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.
Garmin FR230/235 deals – end today (Monday)
Garmin Vector 20% off deals – end today (Monday)
KICKR/KICKR SNAP 20% off deals – ends today (Monday)
Pebble deals – ends today (Monday)
Suunto deals – ends today (Monday)
PowerTap P1 power meter pedals 20% off deal – ends today (Monday)
But when one thing ends, another begins.
TomTom GPS watch deals started yesterday (Sunday)
Plus, you’ve still got the Pioneer deals which run till June 16th. And the CycleOps/Saris deals will wrap up on June 6th. Phew!
DCR Podcast!
Here’s a handful of the topics discussed in this past week’s podcast:
– Lost microphones
– Ironman Texas & Muddy Buddy Triathlons
– Stuck in the short pool
– Metric and miles confusion
– Deciding between every bike computer ever made
– Finding shortcuts to getting fast in triathlon
– Thoughts on the PowerPod
– Forgetful finish line button pressing
– A Canadian called
5)Alaskaman Extreme Triathlon announced: This looks super cool. Like Norseman, but for Alaska. Having been to and hiked around this specific area a few years back – this would be an awesome course. Even drove the exact road too. Well, except I do remember horrible mosquitos during our trek…
6) Fitbit bought Coin: Yes, a week or two old. But this is interesting. On one hand, NFC-based payments will become dial-tone for wearables by next year. Meaning, companies that don’t have that in mid to high end wearable devices will be left behind. So simply buying Coin for their expertise makes a fair bit of sense. It fast tracks that. Yet at the same time, I’d wonder how hard it would have been for Fitbit to simply roll their own there instead. And even more interesting is that the deal doesn’t include the Coin 2.0 hardware, which will now be end-of-life’d.
7)Deer joins swim at Kansas City Triathlon: Seriously, for realz. Animals be joining all triathlons these days! Also meant to include this a week or two back – but if you haven’t seen it – it’s new to you!
8) Control your Garmin VIRB from 9 miles away: Ok, so you may have to have a dog. And that dog may have to hunt. But still, interesting. Actually, what’s interesting about this is the challenge that companies have that put cameras on pro riders bikes. In most cases, the companies/teams simply tell the riders to turn it on/off when they think it might be interesting. This would allow a team car person/etc to control it from quite far away. Though, adding a dog to the bike might be kinda awkward in those tough climbs.
9) Data visualization of the Giro: Pretty neat little visualization plotting the top 10 riders over the course of all the stages. A neat way to look at a race.
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? Oh – and if you want to get a head start on things, this page is a great resource for watching Garmin firmware updates.
Tip of the week to companies: If you have an RSS feed for updates I can subscribe, like Garmin, Polar, Adidas, Wahoo, and others – it’s nearly 100% how I remember to find these updates. If you lack that, I likely won’t have your updates in the above. Plus, users like it too.
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Thanks for reading all, have a great weekend!
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Edge 25 – Support for bontrager lights, is this beyond what is in the 810? I heard a number of people have trouble with the 810/1000 with the Bontrager lights.
The Flare RT sounds interesting to me and I have an 810.
I’m not sure, I wondered the same thing myself actually. I’m going to give it a whirl tomorrow. I still want to get that review published on those Bontrager lights, and this gives me all the more reason.
Tacx have put out an update for TTS4 which means it now works with the Kickr (as of Kickr FW1.4.47, which is pretty new itself) So now RLVs from Tacx are playable properly with a KICKR.
Afraid not, just following a thread on the Tacx forum with some responses from Tacx themselves for personal interest, it’s been a slow one coming to get that combo working properly together, but should be a good combo together.
Nice, I’m meeting with them on Thursday. So…I’ll add it to my list to ask about. :)
It’s funny, it’s such an easy thing for companies to do – any most of the mainstream tech companies do it, as it makes it easy for media to monitor and pickup on stories. Free press/PR and all that…
Is Mio working on a new GPS watch to compete with Garmin 225/235/735 family? I think their wrist heart rate was one of the best in the market but I haven’t seen any news lately…
I’m not aware of anything. At CES they announced their new activity tracker, slated for mid-late this year. It would use their own optical sensor (since they previously licensed the Philips one).
The BBC and NHK did some 8k tests at the 2012 Olympics. I saw some of the swimming finals as they broadcast it to the National Media Museum (about 200 miles away) as it was one of only two cinemas with the 8k set-up. They also had surround sound with something like 27 speakers. On a big screen it was amazing. You could make out the faces of people in the crowd at the other side of the pool. It felt like you were there, much better than 3D. They only had a couple of fixed cameras and one that tracked along the pool. Also there was no commentary, just crowd noise. I thought that someone behind me was cheering, but they were actually in London!
