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Week in Review–June 21st, 2020

WeekInReview22

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:

A new slate of sports tech deals began over the last few days. These are typical deals that Garmin does *every* single year, usually starting about a month out from Father’s Day. Suunto also often jumps in the fray (and others too). Note that most of the Garmin deals end on/around fathers day (June 21st – today).

ProductSale PriceAmazonOther siteSale Notes
Apple Watch Series 9 - $106 off!
$399/$499 (cellular)
$292I have no idea why this specific Apple Watch Series 9 combo is on sale this much more than the other editions (which are on sale to $320), but hey...the one I've linked to is the Midnight Aluminum Case with Midnight Sport Loop, and is currenetly listed as new at $293. Else, it's $329 ($70 off).
Garmin Epix (Gen 2) & Sapphire - $300 off
$899/$999
From $549⚡ This deal is back, and at $549 for the base edition, and a mere $599 for the Titanium/Sapphire editions, it's a very strong deal. Sure, not as stong as Uncle Amazon back during Black Friday at $449, but those days are gone. Also, this Epix series just got another huge slate of new features this past week, and continues to get equal new features to the Epix Pro units.
Garmin Forerunner 255/255S - $100 off$249This is Garmin's mid-tier running watch, and is a very polished option with good multi-band GPS, and of course, a boatload of running metrics.
Garmin Forerunner 255/255S Music - $100 off!$299This is Garmin's mid-tier running watch, and is a very polished option with good multi-band GPS, and of course, a boatload of running metrics. This model also includes offline music such as Spotify and Amazon Music.
Garmin Forerunner 55 - $30 off
$199
$169This is a good little running watch, though, it also supports plenty of other sport types as well. This is the normal sales price.
Garmin Forerunner 955 - $100 off!$399This is one of Garmin's most popular running watches, and it's back down to the lowest price ever. I often use this in my accuracy testing comparisons when validating other watches, due to it's very strong GPS performance. Note this is the base edition without solar. It'd be hard to find any better deal in sports watches today, from any company (given this has full mapping, tons of new features even this week, etc...)
Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar: $100 off!
$499/$599
$499See everything I said above on the Forerunner 955 base, except this one also has solar.
Garmin Index S2 WiFi Scale - 20% off
$149
$119I use this scale, merely for the weight tracking functions (not body fat). It works just fine, and integrates with the rest of your Garmin data. If you aren't in the Garmin ecosystem, there's plenty of cheaper options.
Garmin Instinct 2 Series - $60+ OffFrom $238⚡The Instinct 2 base is from $238 (on Amazon), a very solid deal - especially with all the major software updates it's had over the last year. It's also from $249 at REI.
Garmin Instinct 2X - $50 off$399This is the second we've seen the Instinct 2X on sale, and since announcement it's received a huge slate of firmware updates and new features. It's best thought of as an Instinct 2.5, given the slightly different internals compared to the rest of the Instinct 2 series.
Garmin Instinct Crossover - $50 off$349
Google Pixel Watch 1 - $150 off$199While the new Pixel Watch 2 just came out last fall, the Pixel Watch 2 got almost all the software features via software update. The Pixel Watch 2 does have a slightly better optical HR sensor, and better battery life, but otherwise is relatively similiar. In fact, the Pixel 1 just got another pile of software updates last week.
Polar Pacer - $70 off!$166This is about as low as it gets price-wise for the Polar Pacer (base unit).
Polar Pacer Pro - $70 off!
$329
$269
Samsung Galaxy Watch6 - $50 off$249
Samsung Galaxy Watch6 Classic - $100 off$299This is a reasoanbly solid deal for this watch, which came out last summer.
Tacx NEO 2T Smart Trainer (+ Free Motion Plates) - $400 off!
$1,399
$999⚡ This deal is back, except now they've sweetened it by adding in the $300 Tacx Motion Plates for free (via rebate). So, in the event you didn't pick up before, go forth.

DCRAINMAKER.COM Posts in the Past Week:

Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page this past week:

Sunday: Week in Review–June 14th, 2020
Monday: How to Load Zwift or TrainerRoad on a Peloton Bike: A Geek’s Guide
Tuesday: Garmin Edge 1030 Plus In-Depth Review
Tuesday: Garmin Edge 130 Plus In-Depth Review
Friday: Hammerhead Refreshes Karoo User Interface ahead of Karoo 2

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 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 to clear out the backlog):

1) The Impact of Civil Rights Legislation on Triathlon: A good look back at the details of how shifting the laws and paradigms around women participating in sport has dramatically increased participation numbers there, and how that could potentially be applied in other areas to increase diversity.

