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5 Easy Steps To The Site
1
In Depth Product Reviews
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.
2
Read My Sports Gadget Recommendations.
Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
3
Have some fun in the travel section.
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.
4
My Photography Gear: The Cameras/Drones/Action Cams I Use Daily
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!
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The Swim/Bike/Run Gear I Use List
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.
Absolutely in favour of a standard watch cable, Garmin did the right thing when they standardised theirs. While it’s not perfect, perhaps that one could be the standard, it’s essentially just another USB connector so easy to implement. That said I assume it isn’t waterproof enough to be fully standard as it’s not on the Descent. It’s been long enough that I wouldn’t be upset with Garmin making a change to a new standard, the F5 was a loooong time ago which was I think the first with the new cable?
Really wish Garmin would buy Withings. The Garmin scale is so unbelievably slow and frustrating to use, but direct integration with Connect makes it hard to do anything else. I used to sync a Withings but it would break now and then which was frustrating.
After the optional Widgets are disabled my Garmin scale is fairly quick with measurements. It is relatively close to my WiFi base station.
It’s the turning on that sucks most. I can’t even tell what triggers it, it’s certainly not someone standing on it, seems to be sound sometimes. The Withings you stand on, it tells you your weight, simples!
with
https://smartscalesync.com
you can sync withings with weight, bodyfat, etc. complete to Garmin without any issues
I do grant you I don’t know WTF is supposed to turn on the scale half the time. That said, my basic method seems to work:
1) Kick the scale
2) It lights up
3) I step on it
In the event I get distracted between steps 2 and 3 above, and don’t immediately step on it, then it gets upset. But in terms of measurement speed/update/etc, it’s all basically instant to me. Both at home and at the DCR Cave.
I’ll give credit in that other companies have mostly done a good job here too.
Apple obviously has used the same one the entire time, though newer ones are faster (but still backwards compatible, so you can use whatever with whatever).
COROS has kept the same charger port since the beginning (albeit by basically copying Garmin’s, but with three pins).
Polar had done a good job for quite a while, though has started to get promiscuous lately with some newer designs.
Suunto has had basically two designs. They had one design, and then they switched to a new one, but then they released newer devices with the old design again. Either way, just two designs.
Fitbit has been all over the effin’ map with charging cables. Nobody has as many as they do. That said, they have managed to keep the same one for the last few device releases, so maybe that’s a pattern.
Samsung has also kept the same, like Apple, with all their chargers. Also, newer ones being faster.
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My hope here is that Garmin doesn’t need a new charging cable to make their charging speeds faster. The new MARQ charging cable (USB-C, btw), is waaay faster. It’s basically charging an Epix unit under the covers, but in 45-55 mins. Whereas a regular EPIX takes 2.5 hours. Garmin says the cable is somehow too expensive to include at scale with other Garmin devices. But it’s not clear to me if the charging speed differences are because of the cable, or simply internal bits. The FR955 charges pretty fast with the older cable, about an hour. So, seems possible.
Years ago the appeal of the Pebble/4iiii idea was that smaller companies could pick it up and run with it. So the Wahoo’s of the world, and all the smaller companies could leverage it. I don’t suspect we’ll ever actually get to a standardized plug-in charger. The long term direction would just be towards wireless charging, of which there are standards, but just not on shape. The shape is tough though, because that depends on the optical sensor bump on the bottom. As well as the size, etc…
Haha similar to my routine, but sometimes I’m the other side of the room and it lights up and demands a weigh in. If it can feel vibrations at that distance, the result is obviously “too heavy”.
Sometimes I give it a kick and it stays asleep
Sometimes it comes on and shows an egg timer for a bit before turning back off.
I probably wouldn’t mind if I had never used the Withings scales, but they are SO much better in every way except connecting to Garmin. We can only hope that the next iteration will have a more suitable hardware platform as this one is letting the side down a bit.
I went back and re-read your review for this product to see if you’d referenced this ‘startup’ problem. To my surprise, it does actually say: “To use it, simply tap or kick it. Which will wake it up.”. So your review was accurate though maybe it could’ve emphasized the kicking efficacymore.
I’m no expert in this so a question for the crowd wrt phone port/charging standards, i.e., USB-C.
I see the benefits but it seems to me that this stops innovation in its tracks. How do we know that today’s USB-C isn’t going to be obsoleted in three years? Then what? For example, if Europe had been successful with their standardization efforts ~9 years ago we’d all be using what, Micro USB (Micro AB?)?
Having a standard does not mean that the standard cannot evolve. There is no reason why a previous micro USB standard could not have evolved into a USB C standard. The point is that these are all open standards and not proprietary and in control of a single company who can then leverage that for accessory sales.
You’re right, standards do evolve and the USB standard is a good example. But I’m not referring to standards in a purely non-political sense.
I’m talking about the EU mandating that devices support USB-C so consumers can avoid buying different types of chargers and cables.
