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Week in Review–February 7th, 2016

February 7, 2016 by |Blog|Comments (26)

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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 and Facebook, 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 in the past week:

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

Sunday: Week in Review–January 31st, 2016
Monday: Power meter prices plunge further as Pioneer & SRM join PowerTap in price cuts
Wednesday: First Look: Fitbit announces new Fitbit Alta activity tracker

As most regular readers know – my posts tend to ebb and flow with travel.  This past week I was skiing in the Alps, so less posts.  While this upcoming week will be overflow. An expansion of…posts, as it may be.

The DCR Podcast:

Here’s the low-down on what was covered this past week in the DCR podcast:

– Discussion of my first few days of a ski trip, and differences to North America
– Early thoughts on Air Dog drone after first use
– Stryd running power meter (and when Garmin will support it)
– Gathering resting HR data, and what to do with it
– The Gingerbread man
– Discussion of the motor-doping fiasco

Thanks for listening! Subscribing and rating in iTunes is much appreciated, and be sure to send in your questions via the voice mail widget at the bottom of the podcast page!

And MORE Podcasts!

This week two different podcasts aired that had me on as a guest.  It just so happened both got published at the same time.

RunRunLive Podcast! – On this I chat with Chris Russell about me a bit, and then a lot about the history of sports technology, where it’s been, and where it’s going (you can just click the ‘Play’ button on that page).

Pace the Nation Podcast! – I catch up with the folks behind the running group (Pacers) that got my really into running, and also where I met The Girl.

So yes – tons of fun things to listen to for the week ahead!

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) GoPro confirms Hero5 arrival for later this year: However, don’t forget they also semi-announced an impending new 360° consumer action cam for “soon” back at CES in January.  Plus you’ve got the latest GoPro Karma drone video from last week, below:

2) YouTube wants to start streaming 360° video: The most obvious use case I see for this is actually in races, on things like team cars (think Tour de France) or even the famous time check/split motos that tell the lead riders their leads.

3) Ways to Eradicate Mechanical Doping: Six specific ideas from Greg LeMond on how to deal with the issue before it becomes bigger.

4) Land Rover goes in reverse to try and hit cyclists: Meanwhile, rider has Fly6 camera on his bike, captures whole craziness. (via Chris G.)

5) Over 13 million wearable activity trackers sold in 2015 (doubling over 2014): Said differently, no, the Apple Watch didn’t kill the market.

6) Unreal swinging of iPhone to capture slow-mo footage: Really, just watch the below craziness. (sent in first via Mario, and many others)

7) Fitness trackers leaking private data? Some are, and some were.  Interesting to see various companies identified that have reacted already.  For example, Garmin released an update this weekend to address it.  Yet you have to wonder why they ignored earlier calls from researchers and CBC when others reacted immediately pre-publishing. (via Oliver)

8) There’s a Fat Bike World Championship Race (in the snow): Seriously, and these galleries and clips are awesome.

9) “An athlete who requires 10,000 hours to become world-class is a drain on the system”: And other worthwhile thoughts on the subject.

10) Measuring your sweat: Well then, at least something useful could be coming of that sweaty puddle below my trainer. (via Drew)

Crowd Funded Projects of Athletic Note:

I regularly sift through Kickstarter and Indiegogo (plus a few others on occasion) looking for sports projects.  If you’re unfamiliar with projects, read my detailed post on how I decide which projects I personally back.  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.

Fitpal: It’s a sticker system that monitors your HR and other metrics for up to 5 days.  It’s kinda like Ampstrip from a year ago but hopefully won’t bail on us backers before they ship. Regrettably, doesn’t look like it’ll have ANT+ support (so you wouldn’t be able to use it with ANT+ devices as a replacement HR strap).

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?

Garmin Edge 510 & 810 Firmware Update: Adds Varia Radar support (and a few minor fixes).

Garmin Epix Firmware Update: A bug fix.

Garmin Fenix3 Beta Firmware Update: Adds audio prompts via phone, other fixes.

Garmin VIRB Edit for Windows/Mac: Adds a handful of minor features, additional improvements.

–

Thanks for reading all!

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26 Comments

  1. André Lemos
    February 8, 2016 at 5:53 am #1

    I wonder what gopro has in store for us, aside from FPS/resolution bumps. Has to be something big if they are upping the major number.

    Anyone care to speculate? What would you do/what direction would you take if you were the hero product manager? :)

    Reply
  2. Jullass
    February 8, 2016 at 6:36 am #2

    I was an Ampstrip backer last year and really hope I will get my product with Fitpal this time.
    Ampstrip dumped it’s backers to go into the medical market, while the Fitpal company has already been in the medical market for years, so I hope that at least this risk is gone this time :-).

    Reply
    • FitPal
      February 8, 2016 at 1:42 pm #3

      Thanks J – we are hard at work to make sure that what happened with Ampstrip isn’t repeated with FitPal. We’ve got the history and experience with HRV that they didn’t have, and are dedicated to using a successful Kickstarter campaign as a launching point to add even more features and functionality. Appreciate the support!

