The important part here is The Week in Review’s are back!
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.
As noted earlier, Clever Training is offering the Garmin Edge 800 for $279 for the base unit, and $399 for the full-on bundle (including speed/cadence sensor, HR strap, and maps). This is only offered until the end of Wednesday, July 31st. Also, because it’s considered a deep-sale, it won’t qualify for the usual 10% off DCR coupon. But it does still qualify for free shipping to the US! [Edge 800 In-Depth Review here]
Actually, there’s a secondary deal worth noting. The Garmin Edge 500 is now down to an effective price of $199, as Garmin is currently offering a $50 mail-in rebate for it. Plus, you can add in the DCR 10% savings on your Clever Training cart as well for this one (you can do the math, it’s on the original $250 price). You’ll just use coupon code DCR10BTF. Note that the Edge 500 rebate is time-limited and ONLY applies to purchases made prior to the end of July 31st (Wednesday). Oh, and yup, free shipping is good there too! [Edge 500 In-Depth Review here]
Woot, check it out!
Normally this section highlights other little snippets around the internet that I may be featured in, or guest-posted in. But this week, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that two weeks ago The Girl was on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) twice – first locally in Newfoundland, then Nationally, and then finally – it was rebroadcast on NPR in the US.
The radio interview was about her cupcake shop that she opened up here in Paris.
You can see (and listen to) one of the three variations that were broadcast here. It’s a fun interview, I suspect you’ll enjoy. Since then, we’ve been swamped with Canadians (especially those from Newfoundland) coming into the shop. We really appreciate the support – both from them, and the numerous daily blog readers that swing in! Thanks!
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:
2) List of pro riders that doped exposed, four ex-pros immediately lose current jobs: I’ve gotta laugh at some of the quotes at the end, implying that the organization that released the names was responsible for ruining someone’s career. No, you, the doper, is responsible for ruining your own career. It always catches up…always.
8) Bluetooth Smart coming to Windows Phones,Android Phones…you’ll need to keep waiting: While the various announcements over the past few weeks are a good start, don’t be misled. It’s going to be a long time before you actually see Bluetooth Smart hit your existing phone. For example, on Android unless you have a Nexus you’ll first have to wait for your handset maker to test and release the appropriate build (i.e. Samsung), then depending on how and where you got your phone you’ll have to wait for your carrier (i.e. ATT). Of course, there’s no guarantee that older devices will get it either…even if you just bought your phone a few months ago.
9) Ironman Lake Placid Primer: If you’re preparing to race or watch IMLP this weekend, then here’s your starting line.
13) Coaching vs Canned Plans:A simple yet good post on the difference between having an active coach, and having a canned plan from a coach.
14) Inside the Nike+ Accelerator: The Nike+ Accelerator is program that aims to create a bunch of health & fitness related startups, or, take existing startups to the next level.
15) Baguette bag for cycling: Well, not just cycling I suppose – but totally awesome nonetheless! At least for folks who live in the land of baguette…
16) Bike lane Zebra blockers: Interesting little devices they’re installing in Washington DC to protect bike lanes.
17)Consolidated TdF power meter files: Here’s a full page of power meter files from riders and the majority of stages from this years Tour de France.
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.
Cardboard bike fail! Looks like the folks behind the uber-expensive but advertised as $10 cardboard bike realized they were crazy. They decided to cancel their Kickstarter project.
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:
Garmin FR910XT Firmware Update: The FR910XT got an update to fix the multisport mode failures that were introduced in the last update. Thus far in looking at the Garmin Forums, I’m not seeing any additional adverse behaviors with the new 2.80 firmware, but if you don’t have a race or brick this weekend, you may want to give it another week just to be sure. Oh, and it also fixes a few more items as well.
Thanks for reading all! And sorry for the slight absence in Week in Review posts over the past few weeks.
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For #5 Glonass is still functioning fine for us the end users. They still have full coverage for all of the globe, just not as many backups as they would like.
For #8 if developers really wanted to the could support BLE now on some phones as some manufactures have released sdks that expose the needed functionality: link to androidpolice.com
Less fragmentation sucks so it makes things harder, but it can be done.
For #15 I just fold the baguette in half and stick it in my backpack
No doubt it keeps working just fine, I’m just referring to the fact that it ultimately would could impact availability down the road.
And on BLE, as we’ve chatted a bit about, it’s just not realistic for apps to deal with creating phone-specific updates and trying to keep up with them. Apps simply aren’t doing it today, beyond a tiny handful for an even smaller use case pool.
For BLE, yes its hard and fragmentation sucks. But I prefer to let app developers choose if they want to deal with the fragmentation and have limited support now or hold off till 4.3 is widely available rather then saying it isn’t possible. Is more then 70 million Galaxy S3/S4 units enough of a market share to target, maybe not but it is possible to target if they want. (low estimate based on 50 million S3 phones shipped at the S4 introduction and around 20 million S4 phones shipped since that phone launched)
Plus while the specific SDK is OEM specific the overall structure is still pretty generic GATT data structures so writing to the samsung SDK now for example wouldn’t be completely wasted code as it shouldn’t be that much restructuring to support the official BLE android support.
