My 2012 CES Session at the Digital Health Summit

You may remember from a handful of weeks ago that while I was busy at CES in Las Vegas running around talking with all the latest sports technology folks, I also had the privilege of being the moderator for a panel of folks from within the industry as part of the Digital Health Summit.

That panel was born out of all of the questions that you asked back in December when I fielded y’all for insight on what you wanted to hear from the folks running the industry.  I was blown away by just how articulate and insightful all of the questions were from everyone – both those posted as well as e-mailed to me.  Ultimately, I attempted to branch out and cover just about everything asked – plus a lot more.  Like my typical in-depth reviews, only…well…panel-style.

Moderating a panel is definitely a bit of a different experience than straight up speaking.  I often speak to large crowds (hundreds of people) as part of my normal day job – so I’m used to that.  And more importantly, I’m used to being somewhat in control of the time period allotted.  Meaning, once I start, I can get into a groove and just do my thang.  Assuming I know the topic well (and I usually hope to) – I can make the session my own, unique to each time I give it.

But with a panel, I lose the ability to control it end to end.  Thus, I’m along for the ride just as much as the audience is.  A moderator is somewhat like a stage coach conductor though – if the horses decide to wander somewhere else, I’m goin’ along with them – whether or not I like it.  At the same time, you’re careful to ensure that you’re directing questions to the right people that can answer the questions your asking, while also presenting issues that are challenging and interesting enough that audiences of differing levels will find it interesting.  This means that my list of questions had to be substantial – far more than I could ever use, thereby allowing me to float new questions as the topic did.

Luckily, everyone on the panel was not only well versed in their subject areas – but also the broader industry as a whole.  And thankfully, nobody answered any questions with a simple one-word “Yes.” answer.  Though, I may or may not have threatened them prior to the presentation that any answers less than a certain number of seconds would result in…well…unhappy.

Speaking of the panelists – here they are:

Chris Fickle, Director of Telemedicine Business Development
A & D Medical

Ian Andes, President
4iiii Innovations, Inc.

Karl-Johan Dahlström, Head of Developer Relations
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications

Mike Stashak, Vice President of Marketing and Sales
Wahoo Fitness

Oh…and me.

The topic was “Data Liberation: Making Health Data Intelligible for the Consumer” – or essentially, “How on earth does anyone make sense of any of this stuff”.  Strangely, my alternate title wasn’t accepted.

With that long-winded introduction – here’s the full recorded panel – about 50 minutes in length.  You can skip around, as I cover a ton of different topics in my Monty Python quest to get all your questions and my curiosities answered.  Enjoy!

My 2012 CES Session

And, if you liked this – you’ll probably really enjoy the keynote I did back at the ANT+ Symposium in September.  That one wasn’t a panel, but just straight up all me.  Well, me, talking about what you wanted.  So really, both of us.  Got it?  Good.

Oh – and if you want to see the rest of the sessions from the Digital Health Summit track, here’s their page.  They’ve got even more publishing over the course of Thursday.  Enjoy!

As always, thanks for reading (or watching, as it may be).

What I wear: Cold weather running

Back a bit ago I got a question as to what my cold weather running gear looks like – after all, I do pretty much run outside no matter how cold it is.

“Searched your blog but couldn't see much on this topic. Do you have any recommendations on running/riding (just training, not competing) in winter and staying warm but not sweating too much and getting cold. Clothes you wear or suggest? Gloves, beanies etc?

I just have so much trouble motivating myself in winter to get outside. I have a running machine and trainer, but oh so boring. And if I do rug up I heat up so quickly it is uncomfortable.  So I am sure there are items out there that do this properly.

So any options you would like to recommend or suggest to make the task of taking the first few steps out the door in winter a pleasure?”- Nathan S.

Here in DC the weather fluctuates quite a bit in winter, with the temperatures generally being between 30*F and 50*F for most days, but it occasionally will dip as low as 0*F – all without any funky wind-chill factors.

So over time I’ve kinda put together a simple mental chart of what I wear at given temperatures.  Of course, as with most things, it tends to be a bit of a personal preference with how your body reacts to colder temperatures and retains heat.  Or, at the opposite end, how well it performs in heat.  Myself for example, I hate overheating – so I’ll usually err on the side of being a bit chilly rather than being too warm. Though, in all the below scenarios I usually manage to nail the heating aspect and stay warm without getting too hot.

