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I’m DC RAINMAKER…
I swim, bike and run. Then, I come here and write about my adventures. It’s as simple as that. Most of the time. If you’re new around these parts, here’s the long version of my story.
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Smart Trainers Buyers Guide: Looking at a smart trainer this winter? I cover all the units to buy (and avoid) for indoor training. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
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In Depth Product Reviews
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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!
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.
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!
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.
The FR230 tear down shows it has a GPS chip that can support Galileo navigation system meant to go live sometime in 2017 or 2018
Turning on that feature should be only a matter of a firmware update.
It will be interesting to find out if Garmin will update some of the latest products with that feature.
But don’t know if it will help or hinder accuracy as no real world testing was done plus it may have too much battery drain to be worth turning on.
If you already liked that Garmin FR230 tear-down i think you’re easy satisfied (taking in account your technical knowledge). You can always take the photos and let readers make the story.
as for the tear down placing 2 photos and searching the types on internet doesn’t make it a very interesting tear down i think.
It’s the whole product that needs a (photo) tear down, from display, buttons, speaker, changing pad till battery and the way everything is squeezed in.
As from Googling the IC’s without technical background, No word about the even more interesting part of the Nordic IC -> ANT+. And final a max326 in this watch, don’t think so (for the unpopulated parts see FR630).
I have always been interested in the internals of designs (as designer myself) but I don’t have a broken watch or the money to buy one for this purpose.
If you or anyone can provide photos of them them i am more than willing to write a complete technical story include the complete block diagram of the whole watch including more detail about all parts than this “tear down” has.
For me, if I were to do a tear-down style post, it’d be far deeper in terms of photos than that one. More along the lines of an iFixit teardown (i.e. here’s a GoPro one: link to ifixit.com)
I know the iFixit teardowns, their quality is high.
If there will ever be a selfmade teardown on your site i would indeed expect it a bit more in that style (+little more text).
Keep up the postings.
If I understood it correctly the latest iOS version of Strava stopped supporting the RFLKT and RFLKT2? Any thoughts on this?
Indeed. I think it’s one of those cases where with better/cleaner support for Strava on the Garmin units (and soon on the ELEMNT), there’s probably dwindling reasons someone would actually use the native Strava app on the RFLKT.
7our layout is broken. In Safari on the big iPad Pro, the adds are always above a part of the embedded videos.
For screenshots write me an email
Yeah, it’s because I manually set the video width to 720p, which hoses up the sidebar overlays in mobile view. Been on my ‘figure it out’ list for a while.
Ray,
I’m looking at the Forerunner 15 without the Strap. It’s selling at $89 on Amazon right now (I’ll use your link =) ). Just wanted to ask as long as I use a strap that’s ANT+, it’ll work with the 15? I have a Wahoo Tickr X that I pair with my iPhone using the Wahoo App.
Yup, the TICKR X will work no problem. Enjoy!
Why does it seem the Fenix 3 has had a software update pretty much every week I owned it, but the 735xt I just bought doesn’t seem to have any? (even though you’d expect a new product would be ripe for big fixes). Just curious! Keep up the great work!!
These are all beta updates. The Fenix3 and Forerunner teams are separate groups, and even separate divisions. So they run things differently.
In general the Outdoor division seems to be more into doing public betas and gathering feedback, while the FR735XT seems to be into keeping things more private and less frequent.
Re: New Garmin “ride types.” I got so tired of having firmware updates overwrite my Race and Train profiles (to default settings) that I created my own separate Ride profile. Unless ride types would signify “road” or “gravel” (including which default bike was ridden) when uploaded to Connect then Strava, I’m not sure what this does for me?
I love the Diner en Blanc video! Looks like a fun night… and your friends are a little crazy. Interesting to see some French people let loose a bit ;) Thanks for sharing!
HI Rai
Any chance to see a hands-on or in-depth review of new Samsung Gear Fit 2?
Hardware-wise it seems to be on par with Garmin Vivoactive HR
+1 for the Samsung Gear Fit2 review? Can’t be worse than the original given Ray’s review?
Yup, I’ve been looking at the specs/videos a bit. I have one on order for when I arrive in the US next week.
Hi Ray;
Just wondering if there is any chance of Samsung Gear Fit 2 review coming in the near future? :)
My wife wants one – i’m A Suunto fan myself, so there’s a bit of a clash there…:)
Thanks in advance…
Hi Ray,
Thanks for great updates.
Just noticed that the Garmin Connect app (for Win 10 phones updated a few days ago, and for Android updated yesterday) added a function under connections to connect to Facebook, Gmail and to your contacts to find your contacts that use Garmin connect.
Have not found this option on the connect.garmin site. Are you covering the updates on such apps as well for the software updates?
I’ve somewhat stopped covering app updates (unless it’s a major change), simply because there got to be far too many apps to cover and it was taking up quite a bit more time. Plus, these days app updates are easier to find than they used to be.
Below is an email I received this morning from adidas. Essentially it seems to be saying that the adidas miCoach Pacer will soon be of no use because (as far as I know) there will be no way to read data from/on the device. I often used the Pacer to record heart/stride rate. I thought it was a good product which deserves to be supported.
“As a result of technology evolution, miCoach Manager is being discontinued. What this means for you is that as of the middle of October, the miCoach Manager will be removed from the site and you will no longer be able to sync your Pacer and/or SPEED_CELL ANT+. The Pacer has been on the market for more than six years now, and production and development of the device was discontinued two years ago.
For SPEED_CELL BTLE Mac users, you will still be able to sync your device via the multi-sport app, but no longer with your Mac via the miCoach Manager.
Over time we will continue to evolve our products and services alongside new and emerging technologies.
If you have questions regarding the Pacer, SPEED_CELL ANT+, SPEED_CELL BTLE or miCoach Manager, please reach out to miCoach Support. Thank you for your continued support and we hope that you understand our decision.
Get more out of every workout by downloading our free Train and Run app at link to micoach.com.
Best,
Your miCoach Team”