Friday Tidbits of Note
www.dcrainmaker.com/2012/02/friday-tidbits-of-note.html#4: Various Garmin Firmware Updates (FR910XT, Edge 500) There have been some confirmed issues with some folks and the FR910XT where the instant pace fluctuates a bit too much.
LifeBEAM Smart Helmet with Integrated ANT+ Heart Rate Sensor In-Depth Review
www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/05/lifebeam-helmet-integrated.htmlANT+ is used in all Garmin devices, as well as Timex, Magellan, Suunto and a slew of others.
Annual Public Service Announcement: How to fix heart rate strap dropouts/spikes
www.dcrainmaker.com/2012/12/annual-public-service-announcement-how-to-fix-heart-rate-strap-dropoutsspikes.htmlIn general, the Polar straps tend to be far better than Garmin straps – though, they aren’t 100% immune.
Specialized Power Cranks Power Meter In-Depth Review
www.dcrainmaker.com/2018/03/specialized-cranks-review.htmlIn this case, you get a box almost identical in size/shape to that of the Garmin Vector 3 box.
Week in Review–February 13th, 2011
www.dcrainmaker.com/2011/02/week-in-reviewfebruary-13th-2011.html1) Garmin FR305 not charging/syncing without rubber band 2) Garmin/Timex/Polar Product Release Cycles 3) Accounting for slope on treadmill with running watches 4) Determining your FTP using a CompuTrainer You can read all my past weekly mailbags at Slowtwitch here.
Suunto Rolls Out Pile of New SuuntoPlus Widgets to Suunto 3/5/9 Watches
www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/09/suuntoplus-widgets-watches.htmlJust be happy that I managed to find a hill with 6% grade at all for this! Interestingly though, the elevation (where the 0 currently shows) did seem surprisingly delayed on this compared to what I see on the Polar & Garmin watches for elevation responsiveness.
Zwift acquires Milestone, charts entry into hardware realm
www.dcrainmaker.com/2018/06/acquires-milestone-hardware.htmlSee, without that it wasn’t appealing to Garmin runners with older devices that only supported ANT+ footpods.
Optical HR Armband Shootout: Polar OH1+, Scosche Rhythm24, Wahoo TICKR FIT
www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/04/shootout-schosche24-polaroh1.htmlNote that while Scosche advertises a swimming mode, and has long said they’d integrate it with Garmin devices for offline swim syncing – in practice, it doesn’t yet work.
The Almost Half-Iron
www.dcrainmaker.com/2009/08/almost-half-iron.html(Route as seen using my Garmin 305 in my swim cap) From there I joined forces with my bike and headed out for a loop on the Oly Luray course (17 miles worth, skipping the secondary loop).
Wahoo Adds New Gradient Coloring with Wahoo Summit Feature
www.dcrainmaker.com/2022/03/gradient-coloring-feature.htmlWahoo has introduced what I presume to be the first step in a larger set of changes around climbing information, to compete with Garmin's ClimbPro and Hammerhead’s Climber features.
Week in Review–July 14th, 2012
www.dcrainmaker.com/2012/07/week-in-reviewjuly-14th-2012.html6) Google adds cycling directions to Google Maps for Europe and Australia: Woohoo, that’s all I’ve got to say about that! 7) Garmin appears ready to announce new ‘Adventures’ sites: An interesting look at a new site that Garmin seems to be working on, related to the outdoor segment (hiking, etc…) 8) Bia manages to hit their $400K funding target: Good to see that they astoundingly nailed $100K in the last day alone, to make the cutoff window (this was the women’s GPS watch via Kickstarter I talked about yesterday) 9) Man says he can run sub-2 hour marathon, Runners World probes: Saw this on a tweet from Ryan Hall (top American marathoner), ensure to read it all the way through the end.
The New Suunto Ambit3 Vertical: An Explainer
www.dcrainmaker.com/2016/01/ambit3-vertical-traverse.htmlJust like my recent post on the Garmin Tactix Bravo, if you’ve come here hoping for massive differences and changes you’ll likely be disappointed.
Racing the line – understanding how courses are measured
www.dcrainmaker.com/2009/03/racing-line-understanding-how-courses.htmlLast week on one of my review posts, someone asked why their Garmin GPS showed a longer distance than the actual course distance of the National Marathon.
5 Random Things I Did This Weekend
www.dcrainmaker.com/2015/02/random-things-i-did-this-weekend-11.htmlAside from unboxing the final production version of the Garmin Fenix3 (full on video here, for those interested), I also dove into a few other items, including the IOLITE swimming heads up display for your swim goggles.
TrainerRoad rolls out Android support
www.dcrainmaker.com/2016/09/trainerroad-android-support.htmlNow this is basically just a take on their prior DIY handlebar project that glues a Garmin quarter-turn mount (by SRAM no less) to the bottom of a phone case.
IQ2 Power Meter Pedals: First Rides Testing & Data Accuracy
www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/05/pedals-testing-accuracy.htmlBut it’s definitely not as clean as Favero/Garmin/PowerTap or even the new SRM X pedal-based power meters.
The 2016 Annual Giveaway Extravaganza Winners!
www.dcrainmaker.com/2016/07/2016-annual-giveaway-extravaganza-winners.htmlGiveaway #1: Garmin Fenix3 HR… Giveaway #8: Garmin Vivoactive HR & Index WiFi Scale
Week in Review–October 14th, 2018
www.dcrainmaker.com/2018/10/week-review-october-14th.htmlSound good? Oh – and if you want to get a head start on things, this page is a great resource for watching Garmin and a few other firmware updates.
Hands-on: FORM Swim Goggles with Smart Display
www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/07/hands-goggles-display.htmlIt’s as simple as that, and to its credit, against three different watches (Garmin FR945, Garmin MARQ, and COROS Vertix), it was the only unit to perfectly nail all my swims against those watches.
Week in Review–April 27th, 2014
www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/04/reviewapril-27th-2014.htmlGarmin has allowed companies to drop the price of the VIRB action cameras pretty substantially, effectively immediately.
The ANT+ Bike Speed/Cadence Sensor: Everything you ever wanted to know
www.dcrainmaker.com/2011/07/ant-bike-speedcadence-sensor-everything.htmlFor example, the Garmin FR305 doesn’t support these newer ANT+ profiles.
Dive Tidbits From Underwater Chamber Testing the Apple Watch Ultra
www.dcrainmaker.com/2022/09/tidbits-underwater-chamber.htmlOf course, all of this would make for a super interesting comparison to the Garmin Descent G1 ($649), which has been sitting in my long-term testing queue for many months.
Week in Review–September 13th, 2015
www.dcrainmaker.com/2015/09/reviewseptember-13th-2015.htmlGarmin Epix firmware update: Adds support for using footpod outdoors for pace/distance, along with a number of other smaller new features.
Running at night on the National Mall
www.dcrainmaker.com/2012/03/running-at-night-on-mall.htmlThen I realized I had a Garmin Connect window up, so I just used the workout creator in that. … For runners and cyclists, I’d probably just pickup a equally priced Timex Global Trainer (also $130ish these days) – since the battery life is the same, and does far more than the Hydrotracker.
November Giveaway Winner Selected!
www.dcrainmaker.com/2015/11/november-giveaway-selected.htmlLate last week I held a November giveaway for the Garmin Fenix3, specifically, the Fancy Fenix3.
