Heads up!!! Here’s your massive holiday sports tech deals list! This includes the Garmin Epix for just $419, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for just $699, 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.
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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.
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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.
So that’s why you should always obey rule #37: you don’t want to mess with the helmet straps when the screen goes dark. It’s all in the youtube teaser image!
I just hoped for fast-acting brakes, and keeping it on straight and steady routes.
The surprise blackness reminded me of the time when i did my indoor cycling on rollers, where it’s super scary to close the eyes even for fraction of a second. On a bike, when your sense of balance goes off for a bit you just pick a slightly different line where curve and balance match, without even trying. But when you are on those narrow cylinders that would be of little help, so you desperately want to constantly recalibrate visually. Crank up the difficulty a little? Blink.
What’s the impact rating of these, say if you took a header or hit a tree limb? Seriously, the forehead protection of the helmet seems pretty much nonexistent once wearing this rig.
It’s interesting, they’re more designed for falling on your face than people realize. For example, the supposed ‘glass’ that’s discussed, is actually double-sided laminated glass (like what you use in a car windshield), to keep it in place (and not sharding). For better or worse, people falling on their face with VR goggles isn’t really a new thing. People doing it at high speeds? Certainly (hence why manual tells you otherwise).
No way, it looks really stupid to bike with this thing!
True. Though, people said the same thing about AirPods when they first came out…
In many countries it is prohibited to circulate with earphones.
They still do
AirPods still look dumb IMO.😂
Waiting for the open-water swim test of Vision Pro!
When’s the Ace Pro review coming? Curious as to how it’ll stack up!
Ace Pro review is soon. It’s really cool. I think it’s a far more legit competitor to GoPro than DJI is, despite what the paid online troll army of a certain company will say. It’s definitely not perfect, but for sports in particular, the new overlay feature is just really cool.
You seemed quite confident that the second iteration of this product might work for fitness. What changes do you expect?
How much of an issue are the weight of the headset, sweat, etc?
I suspect this unit is actually designed to be sweatproof/waterproof. Like the original Apple Watch that wasn’t designed for swimming (and told you not to), but actually kinda was. This would allow them to claim it’s not designed for all that, yet see any errors in their design for a future version.
There’s just too many elements of the design that they did that appears focused on sweat impact reduction. From the swappable bands to the swappable inserts, to the plastic sealed interior, to the mesh lining, to the fact that it didn’t fog after 70 minutes of trainer riding with zero fans, etc….
No issues with weight of headset while riding, nor sweat. I actualy found the heatset weight worse while watching TV/etc, largely because I was using the main band (versus the better head support band for workouts).
I’d consider sweat an issue long before it destroys the device. VR glasses might be a viable fitness gadget for activities where agility is the sole focus, but cardio and/or strength isn’t really on the menu before there are headsets with a coolant loop in the umbilical. It’s fun to toy around with the idea of VR watopia, but I don’t see it as a real use case anytime soon.
I wondered why you did not write anything about Meta Quest, yet. Or did you?
There are many fitness related apps on that platform. Its also quite popular/successfull (Quest 2 alone sold some 20M units).
Nobody can generate hype like Apple, obviusly.
Mainly because the big apps like Zwift, Peloton, Rouvy, etc… aren’t available on Meta Quest (and secondarily, frankly, because there’s been very little interest/requests to do so).
You can use Virtual Desktop on those platforms with Meta Quest, akin to Apple’s mirroring.
That said, I did talk about the Meta Quest in the video above, and their focus on fitness. The challenge though is that while there are many apps for Fitness on that side, there doesn’t tend to be an overlap with apps that are traditional indoor cycling apps. They tend to be apps that are a bit more gamified (nothing wrong with that, but it just doesn’t attract the same audience as here).
Meta has high hopes for the Quest for cycling based on this add posted a year ago.link to youtube.com. Any idea if they have pushed this concept or if there was an app behind it? It appeared in the video that Meta was featuring their Pro headset and not the Quest 2 or 3. I believe the Pro has more integration with PC apps. Have you tried the Meta Pro for Zwift? I purchased my wife a Quest 3 for Christmas and would be keen to dork around with it some to see if Zwift will work.
Any cycling app that uses the Unreal Engine can be in full, 6dof VR on a Quest via Steam Link. Needs the UEVR injector to enable it.
