Heads up!!! Here’s your massive holiday sports tech deals list! This includes the Garmin Epix for just $419, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for just $699, the GoPro Hero 12 Black for $249, (or the brand new Hero 13 or $299!) and plenty more! Go check out the full list of 100+ deals here!
I’m DC RAINMAKER…
Here’s how to save!
Wanna save some cash and support the site? These companies help support the site! With Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with either the coupon code DCRAINMAKER for first time users saving 15% on applicable products.
You can also pick-up tons of gear at REI via these links, which is a long-time supporter as well:
Alternatively, for everything else on the planet, simply buy your goods from Amazon via the link below and I get a tiny bit back as an Amazon Associate. No cost to you, easy as pie!
You can use the above link for any Amazon country and it (should) automatically redirect to your local Amazon site.
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In Depth Product Reviews
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.
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Read My Sports Gadget Recommendations.
Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
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Have some fun in the travel section.
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.
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My Photography Gear: The Cameras/Drones/Action Cams I Use Daily
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!
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The Swim/Bike/Run Gear I Use List
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.
Seems like its within 90 days for when they have a version that can be used with rx lenses. That’s what I need
The price reduction is both welcome and necessary along with the improvements they have made both in the native and third party software but it is still a tough outlook for gen 1 of this product. I had a unit back in April and it was an extremely tough sell at that point, limited functionality, no ANT+ support and no compelling third party apps. Glad to see that they have been steadily improving in those areas, but unfortunately I also found the display to be difficult to read/focus on in outdoor riding conditions and the camera is awkwardly placed for riding, it shoots your front wheel and the ground several feet in front of you unless you tilt your head far above the horizon. Most problematically, the unit was going through both batteries and still dying before I could finish a typical ~3.5 hour ride even with settings optimized for power usage.
I ultimately returned the Jet, and while my experience with customer service was very positive and I strongly believe in the future of wearable products of this type, this generation of hardware just had too many problems for even an early adopter such as myself to really justify even if they have made significant leaps with the software. Holding out hope for a Recon Jet 2.
Correcting my earlier statement, Jet had no ANT+ support for power meters at ship, rather than no ANT+ support at all.
I’ve tried this as well. I will be returning the unit on Monday as well. While the concept is very useful and they have a stellar customer support, the actual build is not sufficient. I’ve had a few problems with peripheral vision and difficulty seeing the screen but I was able to overcome them for the most part.
However, after going through one return and a second unit, both seemed to have problems with compass calibration. The first one was consistently off by 15-20 degrees to the left in all directions and strangely the second one was sometimes off in the same way, and sometimes only off in the direction you first started calibrating. Checking their forums it seems there has been others who have experienced both inability to calibrate and compass being off. There have been requests to fix it but it’s been unanswered since June 5, 2015.
The answer from their QA department is that 15 degrees off is within compass tolerance. While that may be tolerable for a phone, this isn’t acceptable for a device being operated while cycling. I realized it was a hazard when I caught myself staring at the map too long trying to figure out which road was which when I was in unfamiliar areas. This makes the device too dangerous to wear when riding.
There have been other minor issues like lack of maps (and little work on providing the maps over these last few years, going back to other Recon products), a bug where map loading freezes, short battery life and corrosion from sweat. The Recon Engage forums tell it all.
Without maps or the compass, and if the video and image quality is poor, this device is merely an activity tracker. The only thing new is that you can see the time while you ride.
Overall, I would say, save your money and wait until they change the model. May Intel’s purchase will help. As it is right now the company right now isn’t big enough to meet the requirements of such a product.
Wonder how it compares to the one from koptin and the one from Everysight
Quite a bit different. Spent morning with Koptin/Solos folks, post soon.
Down to $399 till valentines day: link to store.reconinstruments.com
I would think that after being on the market for ~3 years there would be newer tech to put in them. Like a faster and/or lower power cpu as its based on a 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9
I think we’ll see companies iterate on display devices pretty quickly in 2016. That said, the unit only started shipping last April, so it’s really been out less than 9 months.