Let’s start off with some moderate stuff, and then work our way down.  I’m going to do it in Fahrenheit – merely because that’s how I have my mental chart laid out.  And of course, I reserve the right to change it on a completely adhoc basis, simply because I feel warmer or cooler on a given day.

55*F+: Shorts and T-Shirt

Shorts and t-shirt, no doubt about it.  And really, in general if it’s over 50*F, I’m likely wearing just a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.  Sometimes though if it’s really blowing, I’ll dip into the long-sleeve below 55*F, but mostly the above range could read 50*F+.  And anything above 55*F is definitely no-go for long-sleeves.  I’d likely burn up, unless I was below long-run pace (i.e. running slower than normal).

45ish-55*F: Shorts and Long-Sleeve Shirt

This is where I start to add something up top.  Usually I’ll grab one of the handful of long-sleeve technical fabric (quick-dry) shirts that I have from some random race.  In the DC area, that random race tends to be the Army 10-Miler, since they give out virtually the same shirt each year – thus, I have a number of those shirts.  Sometimes, as in the case of last week in Seattle where I forgot a long-sleeve shirt, I’ll simply use the t-shirt and fleece method I note below:

Speaking of travel, sometimes I plan something completely wrong – like this run in Zurich from last January.  But I still ran…even in the snow…with my getup designed for warmer temperatures.

I use shorts here mostly because I like the freedom of shorts, but there are times that at the lower range of this, or if the wind is pushing a bit – that I’ll go ahead and go with running tights.  But in general, this is shorts weather – especially if running in the sun.

I should note that from a socks standpoint they stay the same across the board.  I use Balega running socks…cause I love them.

35*-45*F: Running Tights and Long-Sleeve Shirt:

At this stage I’ve transitioned from shorts to running tights.  I know that some of you may be afraid of the running tight – but it’s really the way to go.  I’ve use the Sugoi Midzero tights, merely because it happened to be the first pair of tights I picked up at my local running store.  I like them, they last quite a while, and they work for me.  Unlike GPS devices though, I really know very little about sports clothing other than what works for me.  I do know they have different tights for different temperatures, but I find the Midzero works across the spectrum of weather I’m running in.  You crazy folk out in the midwest who run in –30*F weather…you’ll have to sort out the colder weather varieties and report back.

Usually at this point I’ll be adding both a hat and gloves, since I want to keep my noggin and hands warm.  And as silly as this may sound – I actually just use those cheap $1 gloves that you buy at the running expo’s before a race.  Even more so, I always feel bad about throwing them away…so I kinda still have even my very first pair from years ago.

20*-35*F: Running Tights, T/Long-Sleeve shirt and Thin Fleece

At this stage I’m simply layering a thin fleece jacket over my running gear.  I bought it years ago at REI, and it’s my go-to running fleece.  While lightweight, and though not exactly breathable – it works perfectly for me.  All I do is simply put a t-shirt or long-sleeve shirt under it (depending on which end of the spectrum we’re talking about), and I’m good to go.

0*-20*F: Running Tights, Long-Sleeve Shirt, Running Jacket

This is fairly similar to above, except I’m simply swapping out the fleece for a legit running jacket.  Mine isn’t anything special from a brand/vendor standpoint, just whatever they sold at the Boston Marathon.  If it’s on the colder edge of that I might also wear the fleece – but generally I’d be far too hot unless it were a long run at a slower than normal pace.

I also tend to wear warmer gloves here.  Usually mittens, but again, your body really does a good job at keeping warm while running, so be sure not to go overboard here.  You can usually find a nice pair of gloves/mittens relatively cheaply that will do the trick.

And realistically, I wouldn’t be doing too long of a run in 0*F weather.  I think the longest run I did at 0*F was about 10-15 miles.  I was trying to find the old post, it was in Rock Creek somewhere – but alas, my post searching skills of my own site appear to be non-functional.

Now, I should note that I do often run in these temps with just my fleece if I’m running intervals or other heat inducing run activity.  So keep that in mind.  It’s surprisingly easy to keep warm once running.

Snow and Ice:

Finally, a note about snow and ice.  For icy conditions, I use Yaktrax.  They cost about $20-$35 (for running ‘Pro’ model), and completely and totally rock.  And while they work well in snow, they don’t quite work as well in deeper snow.  Meaning that while it doesn’t hurt to have them on, I actually don’t find them necessary since fluffy snow has pretty good traction.  Their forte is really icy conditions that you can’t get a good grip on.

