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.
Monday: Garmin Connect IQ Announces New Features and Apps/Devices
Wednesday: COROS Linx Smart Helmet In-Depth Review
Friday: Annual Winter 2016-2017 Bike Trainer Recommendations
DCR Podcast!
Here’s a handful of the topics discussed in this past week’s podcast:
– All Canadian Caller Edition!
– Discussion on GoPro Karma vs DJI Mavic drones
– Chatting about Kona and Quarq’s Qollector
– Communications in real-time during races, is that the future of Ironman?
– Ben goes to Kona
– Bike GPS’s with routable maps, what besides Garmin?
– Why semi-frequent software updates matter for hardware companies
– Which units support Bluetooth Smart power meters?
– And what happened to Look’s ANT+ upgrade option for Polar pedals?
(Side note: Sorry the audio was less than optimal these past two episodes…should be good for the next one!)
Listen to the full podcast here on the Podcast player, or just download the audio file from the same spot.
YouTube videos of note:
The YouTube’s be a flowin’! Here’s what I published this week that you may have missed:
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) Red Bull Rampage Winning Run: As always, just sit back and enjoy. GoPro also posted a helmet cam point of view (from a different rider) to Twitter, but I haven’t seen a higher resolution version unfortunately. Crazy though.
2) Google explains optical vs electronic image stabilization: Ignoring the cell phone, this is a good primer for understanding these two terms – which will soon be rather common terms over the next few years as these methods become baseline on not just action cams but phones.
3) Dr. Oz Wants to sell you a heart rate monitoring watch: Just don’t. Don’t. Please don’t.
4) Got a Garmin VIRB Ultra 30 and need a gimbal adapter? No problem, one DCR reader created one for the popular Feiyu Tech G4 gimbal, and put it up on one of the popular 3D printing sites for download and/or printing services.
5) One of these days I’ll write a (another) post about poorly done studies: This may be one of them. While it had the potential to be good, their structure is simply far too short to be meaningful (they only reached running speed for 90 seconds), and the number of data points captured is equally too small. Then sometimes you get studies that might have been interesting, but are no longer relevant to today’s technologies when you use devices from 5 years ago that aren’t anything like today’s devices. And then media easily gets lost. As usual.
6) Throw your GoPro for a unique angle: In a moment of Kickstarter weakness I backed this. It looks kinda cool, and I could probably use it occasionally (while skiing actually) to get some interesting shots.
7) Chamonix bans wing suits: Given the horrible summer, this doesn’t surprise me. The challenge here is that it wasn’t just newbies crashing, but some very senior members of the community. When I was there this past August an individual crashed a few days earlier. My paragliding instructor selected to tell me about this death and two others that had occurred that week…while we were thousands of feet above the ground.
8) Brim Brothers delays again: Not sure what more to say here that I haven’t said before. I was concerned back this spring with them going forward on Kickstarter until they had 100% nailed prototypes.
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 are 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.
Garmin VIRB Edit (Desktop): Minor update this week, though late last week had more feature updates.
Garmin Edge 820 Firmware Update: Added touch sensitivity setting, other fixes.
Garmin Edge 1000 Firmware Update: Added Group Track option, also additional Di2 features and other tweaks.
Garmin FR735XT Firmware Update: Minor fixes.
Garmin Vivofit 2 Firmware Update: Fix related to Daylight Savings Time.
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Thanks for reading all!
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Hey Ray – any thoughts on if/when you’ll have some info about the DJI Mavic up?
Likely later this week. The DJI PR peeps in Europe were trying to get a unit, but it seems like they’re behind there.
No worries though, I have a few units on order through different spots, that are expected to arrive over the next few days. In theory anyway…
Thoughts as to when/if Suunto spartan review?
This week.
Cool. Do I keep my order I placed this weekend on the sport…primary concern is accurate tracks and current pace…
I’m waiting for the Sport to come in (probably tomorrow or Tuesday I understand), I only have the Ultra.
How did tracks and pace look on the ultra since your first look videos? Hearing mixed out there. Better than vertical, on par with ambit 3, etc
It’s definitely not on par with the Ambit3, in any scenario, than I can find. It’s roughly on par with the Vertical, which isn’t on par with greatness.
Thanks for all the responses today, that makes my decision easy, so is the 920 worth picking up now with the tri bundle under $400 or do we wait it out until CES?
It’s hard to say. Though, you do have Black Friday sales coming up in about a month, so unless one needs a device in the next 30 days (of any type), I’d generally wait.
Note that of course I’d not expect any new devices to see sales, with new being defined as announced in the last 6-8 months.
Surprisingly, there were plenty of free loaner Quarq Qollectors still available late Wednesday at Kona. I would have thought people would have snapped them up by then. Anecdotally, some people needed a different mount mechanism (more gel slots in the race belt) or found the device too large/heavy, and others just didn’t want to give an advantage to their competition if they were shooting for a top AG finish.
Also, the official GPS tracker for the pros was now on the Beacon platform, but the Ironman site didn’t seem to have any links to the service during the race.
It was also weird that pros didn’t get any official splits on the course this year.
PS. The podcast hard link still points to DCR47.mp3.
Thanks, fixed the link. 🙂
Interesting to hear about Quarq availability from someone there. Thanks!
Nice call on the Dr Oz iBeat device. I know the founder, Ryan Howard, and his original startup. Great hype guy, but I have massive doubts about his move into hardware. I suspect he’s trying to pump up interest so he can get a chuck of investment cash and dump his shares.
I know him, and pretty much the whole team, as well as I actually worked at his original startup. This thing will be a massive failure that he will cash out on, just like Practice Fusion.
@GavinNewsom I’m 100% sure that we know each other. 😉 How are those PF options working out for you?
@TechNerd thankfully I never exercised any of them.I know some people who did, especially after they streamlined the process for doing it. Yikes.
Just found out today that :-
1) Robin Williams collected bicycles (and he had a good eye)
2) They are up for auction here : link to m.paddle8.com
Some very interesting stuff there – thought others may be interested.
Are you planning on reviewing the new Oakley Radar Pace?
link to oakley.com
Ray,
Just an update on the VIRB Edit software; haven’t downloaded the latest version but as of a week ago when I talked to Garmin, Picture-in-picture only works with paired VIRBs. If they’re not paired together prior to shooting your footage you can’t do PIP & it won’t work with GoPro footage either. This stinks because (until your above link) one has to use a GoPro 3/3+/4 with the Feiyu gimbal, which means first editing in VIRB Edit software to get the GPS altitude/heading/speed info embedded & then exporting to another package to be able to do the PIP with the GoPro footage.
Really cool to see that you’ve mentioned “Throw your GoPro for a unique angle”, as these guys are from the university (University Twente in the Netherlands) I’ve used to study at.
Thank you for all the work you put in!
Any thoughts on when you would have an in-depth review on the Polar M600?
Tomorrow morning.
Thanks! Looking forward to it!
Actually you can get stable video from running. Just use your hat 🙂
I ran few times with simple goprolike camera (gitupgit2) and it works (i know it looks silly ;P )
If you want, i can send you sample to mail/pw.
Chestmount is good for MTB 🙂
Should I buy now or wait 6mos Garmin Forerunner product? Anything exciting to wait for?
Hello.. anyone know how to setup the Di2 / Garmin light function on an Edge1000 please?
@Martin, I don’t have a 1000, but my 520 has Gears and Lights categories under Data Screens with various configurable data fields. There is also a dedicated Lights Network page that can be toggled on or off and configured.