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Week in Review–August 31st, 2013

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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 past week. Dang, 19 posts in all including this one!

Sunday: Week in Review–August 25th, 2013

Monday: A Queen Mary 2 Runaround

Monday: A look at the now available Wahoo Fitness Strava Segments App

Tuesday: My weekend: Stonehenge, a float on the Queen Mary 2, and a day in Hamburg

Wednesday: Eurobike!

New Bull Trainer iOS app for KICKR Trainer

Hands on with the newly announced Tacx iPad app, ANT+ changes, Bluetooth Smart trainers

Update on Polar/Look Keo Pedal Power Meter Bluetooth Smart Plans

FYI: Added hands-on photos & comparison charts to Garmin VIRB post

First look at new SRM PC8 head unit with WiFi/GPS/ANT+ & Bluetooth (Note: Significant updates since publishing)

Eurobike Day 1: The Fun Stuff

Thursday: Eurobike!

Hands on with the new Garmin Edge Touring GPS bike computer

Kurt Kinetic shows off updated trainers

PowerTap’s new hubs, Bluetooth Smart Trainers, iPad apps, and more

Power2Max releases new Type S line, expands compatibility

Eurobike Power Meter Update Post: Quarq, ROTOR, Pioneer, Brim Brothers & Ciclosport

Friday: Eurobike!

O-Synce introduces new Bluetooth Smart accessories/displays, other cool functionality in software for power meter users

Recon Jet: Hands on with the endurance sports heads up display

Eurobike Day 2: The Fun Stuff

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) What you need to know about the UCI Presidency Election (Part 1): And, if you’re looking for more fun UCI news, read this rant from SKINS president Jaimie Fuller.

2) Competitor group races immediately cease all Elite athlete support: Effective last night, races like the Rock & Roll marathon won’t assist elite/pro athletes financially anymore. It’ll be really interesting (saddening actually) if this continues.

3) The Hierarchy of Aero: This is a good post worth reading – especially about half-way down when you get some of the real experts into the discussion.

4) North Korea working on ski resort: Progress not going terribly well.

5) An Open Letter to everyone who’s ever asked “How’d your race go?”: I think the subject pretty much sums things up.

6) Washington DC prepares to bid on 2024 Summer Olympics: Will be interesting to see this bid mature over the next couple of years.  The 2024 Olympics would be awarded in 2017.

7) Team Sky’s Time Trial Warm Ups Explained: This video walks through exactly how they warm-up ahead of time-trials, step by step with instructions.

8) Woman steals back her bike: Pretty awesome story of a woman that met up with the person offering her stolen bike on Craigslist, asked for a test ride…and just kept on riding.

9) Fitbits used to monitor progress after heart surgery: This is pretty fascinating data, really worth the quick read. (sent in from John B)

10) How to do a flip turn: A pretty good piece for those of you looking to spend some time this fall perfecting the flip turn in the pool.

11) How Garmin Vector works and how Resonant String Gauges work: This is definitely for the tech-heads and power meter geeks.

12) The best photo of the week: This clearly goes to this one that I think originated from the Ironman/WTC CEO (from Ironman Canada).  Note the upper section on trail.

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13) Boston Marathon field expanded by 9,000 runners: A portion of this expansion will cover runners unable to complete the race last year. (via EverymanTri)

14) Ironman Brazil 70.3 winner nearly loses it at the finish line: Thus, why you should always look over your shoulder prior to showboating. (Via TriMagJene)

15) Olympians find success at long-course racing: A really good in-depth piece about short-course (Oly distance) folks moving to long course. (via PowerTap)

16) Way Of Life Trailer by Teton Gravity Research: Because it’s never too early to start watching ski movie trailers. (via Recon)

Crowd Funded Projects of Athletic Note:

This is a bit of a new section. Most of this content used to be found within the main section, but I figured I’d just call it out up here and make it easy to find. I regularly sift through Kickstarter and Indiegogo (plus a few others on occasion) looking for sports projects. Note that as always with crowd funded projects, assume the project will be late and will under-deliver on features. Thus far, on the numerous products I’ve helped ‘fund’ (except a leather bike handle), that’s been the case.

Beddit – Automatic sleep and wellness tracker: Turn your bed into a smart bed. (via Eli)

Omate TrueSmart: Water-resistant standalone Smartwatch 2.0 (via Eli)

Elevate Armsleeve: Raising Performance & Expectation (via Eli)

Sports Technology Software/Firmware Updates This Week:

Each week I quickly highlight some of the new firmware, app, software and website service updates that I see go out. If you’re a sports technology company and release an update – shoot me a quick note (just one liners is perfect, or Tweet it at me is even better) and I’ll make mention of it here. If I don’t know about it, I won’t be able to post about it. Sound good?

Site/Firmware Updates:

Suunto Ambit2 & 2S: Pretty big update here on the Suunto Ambit 2/2s front, adding in a real trackback feature and bike power slope calibration, as well as fixing a number of other items that users have seen and improving areas like outdoor swimming.

