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Week in Review–April 7th, 2019

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 this past week:

Monday: 5 Random Things I Did This Weekend
Wednesday: How To (Sorta) Make Your CompuTrainer Wireless: PerfPro’s CT Smart Wireless Bridge
Friday: Your GPS watch will (most likely) continue to work fine tomorrow (April 6th)
Friday: Samsung Galaxy Watch Active – Sport & Fitness In-Depth Review

I suspect the week ahead will be a little bit busier. Not crazy busy, but, briskish.

Sports Tech Deals This Week:

There’s two deals notable that started today:

Garmin Vivofit Jr 2 units (the kids ones) are all $20 off till April 20th. My full post on them here.

 

Garmin Edge 820 is down to $259, a pretty massive price drop. My full post on the unit here.

 

Garmin Vector 3 is $100 off, and Vector 3S is $50 off My full in-depth review on them here.

 

GoPro Hero 7 Black is $50 off (not sure when that ends). My full review on it here. It’s what I use on every ride/run I do. Note the unit from Clever Training comes with a free 32GB MicroSD card.

 

Fitbit Alta HR is $40 off, down to $89 – This model is being replaced by latest units, but it’s frankly still a fantastic unit for the price to have optical HR in it. Full review here.

 

Fitbit Ace Kids activity tracker is 11% off, this is the first gen ones though. Still, I suppose if you’re in the Fitbit ecosystem already.

Also, check back mid-week for another minor single item sale being announced. Well, it’s a moderately big item, but it never goes on sale. A minor sale. Movin’ along…

FIT File Podcast This Week:

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Episode 5 (aka Episode 69) of the podcast is up, on the show this week:

– We’ve completed our name selection and renaming – The .FIT File!
– Some funny discussion of my trip back from Mallorca
– Stalking each other mid-Zwift workout
– Magene’s Direct Drive trainer, what we do think after both completing reviews?
– CompuTrainer, the new ANT+ FE-C software option, plus who the heck bought CompuTrainer?
– Update and thoughts on IQ2 power meter
– inPeak power meter update
– Road Grand Tours rebrands as RGT, plus Apple TV app rollout
– Samsung Galaxy Watch Active Review Discussion
– Thought’s on Garmin’s upcoming Connect IQ summit this week, as well as Sea Otter

Listen here, or four options for where to find the podcast:

A) iTunes: If you’ve got an Apple device, we’re there!
B) Google Play Music: Yup, we’re here too (and on Google Podcasts app)
C) Spotify: Of course we’re on Spotify now – you can even cache it on your wearable too!
D) RSS Feed: Follow along using the direct RSS feed

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YouTube Videos This Past 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) Solid effort into Netflix app for Garmin Watches: While I generally avoid the interwebs on April 1st, I’ll give Nakan a pass for putting some serious effort into this. While the article is in French, you don’t really need to speak any French to see what’s going on. Well done…well done indeed.

2) Bragi sells of wearables hardware business: Interesting move. I’m sure they’ve got all the data in the world to know that it’s hard to compete with the likes of Apple and other major wearable audio players. However, I also think selling software-only solutions in a market like this might be even more difficult. Though, they had begun pivoting towards more of the hearing-assistance realm a few years back, so this might be a logical gateway towards that as well.

3) Australia’s new helmet standards, and how they come together: Some good insight on the fairly logical process of how helmet standards are created and ultimately applied.

4) Reminder – Microsoft is shutting down HealthVault: This has been slowly circling the drain for some time, but in the event you somehow still have data there…go fetch?

5) Started to see impact of new Suunto partner program: rubiTrack is now connected to the platform. I expect we’ll continue to see it expand and take on new partners as spring gets warmed up. I talked about it back here when it was announced.

6) ZADA (sorta) returns to Zwift: This piece expands on some of the new limited scope aspects of the platform’s renamed Zwift Accuracy and Data Analysis program which I discussed back in the cheating post a bit more than a month ago.

7) Content aware for Adobe After Effects will be super cool for sports: This item is showing my geeky side, but I’m super excited to get a spare few hours to start playing with this on some of my older footage – especially drone footage. So much neat potential here (when used properly) for getting solo shots where someone/something might be hosing it up.

8) Road Grand Tours rolls out Apple TV app: Also, they’ve rebranded to RGT instead. While I was super excited about the Apple TV app – unfortunately, it requires you use the phone app concurrently. You *must* use the two together. Same goes for the new desktop apps. It’s all really wonky. Lama and I chat about it in the podcast episode as well. I was so excited to write a post and put together a video on the Apple TV app…until I tried to get it working. Then it was like someone popped my balloon.