I’ve run countless runs on otherwise nasty icy roads with them and wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Here’s some blizzard and snow running posts that I’ve done.

Alternate Clothing Options:

Finally, I should mention there are a few scenarios which result in clothing that doesn’t match the above brackets.  First, for the Cupid Undies Run, which requires…well…less clothing:

Then we have the Polar Bear Plunge, which, as you can see – starts off as a run…but ended up turning into a swim. 

Nonetheless, I feel it’s important to correctly classify it within the running section.  You can read about both years here.  And, of course, the video of the below is there as well.

With that, hope you found this useful – and enjoy running in the cold. It certainly beats 100*F+ weather…well…at least in my book!

Thanks for reading!

A bit more than a weekend in Seattle

For roughly the past week I’ve been hanging out in Seattle for work.  Of course, since Seattle is where I grew up – that also means I get to spend time with the rest of my family, and enjoy some of the things that Seattle is famous for.

Take for example, my running route.  It’s no secret that it rains a lot in the Puget Sound, and with the exception of Friday, it did indeed rain every day while I was there.  Since rain degrades a drivers ability to see, it also means that I wanted to find somewhere a bit quieter to run.  So when it came time to run each night I was looking for a route that was both safe, but also well lit.

It so happened that I decided the best route one night was actually running around Paine Field (only two miles from my parents house).  Paine Field is where they make the Boeing 747, 767, 777 and 787 – essentially, all of the wide body Boeing aircraft.

My run was only about 40 minutes that night, but with the main runway closing in on 10,000 feet (basically two miles) – the airport had plenty of running potential. 

Since the airport is host to a massive number of companies that support Boeing, there were tons of roads to wander around on.  Most of them lined with Boeing 787’s waiting to be fixed and delivered to airlines (around 45 of them these days).  You can see some of these in the older satellite image above…there are many more nowadays.

Speaking of which, I thought this photo was kinda neat – which I took after I completed my run.  I’m standing in front of half a dozen 787’s waiting to get modification work done, which will ultimately allow them to be delivered to their respective airlines.  In fact, up against the hanger are two 787’s destined for United Airlines, to be delivered in the second half of this year (well, hopefully).

At one point during my run they were doing some engine tests at the other end of the field – neat to just see the constant array of activity, even at 7-8PM at night.

Moving ahead to Saturday, it was skiing time.  With so many options for ski resorts within easy reach of Seattle, we left it as a game-time decision for early Saturday morning. Ultimately, the weather was favoring Stevens (a complex matrix gets implemented, evaluating drive time with expected weather conditions).  Since the weather was largely overcast turning to occasional snow showers, it wasn’t worth going further afield for better skiing.  Stevens would do just fine.

Today I was playing/testing with an assortment of gadgets, but the focus of which was primarily the Recon Instruments MOD heads-up display goggles. 

These Android powered goggles display your skiing stats in real-time in the lower corner of your goggle:

It’s sorta like having a Garmin inside your goggles.  And I’ve gotta say, it’s really damn cool.  So much better than looking down to check your watch – it’s just…well…right there in front of you.  It’s really hard to take photos of the inside of the screen, but here’s one from that day.  When I’m looking at it inside the goggle, it’s crystal clear.  But the photos turn out grainy:

Now, had I not had to work on Friday (day before), I would have definitely bailed and also gone skiing with my brother – since it was incredible weather that day.  But I gave him the goggles as he spent nearly a dozen hours skiing and hiking all over creation – much of it in backcountry territory.  It’s cool to see the map of there as well, especially relative to where the ski area was (black line his route, including hiking, other lines ski runs/lifts): 

And while the goggles battery died well before his (only about 6-7 hours), I’ve gotta share one quick capture from GoPro footage that day, since it was pretty sweet:

Later on when review the unit in full I’ll show some of the GoPro videos of his, combined with the data from the goggles, since it can merge the match the display.

Though, the primary purpose of the goggle is to give you data in the goggle in real-time.  It can also sync text and phone notifications with Android cell phones (iPhone 4S support coming next year), and can control music too.  Cool stuff.

At any rate, soon, it was time to head out.  Next time skiing, next time!  Before heading back to DC, we swung home and I had a great home cooked meal.  Inclusive of course, of some Spatzle – which served as a clear reminder that I need to make some more again soon:

With that, I jumped on a plane and zipped across the night sky on a lovely redeye back to Washington DC.

