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–July 23rd, 2017
Sunday: Tour de France 2017- The Finish in Paris
Monday: 5 Random Things I Did This Weekend
Tuesday: Best Bike Computer 2017: Garmin Edge 520 vs Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT
Thursday: DCR Facebook Live Q&A Tomorrow –July 28th!
Sunday: In case ya missed it: DCR Live Q&A Recording Available
In general, this week would definitely be categorized as a ‘prep week’ ahead of a busy week. It’ll actually flip-flop like this for the next 3-4 weeks till Eurobike. August is gonna be full of goods!
Sports Tech Deals This Week:
Below is the current list of deals in the sports tech realm.
| Product | Sale Price | Amazon | Sale Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | AmazFit T-Rex 3 - $40 off | $240 | Amazon | |
 | Amazon Echo Dot Kids - 42% off | $34 | Amazon | Despite being a tech-focused dude, our kids don't actually get much tech in their lives. However, we got these two years ago for them in their rooms, to play music. They do lots of other things, but our kids mostly just use it to play music (from Spotify and Apple Music too), and occasionally they ask it questions. It has all the parental controls I want, so it locks it down from bedtime/etc...For $34? Solid deal (The coolest 'nice touch' feature is that if you whisper to it, it'll whisper back...in the owl kids voice it has.) |
 | Apple 11" iPad - (Wi-Fi, 128GB) - $70 off! | $279 | Amazon | ⚡ This is an awesome deal. I use my iPad primarily for TrainerRoad as well as Zwift when not with a larger display. I also occasionally use it for other apps, namely Indievelo, Kinomap, Rouvy, and Peloton. But I pretty much test every smart trainer app on it. For all these cycling apps, the graphics capabilities is really pretty irrelevant, so having the absolute top-end/latest model won't make any difference. I prefer the budget options. |
 | Apple AirPods 4 - $60 off! | $119 | Amazon | |
 | Apple Watch SE (2022/2nd gen) - $100 off $249/$299 (cellular) | $169 | Amazon | It's really hard to beat $169 for an Apple Watch. Again, like the other Apple units on this list, the SE3 was announce last month - which adds an Always-on Display, among other features. But at $169 with otherwise all the same software features as the higher-end Apple Watch units, this continues to be one of the best deals in smartwatches out there. |
 | Apple Watch Series 10 - $120 off $399/$499 (cellular) | $279 | Amazon | With the Series 11 out last month, you'll see sales on the Series 10. That said, there isn't a huge difference between Series 11 and Series 10. So if you were looking at the Apple Watch SE3, this might be worth grabbing instead for the added features. |
 | Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium - $150 off | $649 | Amazon | With the new Apple Watch Ultra 3 announced last month, it's time to clear some Ultra 2 inventory. This is pretty much the 'normal' sale price for the Ultra 2. |
 | DJI Mini 4K Drone - $60 off | $239 | Amazon | If you're looking to get into flying with a DJI drone, this is a solid place to start. Of course, moreso than that, the days are very limited for how much longer you can actually buy at DJI drone in the US. So, grab them while you can. |
 | DJI NEO - $30 off! | $159 | Amazon | This is the lowest price on this drone, and is a great option if you want a follow-me drone that's pretty hard to kill, at a price point that's still super reasonable. |
 | DJI OSMO 360 - $137 off | $412 | Amazon | NOTE: This is not sold by DJI directly via Amazon. DJI itself is NOT selling the OSMO 360 in the US, and WILL NOT support/repair it in the US. That said, it's a solid deal if you're ok with those risks. |
 | Garmin Edge 540 - $73 off | $267 | Amazon | ⚡At $267, it's pretty much impossible to beat this deal in terms of bike computers. There's no competitive option that beats it on features/battery/etc at this price, or frankly anywhere near it. Sure, it doesn't have a touchscreen, but it's not as bad as it used to be (I did a stint on it this winter for a week or so, and was fine). |
 | Garmin Epix Pro - $250 off! $899/$999 | $499 | Amazon | ⚡ This is avery solid deal! The Epix Pro has the latest optical HR sensor in it, and thus has full ECG support as well. Note, this is for a 'renewed' model. In Garmin lingo, it means it went back to the (same) factory in Taiwan, and went back to the assembly line and is effectively a new watch again. I wouldn't have any concerned with a renewed model, but some might. |
