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!
⚡ Both myself and my wife have been using these since last fall, after years of using the Beats Studio Buds...man, these things rock. Sure, they're good for sports, but frankly, I use them on planes, editing, and such more than anything else. In fact, I've been listening to them now for 8 hours as I type away on my flight across the ocean. Only briefly putting them in the case to top-up.
⚡The Fenix 8 is now down to $799 for the 42/47mm AMOLED editions, and from $899 for the Solar/MIP editions. This is the first big sale, outside of a short $70 discount back in January by Uncle Amazon.
This is the lowest price to date on this watch, bringing it down to a very strong $499. This unit includes maps and is more or less a plastic Fenix 7 Pro. The FR970 just came out this week, adding ECG functionality and a few other software features...but at $250 more!
This has become one of my favorite drones, given it's tiny size (fits in my running shorts pockets) and ease of use. While there's the new Pro drones, those are nearly 2x the price (and more for Pro-Max), and honestly, the video quality isn't really achieving that price point. Also note the checkbox to get yet an extra free battery (thus 3 batteries in total, based on the way it's currently coded in Amazon).
– Strava App Updates… higher frequency!
– Saris MP1 Reviews from DCR & Lama
– Oreka Review
– Continued Coronavirus fall-out on sports tech/events
– Ray’s new mountain bike
– Whoop testing update
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
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):
2) The AirPods holder for an Apple Watch band: I’d agree with The Verge, at first I couldn’t decide whether it’s incredibly dumb or incredibly brilliant. But then I realized this will be sitting on the edge of your wrist, at the roundest part of the band. So I’m going with incredibly dumb.
3) Man uses fitness app to record ride, house on route gets burglarized, he becomes suspect: This whole thing is a complete cluster. However, it wasn’t actually the fitness data that got him in trouble, but general Google location tracking data that a warrant was served for. Ironically, it was his fitness data that saved him here. Primarily because it was this very same data that went on to show he wasn’t the suspect. How on earth did it get this far?
4) How technology is changing the sports bra: Super detailed piece from Outside Magazine that looks at the significant shifts in the design and production in just the last few years.
5) Sea Otter Cancelled/Postponed: Bummer, was looking forward to heading out there for this. Sounds like it might get postponed till sometime this fall, though realistically from a product launch standpoint that wouldn’t be super-appealing to me (since companies wouldn’t shift product launches from next April to October). However, I could see a scenario where some US companies might shift a product launch or two from Eurobike (first week of September) to Sea Otter if it was only 3-5 weeks later (as they often did for Interbike in the past).
6) Roundup of the shoes worn at the US Olympic Trials last weekend: This is about as close as we’ll get to gadget tech for an event like that. Maybe in some alternate universe Strava (with their newfound CEO) will allow us to pull device reports again (which, side note, is good for Strava publicity). That’d be super interesting to see what the pros and almost pros are choosing.
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.
[Things be pretty slow in the sports tech world right now. Part of that is seasonality, but a very real part of that is COVID-19]
Am I misreading something or did that guy pay a lawyer thousands of dollars to defend a case that hadn’t been brought against him? Looks to me as though the police wouldn’t have even brought a case in the first place if he’d just done nothing.
Regardless of how dumb that guy was, I completely disagree with Google having that information, let alone the police (mis)using it the way they did. Google only object because the police are asking for the data for free, but literally any other interested party could buy that data with no objection from Google.
In the US, while there’s some validity if you know you’re 100% innocent and can easily demonstrate that, in not hiring a lawyer, there’s also a lot of validity in hiring one.
Given the situation spiraled from a police department not doing their jobs to begin with, I’d probably side with the dude as well in that you’ve got a scenario where someone is mounting a shoddy case against you, getting a lawyer to quickly dismantle that is a wise move.
Unfortunately, that’s the reality of the US system.
Nothing in that article suggested the police were building a case against him though. They requested some information, sure, but there could have been 200 people in that request who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
If the US system is so broken that you have to prove your innocence before there’s even a charge then I’m not surprised at all that you live in Netherlands now! Couple that with the lack of a GDPR equivalent and that adds up to big issues in the US going forwards with data mining potentially completely replacing justice.
“McCoy worried that going straight to police would lead to his arrest.”
So the solution is to hide at your parents’ house, especially when you are innocent.
“I was using an app to see how many miles I rode my bike and now it was putting me at the scene of the crime. And I was the lead suspect.”
Nope, idiot. If you would have stopped riding your bike and do a robbery, it would affect the riding time, average speed and location data where you left the bike.
“I didn’t realize that by having location services on that Google was also keeping a log of where I was going,”
Five years old kids are smarter than you!