Upon arriving at Washington Dulles early Sunday morning, I caught up on my sleep.  But later on Sunday I went ahead and did a nice 10 mile run.  I was excited to find that the heart rate strap gel that I had ordered had come in.  While the latest generation of straps is pretty good, I find that on these 40-50*F days where I’m in Z2 (long run effort), I don’t often produce enough sweat initially to get good HR data in the first 10 minutes of the run.

I’ve previously posted on this stuff, but my previous bottle finally died.  It seems to have about a 14-18 month shelf life before it becomes kinda watery, and doesn’t stay put.  But at about $6, I’m alright with that cost to product lifetime ratio.

Plus, the data was pretty close to flawless, so I was happy again.  And of course, the run was good too!

(Side note: If you have heart rate data spikes/dropouts, start with this post, and then this post, and more info on that gel here.)

When I returned home I went looking around the fridge for the required ingredients to make chocolate milk…namely, well, just chocolate and milk.  In my quest though – I found a far greater recovery food!  Chocolate Martini!  The Girl had made these while I was away, and I just assumed I’d never get to eat one since I figured that it would be the penalty for travelling.  Thankfully, I was wrong.  May very well be the best dessert item she’s ever made.

With that – my weekend is complete, time to enjoy the rest of the evening.

Thanks for reading, and hope your week ahead goes well!

Week in Review–January 29th, 2012

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, Facebook, and Google Plus, 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!

DCRainmaker.com posts this past week:
Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page of DCRainmaker.com this week:

Saturday: Week in Review–January 21st, 2012
Monday: Cold Wanderings- A weekend of workouts and exploring in DC
Tuesday: Ironman 70.3 National Harbor- Run Course Preview…Part I
Wednesday: A review of the SportyPal Sony Ericsson Xperia Active Bike Mount
Thursday: Fitting it all in- Work, Run, Fly, Blog
Friday: Behind the scenes- The DCRainmaker Gadget Cave

Stuff that 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) Ironman Williamsburg coming soon?  Perhaps, this event would be about 2ish hours south of DC (or 5-6 hours with traffic).  Might certainly make for a one-two punch for local athletes also doing Ironman 70.3 National Harbor, especially with it’s planned September or October timeframe (IM 70.3 National Harbor is August).

2) Tour Down Under enforcing bathroom break standards: Athletes at the Tour Down Under learn the hard way that the world is not their bathroom.  Fear not, still doesn’t apply to Tour de France.

3) Interesting notes about high end endurance sports talent development.  Some quotes regarding some of the lack of talent development within the education system in the US with respect to endurance athletes.  Joel Filliol consolidates it all for easy reading.

4) Polar/Look Keo Pedal Power System getting Bluetooth 4.0? A little snippet deep inside a Velonews article about the upcoming Polar/Look Keo Pedal Power system, where it notes that a firmware update being planned for the end of the summer will make the system Bluetooth Smart/Bluetooth Low Energy capable.  Which really means the chip must already be there.  Working to get confirmation, via Chris from Polar.

5) Controversy about removal of bolts from Patagonia climbing route: Interesting story, about a different aspect of the endurance sports world.  Worth a read.  I started following Outside Magazine’s Twitter feed a week or to ago, and have been really enjoying their pieces – not all fluff.

6) A reality check for tech companies looking to get into health and medical devices: A solid piece for startup technology companies trying to break into the health and medical side of health and fitness.  Interesting looking at that world.

7) Lessons from the Biggest Badass Since Chuck Norris: A good piece from Men’s Health about cycling superstar Jens Voigt, and his role in the peloton. (via AngryAsian)

8) Got a flat tire? Some good advice if you’re new to the cycling scene, or just uncomfortable swapping out flat tires.  Btw, if you’re not a pro at it, I recommend spending some winter downtime in your garage swapping out tubes over and over again.  Eventually you’ll get the hang of it.

9) New Zealanders: Funny insights from one of the Pro triathlete guys that was down in New Zealand outside of Wanaka over the past 3-4 weeks training.

10) Mobile access to health data rose 125% in 2011: In case you were wondering why all these big companies are clamoring to get health and fitness data into and out of your phone, here’s why.

Thanks for reading!

Behind the scenes: The DCRainmaker Gadget Cave

Back a while ago I had shown a photo of the heart rate strap collection I have, where I stash the massive number of heart rate straps that I seem to have obtained (usually just because they came with various products).  During that post, some folks asked to see what the full sports gadget collection looks like.

