    Oh, i love FCC internals. So (unsurprisingly, given the first external pictures) same gauge placing as Assioma, but definitely a new design regarding board and battery. Those Powerzero things will be light! Battery cells appear to be similar size 60mAh, but Wahoo using only two per pedal instead of three. And it looks like Wahoo is going for a conventionally sealed cavity instead of playing it safe and flooding the entire pod with resin. On top of that, not only is the board more integrated (less distinct components in addition to the nrf52 they all use), they also skip the magnet for the charging adapter, opting for simple mechanical clipping instead.

  7. RIP ZwiftHub

    ZwiftHub will be sorely missed. It’s worth noting that the developer noted his dream was to work in this space, yet ended up being hired by Wahoo, not Zwift. How dumb can Zwift be? They should’ve hired the guy and had him start by making ZwiftHub’s functionality part of the Companion App.

  8. Helm

    Also interesting around the interwebs:

    ‘Beseffen jullie wel hoe perféct Amsterdam is?’ in de NRC van Stan Putman, dd. 8 april 2021.

    (..) Toch is het heel speciaal wat zich achter uw venster afspeelt, meent de Canadese Amsterdammer Jason Slaughter (44). Het is zelfs zo bijzonder, dat hij ervoor naar Nederland is verhuisd, na omzwervingen langs de VS, het Verenigd Koninkrijk, Taiwan en België. Op zijn YouTube-kanaal Not Just Bikes (link to youtube.com) legt Slaughter uit dat het aangename leven in Nederland alles te maken heeft met de manier waarop ons land is ontworpen. Hij plaatst er filmpjes over Nederlandse geneugten als slimme stoplichten, autoluwe straten en gescheiden fietspaden. Met de video’s bereikt Slaughter een publiek van honderdduizenden mensen. Filmen doet hij met een handzame digitale camera, of, als hij op de fiets zit, met een schokbestendige Go Pro-camera die hij op zijn borst bevestigt.(..)

  9. AJ Moreton

    Hi, do you think or know if there is a Coros Apex 2 arrivng as I am thinking of buying the Apex, but would wait if an Apex 2 is arriving this year…. should I wait or Buy? Tricky…

  10. Brett

    Looking forward to your newsletter!

    • Tom

      My weekly look for new sport tech updates, reminds me to come to your ‘week in review’, and then i find myself looking around.
      Shame it’s not updated as much, it’s always a good read. Don’t simply want to bookmark the other page, as I might never come back here 😉