 | Garmin Varia Radar (RTL515) - $50 off | $149 | Amazon | This is Garmin's standalone radar+taillight option, and $149 is pretty much the standard sale-price. Even despite all the new radars out there, this remains the most accurate option on the market. Now, only if Garmin would just re-release it with USB-C. C'Mon Garmin... |
 | Garmin Venu X1 - $100 off! | $699 | Amazon | This is the first time we've seen the Venu X1 on sale, since it came out this past summer. This is a good deal, though, I do wonder if it indicates the original pricing wasn't quite right here. |
 | Garmin inReach 2 Mini Satellite Communicator (2-way) - $40 off | $360 | Amazon | This is a pretty small deal for this product. This is my defacto satellite communicator when out of coverage area, and I've used it on a number of major treks over the past two years when well outside of cellular service, both in a 24x7 tracking mode for friends and family, but also there in case of emergency. Would strongly recommend for anyone doing anything in the wilderness. |
 | Garmin inReach Messenger Plus - $100 off! | $399 | Amazon | This came out last fall, and is the second time this has been discounted. The key difference with the new Plus model is that it adds the ability to send photos and voice messenges via satellite. I've used it a bit, and it's pretty cool because it makes it a lot faster to just say something rather than type it out, but the $499 price seemed excessive. $399 makes it slightly more palatable. |
 | GoPro Hero 13 Black - $50 off | $349 | Amazon | |
 | GoPro Hero 13 Black Bundle (extra battery/SD card/floaty) - $100 off! | $379 | Amazon | ⚡ This is a very solid deal. It's a Hero 13 Black on discount, but then an extra battery tossed in, then an SD card, and then a floaty. |
 | GoPro Hero 4K - $20 off | $199 | Amazon | While the new Hero Lit was announced a few weeks back, which includes a front LED light, for the most part it's the same camera inside. Note I'll have a full comparison shortly though between the GoPro Hero Lit, DJI OSMO Nano, and Insta360 Go Ultra. |
 | Google Pixel Watch 3 (45mm) - $70 OFF | $229 | Amazon | The newer Pixel Watch 4 came out last month, and will start shipping this week. I see the Pixel Watch 4 as a pretty substantial hardware upgrade over the Pixel Watch 3, notably due to satellite SOS, as well as a user-replaceable battery. Still, this is a solid deal. |
 | Insta360 X5 360* Action Cam - $50 off! | $499 | Amazon | |
 | Polar H10 Chest Strap (Dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart) - $15 off $89 | $84 | Amazon | |
 | Polar Verity Sense - 15% off $99 | $82 | Amazon | I use this as one of my reference devices for heart rate accuracy testing. |
 | Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra (2025) - $100 off! | $549 | Amazon | |
 | Samsung Galaxy Watch8 - $35 off | $314 | Amazon | |
 | Sony Alpha 7 IV Full-frame Mirrorless Camera w/ 28-70mm Zoom - $400 off | $2,398 | Amazon | This is the main camera I use for still photography and video b-roll. I recently wrote about all the photography gear I use, linked at side here. |
 | Suunto Run - $50 off! $249 | $199 | Amazon | This is a very solid deal. It's got virtually all the software features of Suunto's higher-end watches (minus the app store), and just came out this past May. |
 | Suunto Vertical - $120 off! | $379 | Amazon | While the new Suunto Vertical 2 just came out last week, if you wanted to stock-up on MIP-based display watches before they disappear, here's your chance. |
 | Suunto Wing headphones - $30 off | $119 | Amazon | |
 | Wahoo ACE Cycling GPS - $90 off! $599 | $531 | Amazon | |
 | Wahoo BOLT V2 - $30 off $279 | $237 | Amazon | |
 | Wahoo KICKR 2022/V6 - $155 off! $1,299 | $894 | Amazon | ⚡This is actually the lowest price we've ever seen on the KICKR V6. Wahoo says we won't see a new top-end KICKR this fall, with them instead focusing on the new KICKR Bike Pro, KICKR CORE 2, and all their new bike computers/radar/etc... |
 | Wahoo KICKR Core Smart Trainer - $75 off! $499 | $427 | Amazon | This is basically the lowest price we've ever seen for this trainer as far as I know. It's still a very solid trainer, and the cornerstone to the new Zwift Ride bike as well (it uses the KICKR CORE as the base). It works with the Wahoo KICKR CLIMB too. |
 | Wahoo KICKR Desk - $30 off | $199 | Amazon | |
 | Wahoo KICKR ROLLR - $130 off $599 | $569 | Amazon | |
 | Wahoo ROAM V3 - $70 off! | $395 | Amazon | This is the first time we've seen the ROAM V3 on sale (notably the BOLT V3 is not on sale, though the larger ACE is). |
 | Wahoo TRACKR Heart Rate Sensor - $15 off $89 | $84 | Amazon |
New this week include $20 off the GoPro Hero5 Session, and 20% off GoPro accessories (except Karma accessories for some bizarre reason.)