It used to be that the collection all fit into a single Rubbermaid container.  Well, mostly.  As you saw in my post on ‘Behind the scenes in product reviews’, it was overflowing at the time.  So this spring I decided to upgrade it.  And by ‘upgrade’, I mean I went to Ikea and bought the cheapest shelving system they had.

Now, I should point out an important item because I’m not sure if everyone realizes it.  After I’m done reviewing a product, I almost always end up returning the product to the vendor – no matter if the item costs $2,000 or $200.  About the only items I don’t send back are ones that I’ve consumed (i.e…food), which is fairly rare.  In some cases, the companies don’t want them back – so I give them away (a hint at what might be coming up soon…).

After the product has gone back though, I end up re-purchasing almost all of them.  I do this to be able to answer your questions as companies add new features, or to be able to add them as comparisons in product reviews.  Obviously, this costs real hard cold cash, hence why I’m super thankful for all of you who use the Amazon links.

With that – let me introduce the portable side of the sports gadget collection.  Note this does not include trainers, or anything else that doesn’t fit in the closet.

Above, the closet.  You’ll notice Mr. Shark is hanging out there, guarding the goods.  He sits behind the pull-up bar (an artifact as part of the Men’s Health partnership).  The pull up bar keeps him in the room, like one of those children's fences.

Once you’re inside and navigated him out of the way, I’ve organized everything into levels.  Starting at the very top is basically a place where I can stash boxes that don’t really fit anywhere else – these are mostly just scales and the like.

Then from there we go into swim stuff (you’ll notice the pattern: Swim, Bike, Run…).  Because Swim doesn’t really need as much room as the others, I also stash some health and fitness stuff in here – like Zeo.

Moving down a layer we’ve got ‘Bike’.  Now in general these are products that I’ve already reviewed, but there are some others in there that I just haven’t gotten around to.  In some cases, the product may never be reviewed (simply due to lack of time), and in others, it’s still on my radar.  For items that are triathlon and could swing both bike or run, I stash it wherever seems to have the most space that day.

Moving on we’re onto the run!  This is without question the biggest category, as it’s the one where I write the most product reviews for.  Lots of stuff in here.  Sometimes I have two of an item, either because The Girl has one, or because I’ve had multiples for some random reason (i.e. there are two Nike+ GPS watches there, one of them is shattered).

Below the run, we’ve got the ‘To Review’ pile.  This serves as a handy reminder of things I’m working on.  Some items are higher priority than others, usually determined by your demand.  Occasionally determined by public release.  Virtually never determined by what a company wants (I recently reminded a company of that, subsequently sending back their products without review after they got pushy).  I aim to deliver what I believe you’ll find interesting, not what some PR person wants.  Of course, if I find something interesting, then you’ll never know what you’ll get (hence the Shark and blender things).

Finally, there’s that good ole Rubbermaid bin!  Yup, he lives on.  Currently he’s the miscellaneous parts box, with random stuff that I scrounge from.  I’ve got enough zip ties in there to easily take care of any WTO event.  And of course, off to the side is my trusty roller wheel for measuring courses, hanging out next to my underwater photography case for underwater review items.

I’ve also got two more little piles out of view (gotta have surprises!).  The first being unreleased/unannounced products, and the second being a very good chunk of stuff that I’ll be giving away shortly.  It’s a fairly substantial pile – sorta like ‘The mother of all DC Rainmaker giveaways’.  And, more fun to keep that a surprise.  When have you ever been disappointed by one of my giveaways?

With that – hope you enjoyed the little tour, and hope you have an enjoyable weekend!

Thanks for reading!

Fitting it all in: Work, Run, Fly, Blog

On Sunday evening I realized that Monday was going to be a bit of a whirlwind day – starting on one coast, and ending on the other, so I figured it might be a bit fun to simply put together a journal of my day.  Just a bit of an inside look into how I attempt to fit everything into a given day, sometimes successfully, sometimes not as much.  On days when I’m flying, everything is all aimed towards successfully being on the airplane before it departs the gate, which in this day’s case was 5:11PM.

Sunday night before heading to bed I checked the weather.  My phone at the time showed a strange icon for Sunday evening that I’d never seen before.  I’m not clear what exactly the bouncing ping pong balls meant, but I decided that it probably wasn’t going to magically get another 10-20*F warmer by 6-7AM, so I had little desire to run in the cold rain with whatever that little icon meant was leftover.