Tobias,
Can you spoon feed me on this as you just went way over my head? Sorry for my ignorance but I don’t know what “Unreal Engine, “6dofVR”, or “Steam Link” mean or refer to. Thanks.
There is no zwift app for any vr headset mainly because people on the zwift forums are really worried about sweat on their headsets. I have personally soaked my quest 2 and 3 in sweat playing other fitness games but yea the people on those forums very much your NIMBYs when it comes to allowing zwift for VR.
Now Apple needs to buy Zwift and Wahoo to save them both.?!?
What is that cool drone that you had in the video?
The Hover X1: link to amzn.to
Review coming up soonish, but here’s the quickie review: Automated tracking with no remote/phone – Great for running, so-so for cycling due to top-speed being 15MPH. But good in forested areas, because you just pick it back up again, and fly again. Fits in my running shorts pockets easily (or cycling jersey pockets). Video quality so-so in low-light, but good enough for most social or light YouTube work. No problems with high winds. For $400, would purchase again, definitely buy the combo pack with two batteries.) Longer review in the next few weeks.
Watching this video, I realized that I really want augmented reality cycling glasses. More specifically, I want glasses that I can see through, but that also project a 3D breadcrumb trail overlay on the inside of my glasses. This would allow me to see that turn coming up while I’m taking in the sights.
I’m imagining the kind of thing you see when driving in games like Far Cry. I want that big, broad stripe telling me where to go.
Hey,
Thanks for review. Are you going to review any AR glasses, like Xreal air 2 pro. AR glasses are lighter, more portable, could have overlay and do not have any black outs :)
I have on and off, cycling-specific ones. Recon for example, and many others that have also since gone out of business.
The problem I’ve found is that, generally speaking, they all suck. They tend to suck because companies that launch them don’t realize that their target audiences willing to pay that money expect features on-par with a $400-$500 bike computer. Then, they don’t find that. Further, they trend to be reliant on your smartphone for many (if not all) functions, and that connection in many cases tends to be unreliable.
I keep hoping we’ll get something good, and undoubtedly, we will eventually. I can see a world in 6-10 years where Vision Pro equiv (akin more to Microsoft Hololens) is back to the Google Glass realm in terms of size, but with the features of today’s Vision Pro. Tech moves fast.
I’m assuming (and hoping) that the fade to black didn’t result in tasting the dirt?
Nah, it was a straight/flat path that I just simply evenly applied brakes and slowed down, by time I got slowed down, it was back on. I was somewhat purposeful to not take any corners at high-speed, but also more purposeful to basically choose a dead-straight route that I had run many times before over the years.
Hey Ray, I’m wondering which model your camera drone is?
Hi Francis – it’s the Hover X1: link to amzn.to
Review coming up soonish, but here’s the quickie review: Automated tracking with no remote/phone – Great for running, so-so for cycling due to top-speed being 15MPH. But good in forested areas, because you just pick it back up again, and fly again. Fits in my running shorts pockets easily (or cycling jersey pockets). Video quality so-so in low-light, but good enough for most social or light YouTube work. No problems with high winds. For $400, would purchase again, definitely buy the combo pack with two batteries.) Longer review in the next few weeks.
Nice review, and try outs using Vision Pro! I saw you used a lovely mini drone to follow you, what bran dis that? Look amazing. Warm regards from Amsterdam, Roemer
Hey Ray,
You might want to look into the Xreal Air’s instead of the meta or apple headsets. I own the meta headset and OMG it gets sweaty – I could never imagine being able to wear it on a stationary bike. But the xreal airs are _amazing_ (and cheap). The main difference for this usecase is that they are like sunglasses – so super light and don’t seal against your face. Very comfy for ‘AR projecting’ a fake super-highres monitor in front of your face. You just click to say where in virtual space you want the monitor to sit and then you are done.
I use them mostly as my dual-monitor work environment while travelling (for months). But I bet they would be great while using zwift.
(I have no connection with this company except that I liked it).
Like your site.
Hi DCM, what’s the little drone thing you are using?
Am I the only one to notice the weird misspelling of “experience” on the hand-made chart? Apple Vision Pro needs an AR spellchecker for you, Ray. :)
What drone are you using in this video?