Comments for DC Rainmaker

Comment on An In-Depth Visit Behind the Scenes at Garmin Headquarters by Rainmaker

Rainmaker — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:22:12 +0000

We talked about BT/BLE sensors. Don’t expect to see any near-term (production of), though we will see wider adoption of BT chips in devices – but even though, unlikely to see support of BT senors either. They simply see it as eating into their ANT+ sensors.

Long term of course, that’s a losing battle – supporting both will be required as competitors do.

Comment on Incredible deals: Garmin FR910XT for $299, FR310XT for $169, Edge 800 for $229, Ambit for $349 by Larry

Larry — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:14:26 +0000

Thanks for all the great info. The 310 is probably overkill for me, but at the price I don’t see any reason not to go with that.

Comment on A much better USB ANT+ stick for your Garmin Forerunner…by Suunto by Florian

Florian — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:48:58 +0000

Not sure whether this has been mentioned yet, but my Forerunner 910XT, which I received today directly from Garmin (exchanged on warranty for defective unit), features a Garmin branded USB stick which looks very similar to the Suunto one pictured in your post. The old watch (bought 6 weeks ago from Amazon) still included the older, bigger unit…

Comment on Incredible deals: Garmin FR910XT for $299, FR310XT for $169, Edge 800 for $229, Ambit for $349 by Rainmaker

Rainmaker — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:16:41 +0000

Without going too far off topic, yes, kayaking power meters are out there today. It was announced about two years ago, and then the NZ national team got ahold of them pre-London for the Olympics, it wasn’t until just late last year that they opened it up to others: link to kayakpowermeter.com

Simply uses the ANT+ PM spec.

Comment on Incredible deals: Garmin FR910XT for $299, FR310XT for $169, Edge 800 for $229, Ambit for $349 by Eli

Eli — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:05:26 +0000

I would think anything more then cadence would be much more complicated. Well maybe add some strain gauges to the shaft where the blade attaches to measure power and with kayak paddles having two blades you could make use of left/right power. What else would you measure?

Comment on Incredible deals: Garmin FR910XT for $299, FR310XT for $169, Edge 800 for $229, Ambit for $349 by Rainmaker

Rainmaker — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:45:23 +0000

Yeah, but those are just cadence sensors (ultimately). Thus data comes out at cycling cadence. Not discounting it (it’s cool), but it’s not stroke or other things like stroke length, etc… They’d work on anything from the FR305 to 910XT. The TRT2 actually wouldn’t work there because it doesn’t support that sensor type.

Ambit2 could see something there.

Ultimately though, all these companies only have so many resources and focus on the most bang for their (development) buck.