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!
Sports Tech Deals of Note:
Here’s some continuing sports tech deals.
| Product | Sale Price | Amazon | Sale Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | HoverAir X1 Drone - $80 off! | $349 | Amazon | Note: There's virtually always a $80 coupon that can be clicked on the Amazon page. |
DCRAINMAKER.COM Posts in the Past Week:
Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page this past week:
Hahahaha…nothing! I had grand plans. But those got wiped away by enjoying a ski vacation with the kiddos, and enjoying wine at night when they fell asleep. Fear not, that avalanche of content will arrive this week instead!
Stuff 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 (and in this case, some of these are from the past few weeks…as my backlog is a bit longer):
1) How Lego streets would look with bike lanes added: I like it!
2) The UCI and the teams are locked in a power struggle: A great explainer from CyclingTips.
3) Peloton competitor Flywheel’s bikes get bricked by Peloton: I’m never a fan of competition via litigation. It basically means a company is too afraid to compete on their merits (functionality/price/brand/etc…), even when ripped off. So on one hand, it’s pretty dirty to effectively brick (via lawsuit) a competitor’s devices. Yet on the other, giving those users a replacement bike is probably a pretty good deal for most Flywheel users. Heck, an even better deal for those Flywheel users that might have wanted to offload a Flywheel bike, since a Peloton bike rarely loses much value 2nd-hand (thus, sell the Peloton bike).
4) Pandora Apple Watch App allows offline use: Slowly but surely we’re seeing more music streaming apps add true offline caching support for the Apple Watch (where you don’t have to have a phone nearby). Spotify, notably, is still missing.
5) A study on what happens to your weight if you get a free car: While there is some debate on the nuances of the study – I think the overall trend is quite clear: It certainly doesn’t help your health.
6) The impact of Coronavirus on tech companies: After having multiple calls over the last two weeks with companies on this matter, I’m pretty confident this report will, in time, dramatically underestimate the impact on the tech sector. The key aspect over and over is the underlying components/chips that make up a given product. Many products have dozens if not hundreds of underlying components from just as many manufacturers.
7) Strava adds yet another new feature: This time, activity cropping to mobile. Note that there has always been activity cropping on web, but not mobile. Nice! I’m just waiting for when I can see which device was used for a given activity (i.e. showing ‘Wahoo BOLT’ or ‘Garmin Fenix 6’) on mobile, which is currently on web.
Sports Tech Device 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 Vivosmart 4 Firmware Update: Simply listed as ‘stability improvements’.
Wahoo BOLT/ROAM/ELEMNT Firmware Update: This adds instant torque display for certain power meter types, as well as fixes a Di2 issue.
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With that – have a great week ahead!
Anyone else have problems since the last Wahoo Bolt firmware update? My Work (kj) field shows twice the value now. Furthermore, hitting Pause generates gaps in the reading, e.g. gaps with zero altitude (and other series). Strava filters these out but not Trainingpeaks.
With regard to the kj field I know of two other Bolt owners with exactly the same problem since Friday or so.
and the gaps
Before the firmware update everything was fine. never had an issue with the Bolt
How does the Peloton platform work?
Does Peloton allow limited levels of connectivity for some 3rd party devices, but Flywheel was trying to fully integrate their service using an alternative bike?
Peloton is closed (as are most of these types of bikes). A Peloton bike however can at least connect to ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart HR straps though. 🙂
In this case, Flywheel basically just copied the Peloton idea and ran with it (more or less like the others). That’s the part Peloton is sueing over. Frankly, it’s silly. And I suspect eventually one of them will win over Peloton with the right legal team. Flywheel just didn’t have that team.
And a large bank balance which I think it also a big contributing factor
Definitely. Always is with lawyers. 🙂
You’re alive! We were starting to wonder ;o)
My Bolt doubled the distance on my easy spin this morning. A 19 mile ride uploaded to Strava as just short of 38 miles. I’ve submitted a support ticket already to Wahoo.
Spotify not doing this is very, very annoying. Its like they decided ‘Apple is being anti-compeitive so we will do our best to only do bug fixes’….crazy.
The option to crop my Strava activities isn’t there for me on the iPhone app… would be very handy to access it as I keep forgetting to stop my watch before driving back home from the day’s skiing this week! Do I need to manually update or something? It should be on auto-update as far as I know..
Any info about Garmin FR 655?
Thanks
Pretty sure, that popped up in the verge comments too, but I was shocked to see LEGO Streets without bikelanes.
I remembered and checked at my brother’s house, they had bikelanes in the 80s and 90s!
In those glory days, their bricks and advertising also lacked any blue/pink separation.
interesting comments on The Verge:
Cars are not going away and acting like they are going to be rapidly replaced by bikes is not forward-thinking that helps us progress towards lower emissions, it’s wishful-thinking that impedes that progress.
Truth is, if you build bike lanes, the bikes will come. At least that is what they believe in the Netherlands.
Can I buy a used Flyhweel and trade it for a Peloton? Seems like the cheapest way to get one by far. Used Flyhweel bikes near me are going for under 1,000…It seems like I could easily flip the Peloton on the used market for 1,500.
I think the Venu sale is over, as neither site shows a $299 price.
The positive effect of the coronavirus is that air pollution and smog in the involved cities have decreased by more than 25%…
Any info about Garmin Instinct 2? Plenty of leaks around the net about it having solar and so on. Or is your lips sealed by garmin?