Heads up!!! Here’s your massive holiday sports tech deals list! This includes the Garmin Epix for just $419, the Apple AirTag 4-Pack for just $69, the GoPro Hero 12 Black for $249, (or the brand new Hero 13 or $299!) and plenty more! Go check out the full list of 100+ deals here!
I’m DC RAINMAKER…
Here’s how to save!
Wanna save some cash and support the site? These companies help support the site! With Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with either the coupon code DCRAINMAKER for first time users saving 15% on applicable products.
You can also pick-up tons of gear at REI via these links, which is a long-time supporter as well:
Alternatively, for everything else on the planet, simply buy your goods from Amazon via the link below and I get a tiny bit back as an Amazon Associate. No cost to you, easy as pie!
You can use the above link for any Amazon country and it (should) automatically redirect to your local Amazon site.
-
Check out my weekly podcast - with DesFit, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!
-
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!
5
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 2024 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.
This makes the F965 very interesting.
thanks for this update. i really do hope to see the perimeter and split screen map data screens on the 955 as that would be immensely beneficial while hiking/backpacking.
Is “ Table Tennis Squash “ a new hype I missed or are we missing a comma? (Probably a copy paste from somewhere 😅)
Doh, thanks!
I used to play “Table Tennis Squash” with other kids when I was a teen. So this sport is soon 30 years old :)
Will the Enduro 2 receive any of these new features?
In this case, Enduro 2 is considered Fenix 7, and gets everything that gets.
I wonder if the new UI from the 965 will be ported over to the Amoled watches like the Epix 2 and Epix 2 Pro.
Any insights into that Ray?
No plans. :(
Do you know if the activity/sport profiles will become available on other sport watches (such as the 265)?
That’s still being sorted out.
At least „lifestyle“ sports like inlineskating would be nice.
I know a lot of runners attending skate night.
Football/Soccer I swear was on my 955, but it’s not on the 965, so glad to see it will soon
Be interesting if perimeter could be used on more than just maps. As in it could be a way to have tiny font fields on other pages where you want large numbers for the data you care about but tiny for other data could still be useful
Right now just map page.
Anything for the 255/265?
That piece is still being sorted out.
Any ETA for this?
Hi,
Thanks for the nice write-up of new features!
Now a question; are all the new activities just generic ones without any sport specific metrics, or are they copied from the closest existing ones? For example is Inline Skating basically a copy of Cross Country Ski Skate, or is it still better to use XC Skate and change in Garmin Connect after syncing to get better metrics than a new generic profile would give?
Cheers,
Audun
I’ve looked at a few. For example Kayaking – someone had hoped it’d support power meters (with cadence), since kayak power meters have been around for a decade*, but sadly, it doesn’t support either those sensor pairings or data fields.
*For Real: link to dcrainmaker.com
What changed from old to new “KAYAK” profile? Did it finally got stroke count/fields like SUP and Row?
The actual Kayak profile is actually a whitewater Kayak profile, it accounts for altitude and doesn’t count stroke rate and distance for strokes.
I hope it’s finally fixed after 5+ years delay!
Do you actually get any useful data when using Cross Country Ski Skate and changing to inline in the connect app?
Inline skates are my main sport and that’s what I do because I’ve heard that it’s a good idea.
But the only data I get is the regular heartrate/speed/distance/time.
No stride length, no cadence, contact time etc.
What benedit do I actually get from using XC Ski Skate as activity instead of generic one? 🤔
Glad to see my Epic Gen 2 won’t be lacking in features.
Surely this Fitness vs Outdoor division is an efficiency disaster. It is clearly not so easy to merge the code for some of these features across different forks of the GarminOS platform or it would not be TBD for the recents hotkey and Q4 for a bunch of stuff.
Or the UI presentation design for the f965 is totally different from the epix 2 and the Marq 2. All of that is implemented separately in C++ and is so different that I imagine the code cannot be shared. WTF?