Wow, that’d have been awesome. I’ve gotta look into whether the French TV networks are doing 4K or not for the Olympics. I don’t even have a 4K TV…but…I could be convinced.
There’s only one broadcaster in the UK doing 4k at the moment. They show some soccer but don’t have the rights to the Olympics. I think you need something like a 100 inch screen to benefit from an 8k picture! The next Olympics are in Tokyo so they are already getting ready for 8k and 22.2 surround sound! Better start saving.
Now TomTom is connecting to trainingpeaks, wouldn’t it be nice of TomTom multi sport to support wattage measurement. Is that just a matter of software update? Or should that require a re-engineering of the watch with an ANT connector?
A) First part is connecting to ANT+, that’s a ‘ship has sailed’ sort of thing’ for TomTom (for whatever reason). That said, it’s possible their chipset does support it, so it would be them ‘buying up’ to the next version of the chipset firmware. Either way, unlikely that would happen.
B) Next is whether they’d enable BT power meter support. That would be 100% possible through a software update, but I honestly don’t expect it. I think they see their market is a more ‘simplistic’ one, so I don’t think we’ll see them go that direction in this product line.
Not sure if you posted about it last week, but the recent Kickr firmware update has an issue with certain apps being able to put the Kickr in erg mode. I discussed this with both Sufferfest (the app I have the issue with) and Wahoo, both are aware of the issue.
I believe that one still had the issue, I installed that and could not get my Kickr to go into erg mode. I didn’t mention it because I couldn’t find it on Wahoo’s site (and also, after upgrading, and confirming my upgrade, my Kickr still said it had 1.4.46 installed)
was looking again at your Power meter guide and went to the Limits blog to see where they were…
Apparently they had a launch event in Scotland on Friday and they started shipping!
Get us some insider news and a review if you can!
(big ask perhaps – considering the history?)
They held a semi-private event in the Scottish mountains that some 3-5 people came to, at least one of which is a coach for the LIMITS Cycling Team.
Supposedly those people got to take home a unit, yet none of them have posted anything online using the units they were supposedly given (odd given someone who would trek up into the mountains would likely be eager to share their results after the event). Only a single person (the coach) posted on the event, but hasn’t posted about how the units performs since.
So, I’m not really sure if they’ve actually truly given out units to anyone yet. Either way, no other backers have units yet – so until people start receiving units I’m not going to consider them shipping. Plus, we don’t even want to get into the accuracy side yet… :-/
Still, once I get a unit (either the one I ordered, or if some other DCR reader gets theirs earlier and wants to loan it to me), then I’d be happy to test it out and publish all my data for any others to analyze as they see fit. That’s what’s great about data – even if you don’t like what I have to say about the company, you can at least look at the data and decide for yourself.
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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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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.
Looks like you missed a few updates from Polar, or have I missed something.
Nope, nothing new since the 18th: link to updates.polar.com
I typically only do the ~7 days (or basically till the previous weekend, in this case the 21st/22nd).
Edge 25 – Support for bontrager lights, is this beyond what is in the 810? I heard a number of people have trouble with the 810/1000 with the Bontrager lights.
The Flare RT sounds interesting to me and I have an 810.
I’m not sure, I wondered the same thing myself actually. I’m going to give it a whirl tomorrow. I still want to get that review published on those Bontrager lights, and this gives me all the more reason.
Ray did you ever check this out?
Thanks.
Waiting for Varia support on the Fenix 3
How is the Rotor 2inpower testing going so far?
I don’t have a unit yet. Which reminds me…let me poke.
Tacx have put out an update for TTS4 which means it now works with the Kickr (as of Kickr FW1.4.47, which is pretty new itself) So now RLVs from Tacx are playable properly with a KICKR.
Sweet ,nice catch! Are you aware of any RSS feed/etc… available to see/know of the TTS updates?
Afraid not, just following a thread on the Tacx forum with some responses from Tacx themselves for personal interest, it’s been a slow one coming to get that combo working properly together, but should be a good combo together.
