Week in Review – January 26th, 2025

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 BlueSky, 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 posts on the site:

Sunday: Week in Review – January 19th, 2025
Wednesday: Ironman Sells FulGaz to Rouvy, and Plenty More

Instinct 3 review coming up this week (for real this time), I’ve been spending all the time testing out some new updates that fix a slate of Instinct 3 Solar-specific issues (though, I’ll certainly be calling them out in my review, given the fact that it shipped like this weeks ago). As usual, I prefer to wait a few days to validate important fixes rather than have my reviews (especially YouTube ones) be outdated 48 hours later, especially when I’m calling out a company.

Sports Tech Deals:

Some new ones have popped up this past two weeks. I think the Fenix 7 at $429 is probably the most interesting for people eyeing that new Instinct 3, since this is basically cheaper while having more features. Likewise the Epix back in the $429-$439 range. I’ll continue sweeping and adding in a few more of these later tonight, so keep checking back.

	Product	Sale Price	Amazon	Sale Notes
	AmazFit T-Rex 3 - $45 off	$234	Amazon	⚡ This recently announced watch is a very solid deal. Check out my full in-depth review for my thoughts on the good (and catches).
	Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium - $70 off	$729	Amazon
	Garmin Enduro 3: $50-$70 off! $899	$829	Amazon	The lowest price to date for the Enduro 3, whcih is basically the 'cheaper' Garmin Fenix 8 with a MIP/Solar display (but without the scuba or voice calling features). It gets all the Fenix 8 features and updates otherwise.
	Garmin Fenix 7 - Just $429!!! $699+	$429	Amazon	This is actually the lowest price I think I've got on record for the Garmin Fenix 7. It got virtually all new Fenix 7 Pro features until this past fall, and even this past week is still getting some new features. A very soild deal.
	Garmin Forerunner 955 - $100 off!	$399	Amazon	This has been 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.
	GoPro Hero 13 Black - $50 off	$349	Amazon	Not quite as good as the $299 back during the holidays, but this is likely the new-normal sale price. And hey, it's still a very solid camera and my preference for day-time footage (at night, I use the Insta360 Ace Pro 2).
	HoverAir X1 Drone Combo - $100 off!	$299	Amazon	⚡ This has become one of my favorite drones, given it's tiny size (fits in my running shorts pockets) and ease of use. While there's the new Pro-Max drones, those are basically 2x+ the price, and honestly, the video quality isn't really achieving that price point. ***Note: Select the '$100 coupon' checkbox on the site.*** Also, you can select yet another extra battery as an option below that checkbox.
	Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 (40 & 44mm) - $100 off!	$249	Amazon
	Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra - $235 off!	$419	Amazon	This price has continued to stay low since Black Friday, still a very solid deal for one of the best WearOS watches out there.

Note that all of the above are Amazon affiliate links, which do help support the site. I appreciate it!

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) I’m going on a gravel trip to Morocco! I’m testing out a new partnership company, mixing my love of travel and cycling (and testing devices on stupid-fun adventures). I’ll be doing a gravel trip to Morocco in March, if you want to join! Here’s a quick little teaser I did on Instagram, though, I made a widescreen one here.

2) UCI Approval of Nix Biosensors: Maybe this will get me off my butt to finish the review I’ve started twice now. TDLR: After craptons of data gathering (nearly 30 sessions) on three different people, including all the fun naked pre/post-weigh-ins and more, the sensor simply isn’t reliable. Or at least, isn’t for my sample size of three very different body weight individuals (male and female, from vastly different genetic backgrounds). Supposedly, all three of us are off-the-charts super sweaters. Nix looked at all my raw data for errors in my testing, and found none. Nix often misestimated sweat loss upwards of 67oz/~2L worth

3) Apple Watch alert saves skier after falling 1,000 feet near Stevens Pass: Given I grew up skiing quite a bit of Stevens Pass, though, in putting the GPS coordinates in (from the helicopter footage there), this is actually not at the main ski area, but well across the street into what I presume is the Nordic side somewhere, over the next mountain.

4) Samsung Adds Kids Smartwatch Mode to Watch 7: I’ll have to give this a whirl, just for funsies. The concept essentially is a first-stab at what Google, Apple, Garmin, and others have done, in making watches viable for kids (and their parents).

5) Remember the Fitbit Ionic Burn Fiasco? Well, a settlement has now been reached. Money is changing hands.

6) How a race director moving towns, moved an Ironman: I always enjoy behind-the-scenes race director type articles, and this is one of them.

7) Reasonably solid Hammerhead Karoo 2/3 Firmware Update: This one seems to have a bit more than the average bear does in it, including connection to Intervals.icu, the ability to switch between apps mid-ride,  and for Karoo 3, the ability to utilize your phone connection to build routes dynamically on unit. Plus a bunch of other things.

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With that – thanks for reading!