Folks, if you execute a crime, make sure that your GPS device is enabled…
I’m curious as to whether you bother installing any BETA firmware updates or do you always wait for the public edition to be released?
I’m not sure whether a beta is worth installing (to test/resolve an issue) for the simple fact Garmin doesn’t date the change log.
I also notice the breadcrumb links on the change log pages don’t work (404 errors). Weird.
I usually install betas if it fixes something that’s an issue for me, or if it’s got a boatload of new features I want to dig into.
Otherwise, I don’t tend to bother – merely because I don’t feel like connecting a cable.
I’d love to see Garmin adopt an approach like Wahoo for betas whereby you can enroll from your phone (if you have the right password anyway), and then the device pulls the betas automatically via WiFi just like any other firmware update. This would allow Garmin to get a wider public group, because it would lower the barrier to install. A simple warning message each time someone installs a beta release would easily nullify and concerns around someone ending up on a bum build.
Yet another GPS push update to my 530. I really wish it asked if I want the update so I can delay it for later. It always seems to update during a time when I want good race/ride data.
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FAQ’s
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You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.
I travel a fair bit, both for work and for fun. Here’s a bunch of random trip reports and daily trip-logs that I’ve put together and posted. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been.
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2024 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
![FIT-File-Logo-WorkingWide_thumb_thum[2]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2019/08/FIT-File-Logo-WorkingWide_thumb_thum2.jpg "FIT-File-Logo-WorkingWide_thumb_thum[2]"){kind=logo}
Am I misreading something or did that guy pay a lawyer thousands of dollars to defend a case that hadn’t been brought against him? Looks to me as though the police wouldn’t have even brought a case in the first place if he’d just done nothing.
Regardless of how dumb that guy was, I completely disagree with Google having that information, let alone the police (mis)using it the way they did. Google only object because the police are asking for the data for free, but literally any other interested party could buy that data with no objection from Google.
In the US, while there’s some validity if you know you’re 100% innocent and can easily demonstrate that, in not hiring a lawyer, there’s also a lot of validity in hiring one.
Given the situation spiraled from a police department not doing their jobs to begin with, I’d probably side with the dude as well in that you’ve got a scenario where someone is mounting a shoddy case against you, getting a lawyer to quickly dismantle that is a wise move.
Unfortunately, that’s the reality of the US system.
I know it’s a tomarto/tomayto thing, but I still get hung-up about “burglarized” rather than just plain old “burgled”
Nothing in that article suggested the police were building a case against him though. They requested some information, sure, but there could have been 200 people in that request who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
If the US system is so broken that you have to prove your innocence before there’s even a charge then I’m not surprised at all that you live in Netherlands now! Couple that with the lack of a GDPR equivalent and that adds up to big issues in the US going forwards with data mining potentially completely replacing justice.
Ha ha…me too Neil!
I also hate “going forward”, and “awesome” every sentence for things that wouldn’t invoke the slightest amount of awe!
My partner tells me I’m turning into Victor Meldrew.
Ohhh, pure idiots!
“McCoy worried that going straight to police would lead to his arrest.”
So the solution is to hide at your parents’ house, especially when you are innocent.
“I was using an app to see how many miles I rode my bike and now it was putting me at the scene of the crime. And I was the lead suspect.”
Nope, idiot. If you would have stopped riding your bike and do a robbery, it would affect the riding time, average speed and location data where you left the bike.
“I didn’t realize that by having location services on that Google was also keeping a log of where I was going,”
Five years old kids are smarter than you!
Folks, if you execute a crime, make sure that your GPS device is enabled…
I’m curious as to whether you bother installing any BETA firmware updates or do you always wait for the public edition to be released?
I’m not sure whether a beta is worth installing (to test/resolve an issue) for the simple fact Garmin doesn’t date the change log.
I also notice the breadcrumb links on the change log pages don’t work (404 errors). Weird.
I usually install betas if it fixes something that’s an issue for me, or if it’s got a boatload of new features I want to dig into.
Otherwise, I don’t tend to bother – merely because I don’t feel like connecting a cable.
I’d love to see Garmin adopt an approach like Wahoo for betas whereby you can enroll from your phone (if you have the right password anyway), and then the device pulls the betas automatically via WiFi just like any other firmware update. This would allow Garmin to get a wider public group, because it would lower the barrier to install. A simple warning message each time someone installs a beta release would easily nullify and concerns around someone ending up on a bum build.
Yet another GPS push update to my 530. I really wish it asked if I want the update so I can delay it for later. It always seems to update during a time when I want good race/ride data.
Two items:
1. Is the upgrade from Garmin Descent MK1 to Felix 6 worth it?
2. Do you have a review of Whoop?