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Sports Tech Week in Review – March 24th, 2024

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/X 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!

DCR Posts In The Past Week:

Here’s all the latest on the site:

Monday: Apple Fitness+ Studios Behind the Scenes: From Start to Finish
Wednesday: Polar Grit X2 Pro Hands-On: Here’s Everything New!
Thursday: Strava Expands Cycling Best Efforts, and Starts Pushing Routes to All Polar Devices
Friday: FIT File: Strava vs Komoot Routes, Let’s Talk Grit X2 Pricing

Spring Sports Tech Deals:

There’s a slate of new sports tech deals, primarily from Garmin, but also a few other companies jumping in on a spring-themed Amazon sale. Garmin seems to have some of the best deals here, though, the others aren’t too bad at all!

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!$399-$429⚡⚡⚡ This is a crazy super strong deal. Note the Epix received all of the software updates of the Epix Pro. This deal keeps floating between $399 and $429 - frankly, at either price it's an awesome deal.
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 Bundle - $60 OFF!$339This 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.

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:

1) Wahoo ELEMNT/BOLT series now has dark mode: Check out GPLAMA’s video for all the details:

2) Wahoo also has a new CEO: While I got the press release, it looks like no other outlet covered it except this one. While I somewhat wish that the new CEO would have come from within the sports realm, or sports tech realm, at least he’s a cyclist and runner (and apparently smart enough not to get suckered into swimming, the gateway to triathlon). As always, I’ll give him a fair shake and see how things cook over the next year. Sometimes an outside perspective works, sometimes not. Really just depends on the company and situation.

3) Smartwatches shouldn’t make you choose between Apple & Android: Obviously, lots of discussion this weekend on the US vs Apple case. In fact, a portion of that is focused on the ability for 3rd party smartwatches (e.g., Garmin/Polar/Suunto/COROS/etc…) to access certain features, which are today blocked (like responding to text messages). In any case, this piece from Victoria at The Verge is a good look at the situation as it pertains to watches.

4) New iGPSport iGS800 Cycling GPS Computer: A couple of people have asked about this new unit, and whether I’ll review it. I’m kinda on the fence. Historically when I’ve tried some of iGPSport’s devices (similar to Bryton), they tend to have good hardware specs, but usually are pretty rough on the software front. In some ways, the company’s introduction of this device follows that. While announced on Facebook, no mention of the device exists on their own company site (either in news section, or product section).

5) Man ties phone to drone, to get rescue in snowy mountains: After being trapped for two days, the man tied his phone to a DJI Mavic 3, sent a message, and then took off to (hopefully) get within range. It worked, and SAR crews quickly got to him. Like I always say: Travel with a drone or three.

6) Hammerhead revamps structured workout on Karoo: Along with adding Italian support, they’ve increased the granularity of the trainer control bits. Thus, Italian trainer users have two reasons to celebrate this week.

7) TrainerRoad launches Red-Light-Green-Light to all athletes: I’ve been using this in beta the last little while, and it’s pretty cool – albeit a bit of a cut-down version of what you might see within some watches directly. I might write-up more on this, later this week, given said usage.

Thanks for reading!

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16 Comments

  1. MsG

    The pixel watch link is directing to a fossil watch instead.

  2. Jan Aniolek

    I started a Reddit post about the iGS 800, where I gathered some links to videos about it:

    link to reddit.com

    While I agree that it seems ridiculous, that they unveil a device and haven’t put any info about it on their own webpage so far I have no doubt that it will hit the stores eventually.

    The other bike gps – iGS630s – gets some positive reviews here in Poland, where I live.

  3. Teddy

    Hey Ray, 945 LTE has been unavailable on Garmin’s website for many months now. Thinking it’s discontinued? Any rumblings of something new and cellular?

    • Interesting, I hadn’t caught that. Looks to be the same on the EU side as well. Huh.

      I’ll give a poke.

    • Teddy

      Much appreciated! It’s been since November at least even though the page on Garmin is still active.

    • msquared

      I suspect (hope?) this may be related to some forthcoming Garmin LTE product release, the new BETA 17.10 for F7/Epix series contains this unexpected but interesting little tidbit: “Added Messenger App”

      WHY would an app like that be worthwhile on my watch IF this kind of message could only ever be sent over Garmin’s Iridium satellite network?

  4. andi

    dark mode added just in time for daylight savings to end (and be commuting home in the dark) in the southern hemisphere, good timing! i still miss the auto swap garmin does at sunrise/set, though.

  5. ArT

    What’s the point of night mode if the screen is not OLED. Even at night I prefer a bright screen. The black map is illegible.

    • usr

      Less brightness hurting the darkness adaption of your eyes. On a OLED, night time is when you might *consider* black-on-white. Night time, when the white does not have to be an that bright to be legible. But you’d definitely want white-on-black in daytime unless your device is powered from a bottomless external source.

    • ArT

      Have you read my post? Oled ok, you save energy. ROAM has MID, so the energy is the same whether light or dark. Even in the dark, the white screen is readable. DAY NIGHT OPTION only for OLED.

  6. Brian Reiter

    > 3) Smartwatches shouldn’t make you choose between Apple & Android

    Apple could clearly offer more APIs to a client smart watch app. The limits on messaging making replying from the watch tethered over bluetooth are fairly ridiculous.

    Presumably integrating LTE/5G messaging untethered to a phone and VOIP between the watch and phone using a common public phone number is some weird stuff that only Apple can do in collaboration with the carriers also but is only functionally disallowed by the implementation being private.

    I have messages on my watch turned off and would never use this but I would leave my phone at home if I could make an emergency call from my Garmin watch with tethered headphones.

    Apple also doesn’t make Apple Music available on any watch other than Apple Watch despite making it available on other manufacturer phones and smart speakers. Apple Music is operated as a service except on the watch where it operates as a lock-in feature. If it were really a service, the economics would favor the widest possible availability. I would prefer to have an Apple Music provider on my Garmin to the Amazon Music app that I actually use if only because I would not have to maintain multiple playlists.

  7. Chris Benten

    Number 6 is interesting…a whole new market for drones…seems like extended range models with known directions to rescue crews…

  8. Andy

    Would be keen to see/understand Red Light/Green Light more and see how that can interplay with training plans – including if you have e.g. a 3 day per week trainer road bike plan but then structure your own swim and run.

  9. Cody Custis

    3.

    The Apple fanboy comments on that post are nuts.

    At the end of the day, Apple’s justifications for closing its APIs to third party developers are flimsy. Samsung, for one, is vertically integrated yet non-monopolistic, supplying parts for everyone and using the entirety of the market to gauge demand. A decent case can be made that it’s not good for Apple’s shareholders; separating the Apple Watch and iPhone divisions may lead to increased sales as both focus on their core competencies rather than spend resources walling customers into gardens.

  10. Wendy

    I am somewhat of a newbie – how do I get the watch link to go to Amazon US?