So instead of running I started the day off with a few conference calls, before eventually ending up commuting to some meetings.  It’s during this commute that I found out on the radio that the little icon meant “freezing rain”, as the night before had coated everything in some ice – resulting in most schools being delayed about two hours.  Thankfully, by time my conference calls were over it was 9AM and the roads were fine.  Packed, slow as usual, but fine.

From 10AM onwards things were a whirlwind of meetings, one after another, with only about 8 minutes to grab and engulf a quick sandwich, all while finalizing a presentation.  So basically, just another day.

At 3PM though, my clock started ticketing towards flight time.  From one work building I rushed over to another office which happens to have a shared gym in it that I can access.  Apparently nobody uses said gym, as it’s always been empty when I’ve been there.

By time I got there, figured out why my keycard wasn’t working, got that fixed, got changed, and re-calibrated my footpod on a new pair of shoes, it was closing in on 3:20PM.  Doing quick math that meant if I wanted my 40 minute run it would put me at 4PM, with 5 minutes for shower, then still a 5-7 minute drive to the airport, and a 5 minute walk to security.  That was a few minutes beyond where I wanted to be, so I ended up going with a 32 minute run instead.

The goal of the run was just an easy 40 minutes, so I didn’t fret about being 8 minutes shorter – it was certainly better than no run at all.

After a blistering shower, I zipped out on the highway for the short 5-7 minute drive from Reston Town Center to the Washington Dulles parking garages.  Thankfully, there wasn’t any traffic to contend with, and I quickly found myself (aimlessly) circling the parking garage trying to find a spot.

From there it’s all about the Dulles Sprint – or the act of getting across the massive airport that is Washington Dulles International using the quickest method possible.  Using the quickest method rarely means using the published routes.

Now the trick to Dulles is to use the secret security entrance, which allows you to essentially avoid any and all security lines.  It’s amazing.

Years ago this used to be the paid Clear program security lines, but once that went belly-up they converted it into the TSA Diamond security lines (which just means designed for frequent travellers).  Nowadays though, anyone can use it – you’ve just gotta know where it is.  And being that it’s hidden downstairs in between the baggage claims, very few people know about it.

Thankfully it was empty as usual and I was able to clear security in about 2 minutes, including the fancy machines that just about measure my body composition like a body fat scale.

From there it’s out to one of a few transportation methods to get to the United gates (C & D), which are a few concourses away.  If you follow the published signs you’ll likely end up on the underground subway thing.  Which while nice for some gates, it’s fairly long for most gates – easily 5-7 minutes at best (very fast) walk time once the subway stops at the other end, especially the higher numbered C gates.

So instead I jump on the moon-buses (I don’t make up the names) to the ‘wrong’ concourse, but it’s just walk 1-2 minute versus the longer walk, saving me critical time.

Along the way I validate that my flight is still for C23, and indeed, my usual UA917 is where it should be.  I’ve taken this flight countless times over the past decade – probably between 100 and 200 times, maybe more.  I suppose I could look through that massive paper ream of history I got from United…maybe on a rainy day.

By 4:37PM I’ve arrived at my gate – C23, ready to board.  And amazingly, I actually managed to get there before they started boarding.  Four whole minutes to spare!

Four minutes later, I went ahead and boarded the Boeing 757-200 for the 4hr and 58 minute jaunt across the United States to Seattle.

During this 4hrs and 58 minutes I knocked out a handful of posts (though, this post wasn’t one of them).  Many of you wonder where I fit in the time to write posts, and these flights are definitely one of those places.  First was the Sunday night post on my weekend’s wanderings (60m), then I wrote Tuesday’s National Harbor post (took about 1hr 20m), and then the majority of the SportyPal post (another 75 minutes). 

Spent some time answering about 35 of your e-mails (you don’t want to know how many are still left…sorry!).  And then finally, I sifted through unsorted photos from the past month, trying to ensure that my stock pile had everything in the right place.  These are mostly all things I’m working on, or recently posted.

Along the way, the sun set outside my little window…

And, just prior to 8PM Pacific Time, or 11PM Eastern Time, I landed in Seattle – ready to tackle…well…another conference call.  First though, a ride on the little tram from the North Terminal to the main terminal, and then a sprint over to the rental car place.