The underlying hardware is so similar that it seems an insane explosion of complexity to have all these forks of GarminOS for different models. I would have thought it is feasible to have one codebase and a CI/CD that builds separate images for each hardware model within a generation by having compile time flags that turn on and off things that are not supported for a particular hardware configuration. But that is clearly not how it works. It’s more like each device has a team with a fork of GarminOS and they cherry pick code from each other. Maybe some doubles are shared but there is clearly a ton of fiddly and non-trivial custom integration work and debugging for each device family.
“Some doubles are shared” was supposed to be “some modules are shared”
You are so right.
But garmin is a company driven by marketing, not by engineering.
They are more happy to announce they increased the number of activities by a gazillion than that they increased software quality.
This is so funny. Thank you for pointing this out. In my head I am so much, if I was there CTO, I would male this so much leaner and efficient. I truly feel you, so much room for improvement.
What about Jet Lag Advisor to the 965?
…and the 955. I thought we were going to get it this spring.
Completely agree. That is super disappointing that 955 is left behind for some simple features like Jetlag.
Yeah, I’m still keeping fingers crossed for jet leg advisor!
i m with Enduro 2 but Amoled display always be my 1 watch for smart watch & Sport target..
After reading your Fenix 7x Pro review, I concluded that the only difference between the Fenix 7X and Fenix 7X Pro is the new optical heart rate monitor. Although I’ve been waiting a year to pull the trigger on a new watch, I opted for the older model that’s $200 off, on sale right now.
There’s the improved MIPS visibility.
I have never, while racing an ultra, road biking, mountain biking, road running, treadmill running, swimming, indoor rowing, snowboarding, or stand up paddle boarding wished for anything more from the MIPS display on my Fenix 7XSS. I’m quite curious to see it in person for a comparison.
Any chance of some of this coming to the Fenix 6 Pro?
Ray, are you aware of any plans that the other part of Garmin’s outdoor lineup will get any new features? Historically the Instinct Crossover got Morning Report and the Instinct 2X started with Training Readiness right away so I guess some features might trickle down?
Woohoo, nice, just what I wanted to hear, those Map and Weather related updates should look awesome on my FR965.
Thanks Ray.
I wished they focussed more on bug fixing than new, not so needed features.
In the 5 weeks I owned a fr 965 I reported like 12 bugs, including crashes.
Truly agree. Although i feel the 965 is quite stable. From what I see other brands are similar once they start to implement features.
It would be good if garmin had like one year of bug fixing, and less features, and maybe merging garmin connect and explore. In this subject I think suunto is doing better. See their app and the maps reactivity.
Altough not the same on feature richness (different user I think)
Still: Kudos to garmin for bringing the features to various devices, and sharing the plans, and to DCRainmaker for showing us!
No, definitely no kudos to garmin.
They shouldn’t had the need to backport in the first place.
You give them kudos for organizing software development in the most stupid way.
Makes sense. If they had a simple OS, like “Garmin OS”, they would only need to update it to all supported range.
Hi Ray,
Any plans to enable more than 2 IQ datafields per activity (w/o duplications)?
Cheers
This is one of the craziest admissions in the current Garmin line up.
The edge series can have 10 IQ fields – but the watches (now costing alot more) still limited to just two.
Massive oversight considering all the new sensors and accessories you can get, that need an IQ Field
Here are two bonus crazy ones:
– not having 8 data fields pages on newer higher res displays (at least 965 doesn’t have it)
– maximum of 50 turn-by-turn notifications. If you load a long course with turn-by-turn, it will just go radio silent half way through.
“not having 8 data fields pages on newer higher res displays (at least 965 doesn’t have it)”
But all the Epix units do have 8 data fields?
The Fenix 7 Pro units aren’t higher res displays, the 7X units do have 8 data fields, because it’s bigger.
Sorry for my rant, it is probably a 965 only thing then (not having 8 datafields), although the resolution is higher and the screen size is the same as 6x and 7x?
The Fenix 6X and 7X all have 280×280 screens (1.4″ large), while the 965 has 454×454 (1.4” also). Still the 6X and 7X have 8 datafields as a stock option, while the 965 does not.