Also of note is that the Wahoo ELEMNT rebate ends tomorrow, as does the $100 off the Edge 1000. And the Cycliq sale ends Tuesday.
YouTube Videos I Published:
Here’s some YouTube goodness that I published this past week, don’t forget to subscribe!
Well…no YouTube this time, but on Facebook instead (you don’t need an account to watch).
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’s Tour de France 2017 Final Edit: They did a bunch of mini-edits throughout the Tour (see the full playlist here), but here’s the final edit for this year’s Tour. It’s a bit different in tone than past years, but more of a storyline this time. I saw the small team of these guys around often, and they hustled their ass off on every stage.
2) Wait, TomTom’s dead too? This is definitely not the best month for sports tech. With Recon bowing out last week, insinuations from TomTom’s own investor call says they may be exiting the sports tech portion of their business. This would definitely be a blow to the inexpensive end of the market (for which TomTom thrives). Their challenge though is gaining interest in North America, alongside finding ways to get mainstream/tech press excited about their products (which again, are incredibly good values for the prices).
3) Fitbit’s app store will be based on Pebble’s SDK: No real surprise here, but nice to see the confirmation of it.
4) Chief Commissaire who disqualified Sagan calls for video reviews: Well then, don’t be bringing in logic too fast now!
5) Another look at the tracking airplanes of the Tour de France: I talked a little bit about this during my TdF Dimension Data behind the scenes post, but this video showing the trace of the airplane as it follows the route is pretty darn cool. (via Rodrigo)
6) Tour de France Speed and Distance Trends – 1947 – 2017: Super interesting stuff, from where this race sits as far as overall speed, to overall distance per stage. Fascinating plots by Alex.
7) Rapha set to go for $262 Million USD! Potential buyers include Aston Martin. It’ll be interesting to see what it actually goes for though, as this seems a bit…over the top…to me. (Via Race Radio)
8) Suunto sees financial recovery in Q2 compared to Q1: Some interesting tidbits in their just released Q2 financial report, which shows them tracking 7% higher than last year. That’s logical, since last year would have been pre-Spartan, whereby people were waiting for new products. However, what was most interesting was going back to the Q1 report, which I hadn’t seen before to see the huge hit they took in Q1, being down 27% YoY. But they’ve done good work in 2017 addressing many of the Spartan shortcomings, and so they’re seeing the results of that. All of the quarterly reports are available here, including full presentations. Suunto is categorized as ‘Sports Instruments’.
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 360 Firmware Update: Improved photo quality, and streaming 4K options (for the co-announced Facebook 4K live streaming functionality).
Garmin Fenix3/Fenix3 HR BETA Firmware Update: Yup, it actually got an update.mostly fixes, though one additional new feature for recording HR data into the files.
Garmin Fenix 5/5S/5X BETA Firmware Updates: A pile of fixes, and some new features.
GoPro Hero5 & Hero5 Session Firmware Update: Adds new QuikStories feature to have autocreated movies ready to go. Also adds some performance tweaks.
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Thanks for reading!
Sorry to see negative news about Tom Tom. I’ve been on Garmin for many years, but have almost bought TT just out of curiosity. Products seem solid and the value continues to go up relative to escalating Garmin pricing. Hope that they can find a way forward.
Yep, I think they will find a way forwards.
As Ray, others (and me) point out the runner/spark IS good and IS good value.
I don’t think ANYONE who has commented on the TomTom statements knows exactly what products might be the root of the ‘issue’.
