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Week in Review–February 9th, 2019

February 9, 2019 by |Blog » Sports Technology News and Reviews|Comments (19)

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–Feb 3rd, 2019
Monday:  5 Random Things I Did This Weekend
Tuesday: COROS APEX Multisport GPS Watch In-Depth Review
Wednesday: SRAM RED eTAP AXS Hands-on: Everything To Know About The Smart Tech
Friday: RunScribe shifts away from consumer focus, but also launches new features

Sports Tech Deal This Week:

Looks like Apple is running a deal with Amazon to discount the Apple Watch Series 3 watches for $199, which is frankly a steal. The Apple Watch Series 3 includes GPS and optical HR (and some versions include LTE cellular, but not this one on sale).  Note that this version doesn’t have the latest gen optical HR sensors in the Series 4, though I think at the $199 price point one can make the case the benefit here is mostly on the all-around nature of the Apple Watch as a platform.

I will say that it’s been funny over the last few months, I somewhat keep sliding back into using the Apple Watch as my daily watch. Not for endurance sports stuff, but just as my daily wearable. The biggest ticket reason? Notifications – specifically Nestcam, and being able to see a quick snapshot on my wrist of the triggered event (movement/person seen/etc…). Between the DCR Studio and home we run a lot of Nest Cams, and I love that in under 1 second I can glance at that notification and validate whether I care about it or not.

I don’t know how long this deal will last. Maybe 5 minutes, maybe an hour, maybe a week. No idea. But here’s my full in-depth review for the Apple Watch Series 3.

YouTube Videos I Made This Week:

Here’s what hit the tubes over on the You of Tube, definitely don’t forget to subscribe there to get notified of videos the second they hit!

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 back to making a profit after Hero 7: Of course, if you look at the graphs you’ll see that the trajectory was largely in place about this time last year, but now solidified with the Hero 7. Also of note is that the company confirmed earlier plans to move all US-bound camera production from China to Mexico.

2) Tokyo nears completion of 2020 Olympic medals from e-waste: Pretty cool program, and neat to see that they’ll hit their goal in time.

3) The Women and Girls Who Dare to Cycle in Pakistan: In some places, the mere act of riding a bike is seen as significant defiance of norms.

4) Getting a special event permit for triathlon: Somehow I missed this series from Slowtwitch aimed at race directors. But I always find logistics type stuff interesting, and this little tidbit on the backstory of triathlon in Oceanside is interesting.

5) The best SRAM RED AXS Bike Review: Sure, a bunch of us media types talked about SRAM’s new thingamajig’s this week, but in reality, this might just be the best review of it (via Health):

6) RunAlyze is first to leverage Suunto’s new API: This is good enough, but practically speaking most of you won’t care for a few more months as this doesn’t integrate with Movescount, where most of your existing data is likely to be. But still, once Suunto enables Movescount to new Suunto platform sync/migration this spring, then this could be legit interesting update (via Janne).

7) Why the UCI is looking to combine all of its world championships: I think the title pretty much sums up this one.

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 and a few other firmware updates.

Garmin Fenix Chronos Firmware Update: Minor fixes.

Garmin Fenix 5 Firmware Update: Minor fixes.

Garmin FR935 Firmware Update: Added SwimRun auto sport change, and a crapton of fixes.

Garmin Vivosport Firmware Update: Minor fixes.

Kinda quiet week in sports tech updates.

—

With that – thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

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19 Comments

  1. Phil
    February 9, 2019 at 7:15 am #1

    Hi Ray.
    Be worried.
    The girl doing the SRAM RED AXIS Bike Review could be the new go-to blogger for sport tech.

    Reply
  2. thomaek
    February 9, 2019 at 10:00 am #2

    i’m not a suunto user but it’s great to see runalyze.com being mentioned here. i think it’s the best analysis platform for running and deserves more attention. it’s also completely for free.

    Reply
  3. dan
    February 9, 2019 at 10:15 am #3

    bullet point 5. I watched the review 4 times before I saw the bike…………

    Reply
  4. K P
    February 9, 2019 at 2:06 pm #5

    Purely as a public service, I’ve learned this is not Chanel’s first bike review.