2) The story of Ahmaud Arbery – Death, Running, and Racism: No matter where you live, you should read it. (via Leah Flickinger)

2) UCI outlines ‘Team Bubble’ Strategy for return to racing: While well-meaning towards getting athletes back in racing, I continue to be somewhat astounded at the UCI’s determination to try and salvage this season. Especially in a sport that (perhaps more than any other I can think of) tries to pull 20-25 athletes/staff/etc that form a team with 19-22 teams in a race, to locales from previously around the globe to then travel across hundreds or thousands of kilometers of open roads as part of competition.

3) Run/Bike Power Ratio vs Run Economy: A simple tweet of data. Worthy of discussion no doubt.

4) Garmin Fitness Engineering Development Manager Job Posting: For many years, from time to time I post interesting sports tech job positions in the Week in Review when companies reach out. This position is within Garmin’s Fitness teams, and is focused on partnerships. A similar position (well, an exact person of this exact position) on this team was mostly single-handedly responsible for landing on the Spotify, Amazon Music, and other streaming music partnerships on Garmin wearables. The hiring manager says they’re looking for some kick-ass people to join that team on a high-performance position. Roughly. [And again, seriously, if you’re a sports tech company that has unique positions, happy to include them from time to time.]

5) Tomorrow we’ll find out what’s in store for Apple Watch: Each June as part of WWDC, Apple announces what’s coming to the next version of Apple Watch OS. While that doesn’t tell us every feature that’ll be on the Apple Watch Series 6 (or whatever it ends up being called), it will generally cover the majority of them. And most of the features announced at WWDC tend to be backported to existing units. The festivities kick off at 10AM US Pacific Time. But swing back here for all the details as the event closes up.

6) Running FulGaz on the LEOMO Type-S Head Unit: Hmm, maybe I’ll give it a whirl!

7) Bicycle Sunday’s Extended! Cool little tidbit for New Yorkers in that the long-standing tradition of closing down 13 miles of highway for cyclists each Sunday is being extended this year to July and August. Thanks to DCR reader Yonah for sending this in!

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 Edge 1030 Plus Firmware Update: Basically a baseline firmware update for the Edge 1030 Plus launch.

Garmin Edge 130 Plus Firmware Update: Same baseline firmware launch

Garmin Fenix 6 Series & MARQ BETA Firmware Update: Minor improvements, some golf stuffs. Carries through other recent beta additions.

Garmin Fenix 5 Plus Series Firmware Update BETA: Randomly increments build version, I guess.

Garmin Instinct Firmware Update: Two minor bug fixes.

Thanks for reading!

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14 Comments

  1. Martijn Laan

    Great post, thanks! Note: the Fenix 5 firmware link actually links to the Fenix 6 firmware.

  2. Also, a interesting publication about new features for smartwatches?

    link to theengineer.co.uk

    I mean, if somebody can tell me my lactate level in real time without taking my blood, I am all in!

  3. Jakob

    anither thing: Runscribe is teasing a new product will be released this summer: Runscribe Sacral

  4. Pavel Vishniakov

    Hi Ray,
    will you do a full review of that Leomo unit? It’s proprietary as hell, but considering it runs Android, it might be possible to just use existing apps to make it easier to get data in and out.

  5. Giovanni

    Thanks for sharing the article about The story of Ahmaud Arbery – Death, Running, and Racism. Really interesting (and really really sad as well)

  6. Tri

    I looked into the death of Ahmaud Arbery, looked at dashcam video, background of Arbery, etc. That Runners World story is extremely biased, read like a fictional story at times. The legal system will run its course on the guy that shot him, but I wish you hadn’t posted the link.

  7. Robert

    No comment. Only for subscription.

  8. Darren Barnes

    Ray, I assume you’ve heard (and possibly had early visibility) of the Wattbike Atom v2. Will you get chance to play and/or review this before it gets into the hands of customers mid-August?

    • Yup I have a test Wattbike Atom X already, which is the same internals as the Atom V2, just with an added screen. The ATOM X also has some minor material differences since its used for gyms. But the key thing that’s the same is the internal motor aspects.

      I’m mixed on it. On one hand it solves some core issues, on the other, I’m not sure it goes quite far enough. Hard to say. More soon!