Here’s the URL….
link to forum.tacx.com
Nice, I’m meeting with them on Thursday. So…I’ll add it to my list to ask about. :)
It’s funny, it’s such an easy thing for companies to do – any most of the mainstream tech companies do it, as it makes it easy for media to monitor and pickup on stories. Free press/PR and all that…
Keeping on the animal theme of the week – here’s another one from the interwebs…maybe for next week. Cyclist taken out by kangaroo…
link to thestar.com
Is Mio working on a new GPS watch to compete with Garmin 225/235/735 family? I think their wrist heart rate was one of the best in the market but I haven’t seen any news lately…
I’m not aware of anything. At CES they announced their new activity tracker, slated for mid-late this year. It would use their own optical sensor (since they previously licensed the Philips one).
The BBC and NHK did some 8k tests at the 2012 Olympics. I saw some of the swimming finals as they broadcast it to the National Media Museum (about 200 miles away) as it was one of only two cinemas with the 8k set-up. They also had surround sound with something like 27 speakers. On a big screen it was amazing. You could make out the faces of people in the crowd at the other side of the pool. It felt like you were there, much better than 3D. They only had a couple of fixed cameras and one that tracked along the pool. Also there was no commentary, just crowd noise. I thought that someone behind me was cheering, but they were actually in London!
Wow, that’d have been awesome. I’ve gotta look into whether the French TV networks are doing 4K or not for the Olympics. I don’t even have a 4K TV…but…I could be convinced.
There’s only one broadcaster in the UK doing 4k at the moment. They show some soccer but don’t have the rights to the Olympics. I think you need something like a 100 inch screen to benefit from an 8k picture! The next Olympics are in Tokyo so they are already getting ready for 8k and 22.2 surround sound! Better start saving.
Now TomTom is connecting to trainingpeaks, wouldn’t it be nice of TomTom multi sport to support wattage measurement. Is that just a matter of software update? Or should that require a re-engineering of the watch with an ANT connector?
Two part question:
A) First part is connecting to ANT+, that’s a ‘ship has sailed’ sort of thing’ for TomTom (for whatever reason). That said, it’s possible their chipset does support it, so it would be them ‘buying up’ to the next version of the chipset firmware. Either way, unlikely that would happen.
B) Next is whether they’d enable BT power meter support. That would be 100% possible through a software update, but I honestly don’t expect it. I think they see their market is a more ‘simplistic’ one, so I don’t think we’ll see them go that direction in this product line.
I think the teams should just leave the domestiques to wear the collar…
Jeez, that deer is pretty quick swimmer! It’d definitely beat me out of the water but I’d like to see it try to ride a bike…
Not sure if you posted about it last week, but the recent Kickr firmware update has an issue with certain apps being able to put the Kickr in erg mode. I discussed this with both Sufferfest (the app I have the issue with) and Wahoo, both are aware of the issue.
To clarify, the update was 1.4.46
They’ve released 1.4.47 now too, a few days after 1.4.46
I believe that one still had the issue, I installed that and could not get my Kickr to go into erg mode. I didn’t mention it because I couldn’t find it on Wahoo’s site (and also, after upgrading, and confirming my upgrade, my Kickr still said it had 1.4.46 installed)
The Fenix 3 7.11 beta software you linked to is not for the Fenix 3 HR. The Fenix 3 HR beta 3.11 software is here: link to www8.garmin.com
For next week’s Week in Review, Google “kangaroo” and “breast implant”. Something a little wacky and unfortunate from Down Under.
Damn! Someone beat me to it.
Hi Ray,
was looking again at your Power meter guide and went to the Limits blog to see where they were…
Apparently they had a launch event in Scotland on Friday and they started shipping!
Get us some insider news and a review if you can!
(big ask perhaps – considering the history?)
‘Started shipping’ is a bit of a strong wording.
They held a semi-private event in the Scottish mountains that some 3-5 people came to, at least one of which is a coach for the LIMITS Cycling Team.
Supposedly those people got to take home a unit, yet none of them have posted anything online using the units they were supposedly given (odd given someone who would trek up into the mountains would likely be eager to share their results after the event). Only a single person (the coach) posted on the event, but hasn’t posted about how the units performs since.
So, I’m not really sure if they’ve actually truly given out units to anyone yet. Either way, no other backers have units yet – so until people start receiving units I’m not going to consider them shipping. Plus, we don’t even want to get into the accuracy side yet… :-/
Still, once I get a unit (either the one I ordered, or if some other DCR reader gets theirs earlier and wants to loan it to me), then I’d be happy to test it out and publish all my data for any others to analyze as they see fit. That’s what’s great about data – even if you don’t like what I have to say about the company, you can at least look at the data and decide for yourself.
Minor edit: The person I noted is a coach for only a single rider on the team, not the team at whole.