By 8:10PM I’m on a 35 minute long conference call with a major national publication talking about sport watches for an upcoming piece they’re doing.  I do this sitting in my rental car, in the rental car garage in the same space I found it in, with Avis workers occasionally staring at me.

I keep trying to mentally say to them “I promise, I’ll eventually leave.”

And, eventually I do.

From there, I drive 45 minutes north to my hometown of little Mukilteo, where my parents live.  And while I’m out in Seattle for work this week, I simply stay with my family up north, as I get to enjoy spending the time with them.

And with that…the whole process (minus the jet plane) repeats itself again the next day…but, I’d take being busy over bored any day of the week!

Thanks for reading!

A review of the SportyPal Sony Ericsson Xperia Active Bike Mount

It’s not that often that I write reviews for items that actually include no electronics whatsoever.  Nor is it that often that I write a review for a single piece of plastic not much bigger than a deck of cards.  But this time, I made an exception – and I think you’ll agree it’s a pretty cool little piece of plastic.

See, back in September I reviewed the newly released ANT+ and enabled Sony Ericsson Xperia Active Android phone.  Aside from having fully integrated ANT+ support (meaning, it can connect to your Garmin sensors like speed/cadence, power, heart rate, etc…) – it’s all fully waterproofed, and shockproof.  Don’t believe me?  Well, check out this popular video I put together:

Sony Ericsson Xperia Active meets sports gel

And yes, fully waterproofed:

Sony Ericsson Xperia Active Underwater

So, with that background, the most common question on my original review post was “When is a bike mount coming out for it?”.  Unfortunately, there really wasn’t a good answer for that.  I spent considerable time checking out phone bike mounts at Interbike the following week – but none of them really fit the bill.  In short, all of the options were half-ass, at best.  None would be able to withstand an exciting trainer ride, let alone some time on a rough road.

For many, the use-case was clear: A bike computer replacement.  Or more specifically, a Garmin Edge 800 bike computer replacement.  Being roughly the same size, and just as waterproofed and durable – it starts to become an interesting platform.  Especially once you consider that the phone can run any Android app – including ones like Strava or MapMyRide.  Further, it’s always connected, allowing you to stream your data in real-time – right from your handlebars.

After Interbike things went quite for a bit on the mount front, but eventually ahead of the holidays I was contacted by the folks from SportyPal, as they were in the final stages of a bike mount that was designed specifically for the Xperia Active.  The goal was a super-low profile mount that could happily hold the phone without losing it.  So how’d things work out?

Unboxing:

Normally I have an unboxing section in my reviews, but as is often the case with products that I get ahead of release or availability, they don’t usually have full packaging.  And that was definitely the case here, no pun intended.  So, the full unboxing is quite simply just the single piece of plastic:

The final unit will include a handful of zip ties, which are required for attaching it to your bike.

Getting it all connected:

Now that we’re ready to set everything up, let’s talk about how your phone connects to the mount.  You’ll notice that the plastic mount has a small little round bump, this bump corresponds with the Xperia Active’s camera lens.  This little notch acts as a way to help secure everything in place – and does a really good job at it.

I asked why they didn’t use the LED flash divot instead of the camera lens divot.  They commented that the camera lens was the most vulnerable part on the entire camera – so they wanted to protect it (which this does).  Additionally, this would allow you to use the LED flash as a flashlight (turned on permanently) in a pinch on a trail (it’s surprisingly bright).

You’ll notice that the mount is incredibly thin – by far the thinnest overall mount in terms of height that I’ve seen for a phone.  Most phone mounts add a fair bit of vertical height so the phone looks fairly awkward on your handlebars.  But this one is basically about the same as the Edge 800.

Finally, time to get it mounted on the bike.

This requires two simple zip-ties, which just wrap through the little holes and help to mount it tightly to your handlebar.

As usual, just snip off the the excess:

With that, we’re ready to roll!

Use and durability a bike computer replacement:

It’s funny, by now, I’m pretty used to using a given bike computer on my rides.  Sorta habit-like.  However, despite having both the Edge 800 and the Xperia Active on my handlebars, I never glanced at the Edge 800 – but instead, kept on checking the Xperia Active for my latest speed, distance and HR updates.

For me, it was just the sheer screen sharpness and brightness of it, and the fact that there weren’t any funky oversized protective case on it.  Nor any cover that introduced weird glare.