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.

First off, I must point out my favorite firmware update release notes line item of this week, from the Edge 1030 firmware update page:

“Fixed a crash that could occur when riding with a cadence sensor.”

Yikes – I hope they aren’t talking about crashing the bike! That’s one serious bug if so! 😉

In other news, here’s what else was updated:

Garmin Edge Explore 1000 Firmware Update: A pile of improvements and fixes (yes, really, the Edge 1000)

Garmin Fenix 5 BETA Firmware Update: Swim-related bug fix.

Garmin Fenix 5 Plus BETA Firmware Update: Wallet related bug fix.

Garmin Forerunner 935 BETA Firmware Update: A pile of bug fixes. Really big pile.

Garmin Instinct BETA Firmware update: Explore sync improvements.

Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music BETA Firmware update: Bluetooth connectivity bug fix.

Garmin Vivosmart 4 Firmware update: Minor improvements in widgets

Stryd Running Power Footpod Firmware Update: A pretty significant update with respect to stability and responsiveness.

With that – thanks for reading folks!

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20 Comments

  1. E. Felkerino

    Hi Ray – the firmware update is to the Edge Explore 1000. No updates right now to the regular 1000.

    That said, thanks for posting these each week. Very helpful!

  2. Marios

    I can’t wait for all the new Garmin Forerunner announcements and your first hands-on coverage this week!

    I assume Garmin will present all the new 945/245 features to the developers during the CIQ Summit this week (April 9-11) but also hopefully have some units on display during the Boston Marathon Expo this weekend (April 12-14)!

  3. Mark J.

    Also, the Beta update for the Vivoactive 3 is for the Music version.

  4. Robert Black

    Amazon UK deal of the day, forerunners 235, 735, fenix 5, and one fenix 5 plus

  5. Bob

    A Lezyne GPS update was expected end of last week, I’m hoping they roll that out in the next day or so.

  6. Andrea

    Hi Ray,
    Can I ask to transcript your podcast?
    I mean, an automated process of course, because even if will be not perfect at all , is better than understand 2 word every ten 😉
    Thank you
    ANdrea

    • It’s honestly tough.

      We tried transcription services in the past, and for the technical topics we discuss, we found that the quality of the transcription was really really bad. We’d end up spending more time to fix all the errors than it probably would have been to just write it out manually. :-/

    • Nighthawk700

      My hearing has deteriorated to the point that I can no longer listen to podcasts when driving. There are some new technologies out there, but like Ray says, the quality is pretty poor. When he has a good clear mic, the autocaptions on his YouTube videos are decent. When there’s wind, airplanes, crowd noise, etc., the quality quickly sinks. The next thing I plan to try is Google’s “Transcribe Live”. It’s still in beta, but is pretty good at transcribing a person talking in a relatively clear background. Hoping it will work when playing one of his podcasts of interest. It won’t save the transcription though, so you have to use it while listening over speakers. (and yes, this precludes “listening” while driving!! The good ole days.)

      Hopefully technology continues to move on so we can get better results.

  7. Dave Lusty

    My Suunto API access was only approved last week, having applied on launch day so hopefully that will start to ramp up more quickly now that they’ve opened the gates. I always thought their 2 week estimate was a bit hopeful for launch day!

  8. Alberto

    Is it Garmin Vivofit Jr. III coming?

  9. Thomas

    You going to Sea Otter? If so…what are you going to be looking for?

  10. Robert

    Along the lines of (but probably with less impact) the Microsoft HeathVault shutdown, Zone Five Software has sent an EOL notification for SportTracks 3, its Windows desktop app. Last-time buy is end June 2019, end of support is end of March 2020 (which includes “provide any support infrastructure for online services related to the ST3 Windows PC application operation”, so presumably that includes the connection to sync with the could-based SportTracks app. Presumably it will still be possible to bring data into the Win app past the EOL, as long as you can bring activity files to it.

  11. JD

    I hope the “fix for crash with cadence sensor” is what’s been wonky with my 1030 since the 7.2 update.
    Xert ERG workouts on their IQ app have randomly been cut short — after months of working just fine.
    The crash in this case is the app closes suddenly and Garmin Connect ends the workout prematurely.
    Pretty frustrating since you can’t resume the workout where the crash occurred.

  12. Ivan Dobski

    Is there any update on the Avio PM, they’re been on sale a while now? I tried one a few months ago with mixed results so it would be good to know if it’s improved at all.

  13. Eli

    Aerofly is back link to kickstarter.com
    Still not sure how it calculates power but….