Curious about the 30+ new sport profiles, as I’m only couting less than 30. Nice to see basketball on the list, hope there would ber Orienteering too (mainly so that I wouldn’t have to rename excercise before sharing to social media).
Here’s the list with numbers:
1) Basketball
2) Volleyball
3) Field Hockey
4) Ice Hockey
5) Football/Soccer
6) American Football
7) Lacrosse
8) Rugby
9) Ultimate Frisbee
10) Cricket
11) Softball
12) Baseball
13) Ice Skating
14) Inline Skating
15) Archery
16) Overland
17) Whitewater
18) Kayak
19) Boxing
20) Mixed Martial Arts
21) Snorkel
22) BMX
23) Motocross
24) Table Tennis
25) Squash
26) Racquetball
27) Badminton
28) Platform Tennis
29) ATV
30) Snowmobile
31) Motorcycle
Apparently, ATV/Snowmobile/Motorcycle somehow got cut off on my list. I haven’t figured out where the “+” comes from yet.
Still no native meditation activity? How hard can it be….
There’s Breathework
I really just yoga without poses and another name…
Think the same. Asked already in the forums.
How come they do not have roller skiing activities?
Hey Ray, thank you very much for this report which is also pleasing for FR owners like me. :-)
Got excited to read that a bespoke field hockey activity is coming to my MARQ 2, then remembered that I wear my Instinct 2 for that. Fingers crossed the Instincts will also get these new activities (I can’t see any reason why not as the changes must be back-end, but this is Garmin…)
I don’t want to wait recording Inline Skating natively for that long, can you please provide the file from the Sports folder on the watch?
It won’t work if the watch is not supported. At least it didn’t work when I tried from the F7 to the FR955.
I have a much more modest wishlist: bring the virtual partner/pacer to the Venu line (so I can finally buy one… take my money, Garmin). I had that simple feature way back on my FR410 and Ray has been writing about it since at least 2011… look at that beautiful tech in the photo. I understand product differentiation but at this point, is it really too much to ask!
With this being an intermediate update, when do you expect a more significant updated version to come out? I’m on a FR945, which works perfectly fine but obviously missing out on quite a few data fields/advancements that don’t get rolled that far back. I’d hate to update to a Fenix 7 Pro and have the 8 come out in a year.
w00t! ICE-SKATING! As a Canadian, I’ve been waiting for that one to drop natively.
Bigger picture: Garmin Connect (the app) has *so many* sport profiles, it’s nice to see Garmin adding them natively to watches so you we don’t have to edit a generic activity after saving to reflect the actual sport.
Thanks so much for this update Ray.
I still wonder why Garmin refuses to add Paragliding activity (and multisport related stuff like Hike-and-fly). Garmin watch litterally have ALL the sensors required: GPS, barometer, MEMS (accelerometer, gyros) and magnetometer. OK maybe the barometer is not as highfrequency as some dedicated alti-vario-gps devices like XCtracer, but then let the watch get data from these freefly devices over bluetooth.
Honestly I don’t get it.
At the current pace Garmin is going adding the weirdest activity they can come up with, there’ll be “bridge card game” and “playing with a rubber duck in the batch” soon… and still no paragliding.
Right? They include so many other (in my opinion) esoteric activities. There are Vario apps on the Connect IQ store tho (I have yet to really test any of them). I added a custom activity “Fly” so when I record my flights I can tell them apart. I use a dedicated vario and my phone as my flight instruments normally, but for hike and fly it would be great to use the watch!
Thank you so much Ray! Needs to be said!
Good news, thanks. My epix 2 will get updates and will still serve me without having to buy an epix pro.
Hi Ray,
thanks a lot for compiling this list!
It’s nice to see that Garmin starts to follow the market and bring features to older devices as well. I remember that before Fenix 6 series that was very much not the case.
HI Ray, do you know if they will get updates to their bluetooth headphone connectivity? With every Garmin since 5 plus i had issues using headhones, sometimes connection totally fails, sometimes music interupts unexpected. It doesn´t matter Fenix 7 Forerunner 945 and Fenix 5 have the same Problems. The headphones i use do not have these issues with my android devices. On the other hand, i am still missing aptX(HD) codec support (aac Codec would be to to stressfull i think). Maybe it is already there and garmin didn´t mention. As far as i understand it uses less computing power at same or even better quality than SBC, Thank you very much! Matthias
As always, your updates are always well done. My only question is simple. Do you know if the epix gen 2 will get all the new watch faces?