The one setting I changed that was applicable to riding was to modify the phone’s display timeout to 30 minutes, from the default setting of about 30 seconds I believe.  Otherwise, the display would turn off before you finished your first few pedal rotations. Once that was set though, it’s perfect.

Now, as I noted in my previous review, the unit’s touchscreen doesn’t respond to normal glove touches.  But folks have noted that you can simply pickup a wide variety of gloves that have little tips in them designed to work with the phone.

Size wise, the phone really didn’t seem out of place, again, about the same size as the Edge 800.  Here’s a pic on my handlebars from this weekend – with the GoPro in view for some context.  I had taken the Edge off for the picture, though I wish I had kept it on now.

And, here’s a couple more photos for good measure:

One item of note is that if you have a triathlon/time-trial bike, you might have trouble mounting this, since some aerobar pads would block enough real estate to make that tough.  You could though pickup one of the various bike computer mounts designed to fit in between your aero bars, and mount it to that though.

From a durability standpoint, it’s really hard to show just how stable, secured and durable this thing is.  I think tomorrow I’m going to film a little video outside showing me being able to throw the phone with it mounted to something (deciding what, since I don’t think I’m going to chuck my bike), and not having it fall off.  I think you’ll be surprised – it’s remarkably secure and tight.

[Update – 1/26/2012]

Ok, I found something to attach it to that I could throw around – yup, a paddle.  From one of those inflatable boats.  So, below you’ll find an artful video of my banging the crap out of the paddle (in turn replicating a bumpy ride), and, simply just tossing the whole thing (phone and all) up in the air.  Sometimes it landed on the paddle, sometimes directly on the phone.  Again, remember that I’m tossing around a CELL PHONE.  Just because perhaps that might get lost in your video entertainment moment:

Banging the crap out of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active with SportyPal bike mount.

A few of us were commenting at CES while playing with it then that this would be the last thing on your bike to pop-off in an accident, it’s really well secured.  My time on the rougher dirt and mud trails with my road bike (some off-roading as a casualty in a recent ride), didn’t yield any issues.  And while I’m not a hardcore mountain biker – I’d feel pretty confident in saying it won’t pop off there.

Upcoming Items of Note:

SportyPal also has an Android app that can connect to ANT+ sensors and record both GPS and ANT+ data.  Additionally, they have the usual line of branded ANT+ accessories (HR straps, etc…).  One interesting item that their app does is to take advantage of the Xperia Active’s barometric altimeter (yup, pretty cool, ehh?).

Even more interestingly is that they will be amongst the first to support the new Sony Ericsson Smart Watch via an app they’ll be releasing.

But what is the Smart Watch?  Well, it connects to the Sony Ericsson phones via ANT+, and will display data in real-time from your cell phone.  This could be workout data, location data, or even incoming cell phone calls.  Since the Smart Watch is fully Android, apps can also be written for it.  This probably isn’t as useful in a cycling scenario, but is much more appealing in a run workout – where the phone probably isn’t strapped to your wrist, but the watch is.  And remember, since we’re talking a phone – we’ve got all the connectivity aspects – such as real-time positions and mapping, items your typical Garmin does not have.

The folks at Sony Ericsson are sending me out the Smart Watch to me this week to test out, and with Sporty Pal being the first folks out of the gate to support it – I’ll be digging into their Android app a bit in conjunction with that testing.  Stay tuned!

Summary:

For $20, this is probably one of the coolest cheap things I’ve reviewed.  The mount will be available in the next few weeks, so you’ll have it in your hands pretty soon.  It’ll be available in both black and white initially, though, they also showed off a few more vibrant colors at CES this year.

Finally, I’ve gotten a lot of questions on where exactly you can get the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active.  In Europe, that’s fairly easy and straightforward since a number of carriers carry it.  But in the states, none of the major carriers have it in their local stores.  Instead, you’d simply buy the phone unlocked (meaning, not tied to any given carrier) on Amazon (~$320US – Black/White, Black/Orange), following which your carrier of choice can activate it.  And yup, it includes a full warranty and all that jazz.

For example, in my case I can (and do) swap my SIM card on ATT between my iPhone, Windows 7 Phone, and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active – all without any trouble, it just takes a second (really, just a few seconds).  The nice part here is that you aren’t stuck in any contract with a given carrier.  Note though that it won’t work on Verizon though, but will work with just about everyone else on earth, and all over the globe.

With that, as always, if you’ve got any questions – feel free to drop them below.  Thanks for reading!