One scenario could be the ‘all the future R&D eggs in the runner/spark basket’ then we might see great things come out of this in 2018 with a runner/spark5
As Robert (Black?) points out further below, there are still some peripheral bit of functionality that need adding. BUT, as Ray said recently, every user/athlete has similar such peripheral areas of functionality that are important to them. All those little dents of missing functionality add up to a hole in the overall functional offering.
…question on this Garmin updates…
Is Garmin done with sw version 9.30.0.0 at 920XT for good? No further updates?
The sensor settings are really annoying!
Before starting multi sport activity, all sensors must be enabled. So the device is searching for Speed and Cadence sensor at Swimming leg up to the running leg. And in T1 (after swimming) the device is dropping the connection to HRM-Tri/HRM-Swim, so that one must be reconnected.
If Garmin exterminated bike profiles, they should set up automatic detection for previously paired sensors and keep those connected till activity is not sent to history…
I don’t expect to see any further updates, at least feature updates. Usually you still see some random bug updates here or there, things that might be caught on other platforms and ported back. But at nearly 3 years old, it’s run its course.
Thanks for the answer Ray. And I am sorry for trolling…
In my opinion, 920XT as a device is much better then 735/935XT together.
And I got it – it came out 3 years ago.
But it was and still being used by Pro and hobby triathletes around the globe.
Nobody found that functionality annoying since then? Or they did and it is just Garmin’s approach to customers?
Thanks again…and please make a separate section/quick link to the Week in Review series…
I think the challenge is that the FR920XT is only better if one likes the larger screen. But if the rectangle screen isn’t ones thing, then I’m not aware of anything it actually does better to be honest.
Nothing wrong with the FR920XT, as you point out, many triathletes use it. But if we fast forward to a year from now, there will be less triathletes using it and more and more using the Fenix5/FR935/FR735 (which as a lineup are the real successors).
I do think some people (including myself) found the attempted pairing during the swim (or run to power meters) thing weird – but it never really did anything aside from being an annoyance. Meaning that come the bike it connected properly to sensors, and come the run the same. Not saying Garmin shouldn’t have fixed it, but also just being realistic on what they consider a sunsetted product.
It’s interesting. Look at Nike’s Breaking2. All the athletes wear 920xt. There must be something there
Adriaan, I’d be interested in knowing what you think is “much better” about the 920 than the 935. I’ve had several friends that won’t switch because of the round screen. I too thought that would be a problem years ago when I got the 620 for running because of the light weight. I quickly grew to love the round face over the rectangular one. Partly because you could put longer fields on the top/bottom for things like time and distance. HR, Cad, Speed fit perfectly side by side in the middle. Add in totally customizable CIQ fields and its even better. And now with the 935/F5 actually having a larger total area than the 920 with a very crisp screen, I can’t imagine going back. And for tri’s, the quick release kit for the 935 is definitely superior, IMO.
TomTom could have had it all, the watch had Bluetooth, why not throw in support for a footpod? But the deal breaker for me was it’s restricted intervals. I had the original runner and offloaded it a week later. Had it worked with footpods and had pace targets i wouldn’t own the 3 Polar watches I do now
Agree but my issue was the inability to change the screen metrics. It was limited.
Garmin is pricing itself out of the casual market.
fenix 3 beta firmware update ! – gasp, wasn’t expecting that. Seems like they broke something on this so they’re promising another one in a week or so
Ray,
Have you gotten to try out the new Beta for Garmin Connect on iOS that has a new My Day view? A huge improvement from the prior layout in my opinion. Have been a fitbit user for my day-to-day tracking as I like to wear a normal watch, and wasn’t a fan of Garmin’s UI, but the new layout could be enough to get me to switch.
Awesome video of the tracking planes from the tour. Another insight into just one of the behind the scenes aspects that we pretty much take for granted. I reckon that the pilots may have grown up as track riders. Fairly hand at turning left…
*handy
Hero5 Session is actually 20% off ($239.20) on Amazon!
link to amazon.com
Awesome depth, inspiring, personable and entertaining ecosystem. All the best. Tim
New Wahoo Element Mini was released today. Anyone else intrigued?
not at all. it looks like it only works with their own sensors?
Full details here: link to dcrainmaker.com