I find them so awesome!!
Thank you
Sorry for the off topic question, but can you use a Garmin watch for city navigation? Just spent a few days in Rome following my phone and feeling extra stupid. Maybe a watch can do a better job
Can you? Sure. Is it better than a phone? Probably not. I had to use my Fenix 5+ in London a few years ago for directions. Most of the time when I was there I would use my iPhone/Apple Watch combination for directions, but on one particular route I had mapped out and was following the Watch/iPhone suddenly decided it was tea time or something and stopped giving directions. Since I was navigating with my 5+ in addition to record the track, I started following it until the iPhone/Watch decided to start working again.
The big advantage of the iPhone is that it would route on the Underground, which a Garmin watch won’t. But for walking around on the streets, the 5+ was about the same as the AW/iPhone combo. The maps are certainly good enough.
Since my fenix 5 plus I (almost) never use my phone for that. Now I mostly make a course in garmin explore and start navigation that way. It takes less than a minute and works great.
That doesn’t mean it works for you, but it certainly does for me.
Maybe it is good to add that I took the time to configure maps like I want (although I still miss some options that would be great like hiding poi and/or street names)
Offtopic for this post but it is great to see Garmin implement a feature I (and probably others) suggested to them and posted on the forum a while ago (perimeter data fields for map).
Not ideal. You can see your position on the map but routing on the go is much more difficult or impossible.
Perhaps a smart watch with Google Maps is better for this?
Thank you very much for this update Ray !
As others pointed out the Jet Lag Adviser is still missing on the forerunner series.
As triathlons happening all around the world I can’t imagine Garmin thinks forerunner users wouldn’t make use of that.
Could you please ask Garmin if it is still in the pipeline or has been ruled out for the forerunner series.
Thanks a lot
No love for the Fenix 6?
Sadly, no major feature updates anymore there.
Not even the new sport profiles?
Any of the map goodness coming to the Edge 540?
The weather overlays would be very handy
Is there a plan to support Laps at Multisport Profiles at FR955?
Perhaps by press Lap Button for next Lap, and long presse Lap-Button to switch to next Profile.
I know, that Laps possible,if i switch manualy to another Profile. I use this.
Autolap is no option.
And i use manual switch Profile too, because of it is to dangerous to hit accidental the switch Button.
I recently acquired the Fenix 6 Pro Solar at a crazy good price. Should I even consider selling it and getting one of these? Leaning more Epix 2 or Epix Pro due to display. What would you recommend?
I have to say I am pretty disappointed with the new Football/Soccer profile accuracy. It lets you pick Indoor activity, which is cool, but then registers only a fraction of distance – f.e. an hour and a half of futsal registered only as 1.37km, which is like 1/3 to 1/4 of the actual distance covered. The problem might be it only sees 17 minutes of total 125 as “moving time” which means the threshold for registering a movement in indoor sports activity is set incorrectly.
For the same reason I had to use F3b Sports app on my previous Fenix 6, which had the ability to estimate a more accurate distance (but lacked the ability to write the distance correctly in the Connect ecosystem because of restrictions in the Garmin part of the field).
I was kind of hoping that with this new sensor in Epix Pro and all, Garmin will make a better job in estimating those parameters it is clearly able to measure. I am sure other profiles (such as Table Tennis) will bring the same poor results… what a shame.
I cannot imagine this will improve much. Most leagues ban wearing any sort of jewelry. The Garmin watches are too big to tape over. The most accurate trackers for soccer are worn as bibs.
The timer differentiation feature. Wow.
That seems both rather trivial and a super stupid microcosm of “something rotten in the state of Denmark”.
It again seems to imply an excessively complex merge and fork code workflow for the different “GarminOS” versions on each product SKU. I cannot imagine that is actually meant as a meaningful product differentiation thing nor an internal hardware or software limitation but rather some kind of a presentation GUI difference.
