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5 Easy Steps To The Site
1
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.
2
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!
3
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.
4
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!
5
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.
Ray,
i like your definition of “relative calm weekend”
La dolce vita in Paris!
Enjoy and have a good week.
Curious how the optical HR worked compared to traditional HR monitors while running/cycling? Close? I was just about to purchase the 920tx when i heard about this model just this weekend. Since I don’t do IM-distance races, and i hate wearing a HR strap, the optical HR sounds like a dream– with the caveat that it actually is accurate.
Hi Karen-
You can dive into the analysis and compare the HR data sets here: link to analyze.dcrainmaker.com
There are four HR sensors being worn:
A) Garmin Vivoactive HR (ELEVATE Optical HR Sensor)
B) Garmin FR735XT (Elevator Optical HR Sensor)
C) Scosche Optical HR Sensor (on Ambit3 Vertical)
D) Garmin HRM-TRI Chest Strap (on FR920XT)
Cheers.
I had a good time looking at your data comparator of the run. Looks like the new 735xt did just fine, gps accuracy wise. The v800 is in your photo, but not in the comparator. Would love to see what the v800 had to say. thx.
Sorry, just added the V800 in there. I was running up against a set limitation last night, but the developer was able to extend it overnight. All set!
New link/set here: link to analyze.dcrainmaker.com
thx. Hah! the program ran out of alternate colors. But- as I looked at the A3P yesterday, I think I know which of the two black lines is the v800. Looks like everybody did generally well on this run.
Oops, I’ll bring up the colors.
Great comparison test!
Surprisingly, the Vertical did better than the peak when you crossed under the bridge… I wish there was some kind of algorithm that can generate a score, as opposed to a “naked eye score”.
A delta between the GPS line and the satellite map roads. Obviously, you don’t run in a perfect line, but it’s more likely that you ran on the same course than on water or on another street lane. If you can calculate all those errors and sum it up, it would make the comparisons much more quantified.
Still, I’m very impressed by the performance of all the watches. it goes to show GPS wars are more of an ego wars than a real issue.
I live and run in downtown Toronto and have tested several watches in dense building areas with occluded satellite conditions. I can tell you that skewed tracks in those conditions are more about where the satellite is in the sky and how the signals bounce, rather than the watch’s GPS performance. You could repeat the same test 30min later and get different results, because the satellites moved. Having a tough conditons track-delta number would not reflect watch performance.
So basically you say every watch can out shine another at any given time, as a function of the satellites location. This makes conparison test even more random. Perhaps if we had access to, for example, Strava data, one can calculate an average score for a product across different times and places… Knowing the segment length. Surely they analysed some form of product comparison.
You seemed to have much better than us 500 km more north. Enjoy it!
I got a HRM-Tri this weekend and was curious, I had the option to download the HRM data, but I did not do that since I used it for a run. Should I have done that? or only with a swim?
In general for a run there’s no reason to sync, unless you expected/had dropouts for some reason during the run.
Ironically, my run was actually a perfect example of where I should have re-sync’d the data to the 920XT/HRM-TRI. That’s because the HRM-TRI appeared to be out of range of the 920XT 3-4 times along the run, so there 3-4 ‘0’ drops in there. This is simply because I had it on the back of the CamelBak, whereas the transmitter was in front of my body. A sync would resolve that.
Thanks for the info as always.
Hi Ray
Glad you had a nice weekend.
I’m very interested in the Varia Vision, mainly for running as I monitor my heart rate very closely. Will you be doing an in depth review soon?
Also, can you use your immense influence in this field to get a release date for the Everysight. That looks better for running but I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait.
Many Thanks
Phil
Everysight is certainly positive looking.
I don’t have a specific date for Varia Vision review, but likely early June. Right now I’m working to get out the Vivoactive HR review for this week, and then the FR735XT review for the first week of June. Will kinda see what next week looks like review-wise and go from there.
Thanks Ray
Just under your response was an ad banner for XMetrics (which I clicked on).
Looks interesting
You made a brief mention of this in your ISPO 2016 post. Are you planning on testing this?
Thanks
Hi Phil-
At the moment I’m not planning on testing it, though, that reminds me to add them to my ad blocked list.
I think the pricing is just really tough to justify right now on that product.
When we are going to see Vivoactive HR review? I’m really excited to that product and looking forward to see how Ray liked the product. Especially how Vivoactives optical heart rate monitoring works with cycling is quite interesting.
The Vivoactive HR review will be up later this week.
Hi Ray, thanks for the analyse tool. Do optical HR readings lag further behind a chest strap? Im using the Fenix 3 HR and finding the lag annoying in that I have stop and start intervals more on feel rather than HR.
They don’t seem to lag much to me.
Hi Ray
Can you give us a sneak peak at battery life time for the 735XT, i really would like this watch.
I really hope the battery will last for 12/13 hours with multiple external sensors and without optical HR
Thanks!!
Check out my Strava account…link to strava.com
Great that you are able to train with a team now! Races coming soon?
I have that Monoprix bag :p I bring reusable grocery bags back from France… an interesting souvenir choice but it always makes for good conversation while grocery shopping here.
Wondering if you think a wider frame would make the Varia Vision more stable when running? Something like this Tifosi I was thinking:
link to tifosioptics.com
Tough to tell how wide the frame is on your sunglasses in the picture.
On my test with the Varia Vision I came to the same conclusions. It’s way too unstable mounted on the frame of the glasses while running. And I didn’t even try to do any sprints…
It depends on the pair of glasses you have, but if you own a light frame (what mostly everyone would have for running/cycling) I don’t find it confortable at all.
Why the lanyard on the roof?
So the birds don’t take it.
What’s that crepe dish called?
Been trying to create something similar at home, except with the Swedish version of crepes.
Curious for some cooking pointers for getting it all cooked well at the same time.
Does your “analysis” suite have a facility to plot distance accumulated vs time for various devices? Sometimes I think distance variance device to device is mainly due to a “jump” somewhere – probably just a spot of poor GPS. Other times it seems more systematic. For instance sometimes the Strava app on my iPhone “grows” quicker than the Garmins evenly throughout the run. This often got to over 0.5 mile in some long runs – say 15 miles or so. Other times it would match the Garmins much better. I think such a graph would it make it easier to verify such things but not found an “out of the box” facility as yet and just been lazy in trying to create one myself. Thinking it something like a variant of the “Compare” tool for Strava segments would do well as would flatten the lines if you just took differences not absolute distances.
Could it be a case of “3D distance” (including climbs) vs. “Projected distance” (as seen on a map)?
Thanks Tim.
At present it doesn’t have a way to plot distance accumulated, but I like the idea of adding it. I’ll add it to the list.
Elevation wise, the 735xt seemed all over the place and about half of 920xt. Not much elevation though, but kinda disappointing. Still thinking if I should replace my 920xt, kinda like the form factor of the 735xt.
Big Fan :) Love your reviews.Garmin FR235 or Vivoactive HR as daily fitness tracker. Given the sale with Clever training?!
I’d say if you prefer more of a all-around watch, then I’d go Vivoactive HR. Whereas if you’re just focusing on running, then I’d look at the FR235.
Thank you :) just ordered the Garmin Vivoactive HR
Thanks for all the deep info you provide Ray.
I have a Mio Link HRM armband. Will the 735XT get pulse data from it in real time like my older 910XT does? Provided I have the armband next to the watch of course.
And to clarify that, I mean for swimming workouts.
My understanding is not currently. It will show it during the workout but not record it. I might try and test it tomorrow.