That is a laudable goal but what would have happened if the EU mandate had taken effect in 2010? Company members of the USB-IF would have been much less motivated to evolve the standard given that the EU gov’t must then be convinced to change their mandate. And then consumers would complain “OMG new cables again!!”
Outside seem to be making a habit of this. Podium Runner was a really good read… then Outside bought it and it pretty much disappeared overnight. I found it a few months before the takeover and was about to sign up for a subscription. I’m glad I didn’t. All the old articles seem to have vanished as well.
Same as Backpacker after Outside took over. Rubbish. I posted below on it.
There is an article on CT that they will transfer it onto the Outside Plattform, no matter what that means.
And as of this morning, the Forum is just outright gone now. sure, they removed links to it previously, but now it’s gone-gone.
I suspect they (Outside) got wind of how badly they were being slammed on there. At least the VeloClub Slack is still going for now…
Glad Wade and the crew are starting up something new. They really were the best. Hopefully they can be successful like Defector after they all quit Deadspin.
Anybody know how much it costs out of pocket for a helicopter rescue, after health insurance, in the US?
@18: when I was an active volunteer SAR tech, I recall we’d get a bill for about $1000/hour of flight time, which we’d pass onto the state and county if the victim was uninsured. This usually worked out to around $5000-6000 for a straight forward evacuation. For more complex rescues, or sorties requiring search than a rescue it could easily reach $10000-15000. Given this was almost a decade ago, with inflation I’d feel confident it’s five digits even for a straight forward extraction by now.
I should note it’s extremely unlikely one’s health insurance would cover any of that. Usually rescue insurance is a completely separate policy carried by folks who know they’re going into a risky adventure, and even then it’s only carried for short periods of time. It’s not something a day hiker would carry.
Any plans to review Garmin’s blood pressure monitor, the Index BPM?
Seems like it’s only available in the US right now due, so perhaps you’re holding out because a lot of your audience is outside the states?
The relationship of Smart blood pressure monitor:dumb bpm seems to be similar to smart scale:dumb scale, i.e. the main benefit is auto upload to Garmin Connect.
It seems like Garmin has also rolled out the ability to manually add blood pressure readings to some territories (US only?), coinciding with the launch of the Index BPM (Sept 22?). Not something they really publicized.
The smart BPM stuff isn’t too interesting, but the device might be something interesting for you to blog about, as it marks Garmin’s first foray into health devices.
Yup, I’ve got one and have been using it. Just honestly hadn’t been super high on my priority list ltely. However, it’s a good quiet-time sort of review (Jan/Feb).
I don’t think there’s a huge benefit for most people to have such a device. As you alluded to, this is really just a smaller first step for Garmin into the medical device realm, and putting puzzle pieces together. In many ways, Garmin as a company tends to be the master puzzler. Pieces can take years to put together (different product groups/etc…), and then boom, one day you realize how big an ecosystem they’ve created. Once they’ve reached that point, it’s very hard for their competitors to compete (see: their cycling computers/etc realm).
This device could make a lot of blood pressure meters obsolete to some degree (assuming of course that the device actually works as described and is accurate).
link to engadget.com
Hi Ray,
I assume you have not had quiet time as yet because I’ve not seen the Index BPM review flying by. When do you think you’ll post your findings?
Thanks…
And den?
…and den it sat there every day on my desk and I look at it, and thought ‘oh right’…before walking over to get a coffee.
Good point, I’ll start using it again.
Nice, looking forward to it. Thanks in advance. All your work, as well as Des’ and lots of other channels on various topics, is much appreciated.
Ray, are you going to be reviewing the urine sensor?
Yes, please :-D
Cycling Tips. Deja vu Backpacker magazine. Outside killed it also. I just cancelled my Backpacker magazine two weeks ago after the latest issue was combined with Outside. Outside has owned Backpacker for some time but recently killed it and combined the two. However, it certainly doesn’t appear a combination at all but simply a killing. Add to the fact that Backpacker was simply a no-nonsense guide to backpacking trails, equipment, etc. and Outside wants to be a woke social justice warrior with little substance, and you have a massive shift in usable information for the end reader. Who’s running Outside into the ground?
Ray, interesting topics. As always – thank you for that. What I would really be interested in is whether a “best of breed” approach works from your point of view and if so how. As for mine: I love my Epix for sports activities, but find it clunky for everyday use. I really like the Withings ScanWatch (design, function) as a smartwatch (incl. ecosystem, i.e. scale, etc.). But: I lose important information either way (either about sleep, activity tracker etc OR the sports functions). What would your approach be? Strava? TrainingPeaks? Another platform? Thanks in advance for ideas. Might be worth an article sometime…. Berlin-Ulli
@dcrainmaker, would you kindly review the new biking app called JAGZ. It’s easiest described as Facebook & Airbnb had a biking child.
Thanks David – looks interesting! It’s a bit outside of the things I tend to review, since there isn’t a bike tech focus per se on it. But maybe next time I have a trip somewhere I’ll give it a poke. Later this spring there’s a few things on the docket.
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