    Here is another:

    link to youtu.be

    Reply
  5. ReHMn
    February 9, 2019 at 2:20 pm #6

    That girl from SRAM review knows more about bike tech than Ollie from GCN. And she is absolutely right about mudguards…

    Reply
  6. Laurence Basell
    February 9, 2019 at 5:23 pm #7

    Nice work on the 10km w the double pram. Loved your baby list when we had our first child. Just about to have number 2 and wondering if you had an updated list for when your second arrived? Love the site. ??

    Reply
  7. Graham
    February 10, 2019 at 8:12 am #8

    Sounds a really sensible bike review. I’m waiting for her to review the next Garmin Fenix Xs-whatever..

    Reply
  8. Kaz
    February 10, 2019 at 2:20 pm #9

    reg Apple Watch – I don’t know if it is me – but my Watch 3 seems to be A LOT better at optical HR now – vs when it was released.

    Due to all the Garmin Fenix 5x+ APAC firmware issues (still not solved) – I have used the Apple Watch 3 a lot more and I have been very surprised about how good the optical HR is compared to Garmin. Even on a treadmill it actually behaves reasonably.

    I just which they would do a more “manly” version – the design is too androgynous with most weight on the female part I think. I feel I can’t use the Apple Watch unless I’m clean shaven, dowsed in Eau de Something and wearing suede loafers.

    Reply
  9. David Tucker
    February 10, 2019 at 3:21 pm #10

    I definitely have a tough relationship with the smart watch. I love the idea… I even had a SPOT watch back in the day (I’m sure you’re familiar given your previous employment history!) The thing is I’m a watch guy and can’t give up my mechanicals. That’s honestly the reason I also wear a Vivosmart

    Reply
  10. JD
    February 10, 2019 at 4:28 pm #11

    Did STAC Zero let you know about their firmware update (v2005) to the Halcyon?
    I believe it was released in early January.
    Notable enhancements are automatic calibration (just hop on and ride now) plus option to increase maximum slope from the default 7% to as high as 10% if your training wheel will support it.

    Reply
    • Ray Maker
      February 11, 2019 at 3:01 am #12

      Interesting, I didn’t know.

      Typically speaking I just follow a few pages for software updates. So if a company has a firmware update page I try and remember to put a web-watcher thingy on it. And then for some companies I can easily remember to check each week as well (if they’ve got lots of products and make it simple).

      Good to know though!

      Reply
  11. Eli
    February 11, 2019 at 4:28 pm #13

    Cycliq updated the fly6 and added new features
    link to support.cycliq.com

    Reply
  12. JL
    February 12, 2019 at 8:49 am #14

    A software update worth mentioning: Suunto has updated it’s iOS app to ver 1.6.0 that enables uploading gpx route for navigation. If you click a link to a .gpx file in Safari, there is a link Open in Suunto. If you have a gpx track downloaded to your phone, click the share/export button and select Copy to Suunto. In both cases the track will appear on your Suunto app where you can sync in to the watch.

    Reply
  13. ReHMn
    February 14, 2019 at 12:04 pm #15

    Hi Roberta,

    I would like to know why my post to the Giveaway Lottery was removed/deleted?
    The text was a medical joke and I am a Newsletter subscriber. Posted at 7:57 and a #2303 was assigned.

    Sorry for commenting on this topic, but there I can not put a proof and also lost interest.
    Just really a curiosity did you find my comment offensive or it is just my personality what made it deleted?

    Thanks and sorry for an offtopic…

    Reply
    • Ray Maker
      February 14, 2019 at 2:27 pm #16

      Hmm, must be a page loading issue on your page. No responses have been deleted, and you’ll find the direct link to yours here: link to dcrainmaker.com

      (I see it as #2305 – comment #’s are technically a little in flux until I close the competition, because someone can technically reply to an earlier comment and it shifts #’s down – whereas right clicking on the date/time gives a permanent comment ID # and link. Also, after the period closes, I sweep through for duplicates, which can also shift comment numbers.)

      Cheers.

      Reply
    • ReHMn
      February 14, 2019 at 3:11 pm #17

      Ray,

      Thanks for the clarification. I see my comment now…
      The comment was not listed there at 11:30, for sure. I checked at office PC, home PC, did a refresh, display all comments and the most recent comment was showing #2757.
      It led me to a conclusion, that some users/comments were excluded.
      Apologies again. Mea culpa.

      Reply
  14. Lars Blesvik
    February 19, 2019 at 9:55 am #18

    Any chance you will be taking a look at the Bkool Air Smart this season?

    Reply