      -FitPal

      http://www.fitpal.com
      link to kickstarter.com

      Reply
    • Michael Harman
      February 9, 2016 at 1:25 pm #4

      Looking forward to FitPal, backed the project last night even with my wife’s skepticism about the cost. :) Her only condition was that she might steal it sometimes. Who knows, maybe we’ll end up with a second one at some point.

      Reply
    • Jullass
      February 18, 2016 at 6:07 pm #5

      BTW: Fitpal just announced that it wants to deliver with both BLE and ANT+ support in the first kickstarter version. That would be great. I hope it won’t make them spread their resources to thin…

      Reply
  3. gingerneil
    February 8, 2016 at 7:58 am #6

    I’ve had a Session in my amazon basket for a few weeks now – but still not sure if I actually need an action cam…. Their talk of improved software sounds interesting. One of my main concerns is whether or not I’d actually end up with any footage I’d ever watch. I have thousands of RAW photos that never get looked at, and you can print those and stick them on the wall!
    If I can quickly and easily create short movies to summarise an event, for example, and then share to social media, I would be far more likely to buy the camera.
    I wonder if we will see the Session come down even further in price ?

    Reply
    • Ray Maker
      February 8, 2016 at 6:21 pm #7

      I don’t expect it to go below $199 soon. Now, obviously ‘something’ is happening in April, since that’s when they’ll cull the other GoPro units. My guess is that’s when they release Karma and the 360* action cam (but not the Hero5 till September).

      So my guess is that either it sticks at $199, or we see it drop to $149 to fill the void of the base Hero (that’s $129 today). Just a swag.

      Reply
  4. Marc steingrand
    February 8, 2016 at 8:24 am #8

    Ray does the Garmin beta for the F3 fix the issue for the P1 crank length
    Or do we need to wait for future update

    Reply
  5. Lee
    February 8, 2016 at 9:38 am #12

    In the updates section: The MS Band 2 had a new update last week to improve battery life with a different GPS setting as well as weight tracking and some other small improvements.

    Reply
  6. Graham R
    February 8, 2016 at 11:56 am #13

    i noticed the alerts when i went for a run the other day on 6.50, just a standard pace etc – Neat to see an expansion for something i didn’t even know my watch could do!

    Reply
  7. Mark
    February 8, 2016 at 12:15 pm #14

    At first glance in the Centriphone video, it appears that Nico Vuignier is just swinging the iPhone around his head, keeping the line taut with centrifugal (centripetal?) force. But with a closer look, it seems that it might actually be some kind of kite.

    Reply
  8. tfa
    February 8, 2016 at 11:07 pm #16

    Re: ” 7: Fitness trackers leaking private data”

    interesting to see Garmin is the only one who don’t use https for GarminConnect transmissions over internet …

    Reply
    • Ray Maker
      February 9, 2016 at 4:19 am #17

      Yeah, pretty odd. Though, at least that’s been fixed already.

      Reply
    • Dom
      February 9, 2016 at 4:23 am #18

      Despite refusing to comment to the researchers, they moved fast on the https issue. They released an update for Garmin Connect Mobile on the 5th Feb for Android which uses SSH for alll sync communications. I haven’t checked th iOS version but if it hasn’t been done yet, I doubt it’s far behind.

      Reply
    • Dom
      February 9, 2016 at 4:24 am #19

      Which I started writing before Ray had finished posting the same thing!

      Reply
    • Ray Maker
      February 9, 2016 at 4:30 am #20

      Yup, iOS came out this weekend (I think it was the 5th as well). I’m actually impressed they got through the app approval process at Apple that fast. Perhaps there’s some loop-hole for emergency security bugs (I’m not an iOS dev, so don’t know).

      Reply
  9. Camillo
    February 9, 2016 at 3:16 am #21

    Hi watched the “road rage” video and it doesn’t look road rage to me but just a stupide driver. The guy realized he had to turn left at the intersection and he reared without caring too much. When he saw the cyclists he braked immediately and after that he turned..

    Reply
  10. Fab
    February 9, 2016 at 6:00 am #22

    About the fenix 3 beta upgrade: what about audio prompts over bt earphones? i’m assuming it wouldn’t be possible pairing via bt the watch with the phone and the phone with the earphones at the same time, but i’d love to be told I’m wrong.

    Reply
  11. Phil A
    February 10, 2016 at 12:27 pm #24

    At least they did not make the Butt Branding mandatory on the Fat Bike Championship.

    Reply
  12. Derek
    May 10, 2016 at 11:02 am #25

    Just found out that Fitpal will support Ant+ and Bluetooth. Not sure how I missed that as I am really looking for an alternative to the Ampstrip. But I thought I would mention it here to let others know. Interested to see the DCRainmaker™ take on the device.

    Reply