I went from F3HR to Venu2 (for the display) but was disappointed at the lack of many fitness features. I have been contemplating the FR955/255 for some time when the 965/265 appeared. And now after this launch, the Fenix 7 is on sale at a crazy ₹52k ($630) in India, while the FR965 still retails at ₹67k ($811). With all the new (Pro) software additions coming to Fenix7 soon, that looks like a dream catch right now. Maybe I will bite!
I am curious about the golf application. Are the new watches running the same app as the new Approach watch? That’s how previous versions of Fenix worked.
I‘d like to highlight a „feature“, that I came across recently when I got my FR965. Garmin limited the maximum timer setting to 8:59:59 for no reason since the FR945LTE. I used to be a frequent user of timers much longer than 9 hours with my Fenix 6 which can do up to 23:59:59
Garmin Support told me, 9h are plenty and if I need more, I should set an Alarm ( no Option for me) and that only fenix and epix could do longer timers. This doesn’t make any sense at all. Maybe it’s not a big deal for most people, but for some of us, it is! If it’s a thing for you, I’d be happy to hear about your investigations on this 😊
Just because I’m curious: why is the alarm no option for you?
I need to see the remaining time
Have you looked in Connect IQ ?
I have looked there some time ago to find a data widget for an alarm to use during my marathon run, to go off at set times, for my nutrition scheme. I can’t recommend you anything specific though.
I am a regular but amateur player, many of us here in Europe. My teammates are ok with wearing Garmin watch under a band.
Are there any new features coming to the Instinct 2 (standard version)?
Garmin has a lot to learn from Apple in the software development domain. I get it about product differentiation. However it needs a rationale i.e. introduction of an additional sensor etc or the need for a faster processor or more storage. Frankly speaking I do not understand why the majority of these features are not back ported to Fenix 6 series. Take for example running power or stamina or …. . There is no rationale why running power (or any other sw based feature) was never back ported to (FR945)/Fenix 6 even if someone could create power based workouts.
I think the rationale is that the fenix 6 is a previous generation product from 2020. Garmin is supporting the product with software updates to remediate defects but not to add new features. Software service features have a recurring operational and development cost to Garmin but the only revenue is device sales. Users that do not upgrade are a cost to Garmin, so the the premise seems to be that if you want new features, then Garmin would like you to purchase a new device.
Unlike Apple, the watch is the primary product and not an accessory. Garmin also does not bundle any subscription components in the way that Apple does.
I’m not saying that I agree with these business strategies but they seem fairly clear and the business model and value proposition are different between Appple and Garmin.
Since the latest update (firmware v. 13.22 on epix). Transferring workouts messes them up every time. It seems to only take 4 steps (out of 6 or more…) and then repeats 3 times warm-up of 5 minutes at the end of the workout. Those are workouts coming from trainingpeaks. The ones that were allready on the watch during the update were fine, only newly send ones are messed up. Any news if they are already working to solve this?
The enduro2 feature ‘Up Ahead’ seems like the only SW feature missing in the epix pro/fenix7. Will it make its way into those watches ?
Hi Ray,
Next time you chat with someone from Garmin can you ask if they have any plans to add solar charging to their handheld outdoor devices? Such as the Montana 700 series and the GPSMap 67.
The Montana 700 has such a big screen I’d like to think it could potentially keep going indefinitely and never need re-charging. Would be great for my sea-kayaking expeds 😎
Thanks
What about the Fenix 6/6 Pro?
Been torn between Epix 2 Pro and FR265 for a while now, but if these new sport profiles would come to FR265, I would not hesitate to grab one. Any idea are these new profiles coming to FR265 of not?
Hi DCR, I was hoping you might have early access to a Fenix 8x Pro Sapphire Solar. Any news on that yet?
One difference you didn’t mention is the navigation interface. I’ve seen on a couple of videos that with the Epix Pro you can double tap to zoom in and also long press to get more data on certain map elements. These seem to be very practical features. Have you heard anything about these interface features being rolled out to the F965?