Garmin Vector:  This update addresses an issue that can occur post-calibration.  (via GPSInformation.net)

TomTom: This update fixes a number of issues and fixes some compatibility problems with the 4iiii’s Viiiiva

TrainerRoad: If you’ve got a CompuTrainer, Wahoo KICKR or Kinetic inRide, I’d definitely recommend this update, which addresses a few issues.

ANT+ releases Android Sampler Testing Tool:  This tools allows you to test out every device profile out there, as well as do things like manual ANT+ power meter calibration and display the new PM metrics that are coming from Rotor and Vector.  In fact, it would even work with the new Garmin VIRB (remote control device profile). The App is open-source and available to add to other applications.

iPhone App updates this week:

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IMG_2669 IMG_2619

IMG_2670

 

iPad App updates this week:

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Android App updates this week:

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Screenshot_2013-08-31-12-52-45 Screenshot_2013-08-31-12-51-58

Screenshot_2013-08-31-12-52-30 Screenshot_2013-08-31-12-52-17

Windows Phone app updates this week:

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Thanks for reading!

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18 Comments

  1. Myria

    At least the TrueSmart is an actual smartwatch rather than a dumb display — honestly I think it would be helpful for someone to come up with consistent product category names to differentiate the two.

    I suspect the somewhat new trend of trying to include cellular radios — whether strictly data, as here for 2G/3G, or for calls/data — is a mistake, though. The RF sections of these things are always going to be a big chunk of your battery budget, and cellular radios, with their much greater RF output requirements, are going want orders of magnitude more than Wifi/GPS/GLONASS/Blu/Ant+. Better just to stick to those, IMHO, and use a blu link to a smartphone for cell stuff, if you need that functionality.

    • The TrueSmart includes a cellular radio purely as an option, you don’t have to turn it on or enable it. You can use the Truesmart as a standalone phone, or linked to your phone with bluetooth for data connectivity and notifications, or both. I’ve got two on order, so it will be interesting to see the difference in battery life with and without the SIM installed.

      Yesterday they posted pictures of the device running Endomondo and Runtastic natively, without an modification, they just downloaded from the play store and they worked.
      Omate TrueSmart running Endomondo and Runtastic

      Now I’ll shut up about the Omate TrueSmart here, I’ve been talking about it too much, I guess I’m a bit too excited about it.

  2. I too have been in a race where a bear tried to compete (Edge 2 Edge in Ucluelet (Canada!)), I didn’t see it, it was far behind me, but they announced at the finish line that it was DQed for being a bear.

    With respect to the Ambit, I still get software updates on my Gen 1. I remember a bit of a hullabaloo about this a while back. In what way are they not supporting it?

    • The final Ambit1 update went out back in June. They weren’t planning on release any further updates for it prior to that, but enough folks complained that they relented. That was the final one though now.

      Any other updates you’re seeing are actually for the device agent uploader, and not the watch itself.

  3. Jon

    Remember kids, a spike on the one yard line is a fumble.

    I’m pretty annoyed about Competitor pulling elite support. I was planning on RnR Arizona but if they’re not interested in developing the sport…

  4. Paul

    Interesting video on the technology behind the Garmin Vector. The presenter doesn’t clarify clear enough though whether the Vector uses normal strain gauges (8 I think?) or the Resonant string type. He seems to indicate the Vector uses both technologies, which obviously isn’t right. Any idea Ray?

    • Hi Paul,

      Sorry, i didn’t mean to confuse you. This was mainly in response to people asking how Swedish Adrenaline’s new Resonate String Gauges work. I just figured I’d explain how Garmin made theirs work and why Swedish Adrenaline will need to change the design shown in their picture.

      Garmin actually uses a new technology called “Piezoresistive strain gauges”. Like normal strain gauges but they are solid state. They are very sensitive to strain but also very thermally sensitive. They are the only ones working with Piezoresistive gauges that I know of.

      Look uses normal foil based strain gauges with an near identical setup.

  5. Barb

    Hi DC!! I just met you – when I was online looking for an explanation on how the heck to program my new Garmin 210. YOU ARE A GENIUS…BRILLIANT, and FUNNY! And you could be a professional writer, too (maybe you DO write ‘technology’ stuff for work (?) Anyway, I LOVE your Blog!

  6. Eli

    Gimbal for a Gopro camera (i.e. stabalize the image):
    link to kickstarter.com

    another iphone bike mount:
    link to kickstarter.com

  7. Guillaume

    The Suunto fixes major connection issues; no more fiddling with USB cables and failed moves uploads.

  8. Eli

    Ant is making it a bit easier to figure out how to connect ant+ devices to phones: link to thisisant.com
    Seems like they’ve really been expanding the sdk for Android recently

  9. Shouldn’t this link be on the list?
    They printed your post pretty much completely 😉

  10. Sean

    That beddit looks interesting. Any updates yet?

    Thanks!

    • Eli

      They are slowly improving and adding features to the software. So can track your resting heart rate, and has a time line of your sleeping that shows snoring and the depth of your sleep.

    • Eli

      Doesn’t seem like anything new has come out about Withing’s Aura. So outside of the light that is trying to be a sunrise/sunset simulator that the Aura has hard to tell which will be better as not enough info is out. Beddit is still adding features and plans to have cloud functionality with an API for 3rd parties to work with the cloud.