I updated my forerunner 910xt to 2.8 everything works ok, it is just that acquiring satelites takes a lot longer then before. (It can just be circumstances or a complete misguided feeling, but it feels that way)
elevation gain when biking looks a lot more consistent (my home/work route now fluctuates between 30 and 50 meters, instead of between 40 and 140 in version 2.7)
Initial lock after the update or all locks since the update? (initial lock may make sense as the cache of gps data from the previous time was probably invalidated)
all locks since the update, normaly I start the watch as soon as I get out of the door and it has a lock by the time I’m on my bike, now I have to wait some time after I’m ready.
When it comes to Garmin updates, I don’t think its good advice to tell people to just give it a week and then go ahead and update. Considering how often Garmin creates new problems in features that were already working (version 2.7 is a perfect example), some of which don’t become apparent on the boards for some time, I think the better advice is to only update if a feature you want to use is currently not working and the upgrade purports to fix the issue. If the watch is doing what you want/need it to do, for god’s sake don’t take a risk by updating. Updating for the sole reason that there is a new version, is simply asking for trouble, imho.
I didn’t say to update it. I simply said to wait at least a week if you planned to.
That said, it’s a double-edged sword. Plenty of people may have updated to 2.7 and broke their multisport and may not realize it, so 2.8 is important for many triathletes and thus is a very good reason to update it this time.
If you google search Sloan Teeple (the busted doper) it appears he’s a doctor. “Sloan Teeple, M.D. is a Board-Certified Urologist and expert in Testosterone Deficiency.” no less. I wonder how many other athletes were going to him?
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FAQ’s
I have built an extensive list of my most frequently asked questions. Below are the most popular.
You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.
I travel a fair bit, both for work and for fun. Here’s a bunch of random trip reports and daily trip-logs that I’ve put together and posted. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been.
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2023 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
For #5 Glonass is still functioning fine for us the end users. They still have full coverage for all of the globe, just not as many backups as they would like.
For #8 if developers really wanted to the could support BLE now on some phones as some manufactures have released sdks that expose the needed functionality:
link to androidpolice.com
Less fragmentation sucks so it makes things harder, but it can be done.
For #15 I just fold the baguette in half and stick it in my backpack
No doubt it keeps working just fine, I’m just referring to the fact that it ultimately would could impact availability down the road.
And on BLE, as we’ve chatted a bit about, it’s just not realistic for apps to deal with creating phone-specific updates and trying to keep up with them. Apps simply aren’t doing it today, beyond a tiny handful for an even smaller use case pool.
For BLE, yes its hard and fragmentation sucks. But I prefer to let app developers choose if they want to deal with the fragmentation and have limited support now or hold off till 4.3 is widely available rather then saying it isn’t possible. Is more then 70 million Galaxy S3/S4 units enough of a market share to target, maybe not but it is possible to target if they want. (low estimate based on 50 million S3 phones shipped at the S4 introduction and around 20 million S4 phones shipped since that phone launched)
Plus while the specific SDK is OEM specific the overall structure is still pretty generic GATT data structures so writing to the samsung SDK now for example wouldn’t be completely wasted code as it shouldn’t be that much restructuring to support the official BLE android support.
As mentioned by Jason Pribble here is a BLE compatible heart rate app for android: link to play.google.com
For getting kids started young: link to kickstarter.com
(less bike stuff on kickstarter recently :( )
I updated my forerunner 910xt to 2.8 everything works ok, it is just that acquiring satelites takes a lot longer then before. (It can just be circumstances or a complete misguided feeling, but it feels that way)
elevation gain when biking looks a lot more consistent (my home/work route now fluctuates between 30 and 50 meters, instead of between 40 and 140 in version 2.7)
Initial lock after the update or all locks since the update? (initial lock may make sense as the cache of gps data from the previous time was probably invalidated)
all locks since the update, normaly I start the watch as soon as I get out of the door and it has a lock by the time I’m on my bike, now I have to wait some time after I’m ready.
must have been circumstances, this morning I got the lock again in a normal time.
Great news about The Girl and the cupcake shop! I’m very happy for her. :)
When it comes to Garmin updates, I don’t think its good advice to tell people to just give it a week and then go ahead and update. Considering how often Garmin creates new problems in features that were already working (version 2.7 is a perfect example), some of which don’t become apparent on the boards for some time, I think the better advice is to only update if a feature you want to use is currently not working and the upgrade purports to fix the issue. If the watch is doing what you want/need it to do, for god’s sake don’t take a risk by updating. Updating for the sole reason that there is a new version, is simply asking for trouble, imho.
I didn’t say to update it. I simply said to wait at least a week if you planned to.
That said, it’s a double-edged sword. Plenty of people may have updated to 2.7 and broke their multisport and may not realize it, so 2.8 is important for many triathletes and thus is a very good reason to update it this time.
Just a minor correction: CBC = Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, not Company.
Thanks, fixed!
If you google search Sloan Teeple (the busted doper) it appears he’s a doctor. “Sloan Teeple, M.D. is a Board-Certified Urologist and expert in Testosterone Deficiency.” no less. I wonder how many other athletes were going to him?
Ray, can you change the url for the 910 firmware to link to buy.garmin.com
this because the original url will make you download garmin express when you dont need it.
Sure, swapped. :)