Week in Review–July 6th, 2020

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 a smattering of current sports tech deals. The Apple Watch Series 5 one is probably one of the most solid ones.

	Product	Sale Price	Amazon	Other site	Sale Notes
	Garmin Edge 130 Plus - 25% off! $199	$149	Amazon		The 'Plus' variant is notable compared to the regular unit for having ClimbPro on it, plus a handful of other tweaks. $149 is a good deal for it.
	Garmin Fenix 6 Series - $100 all models $599-$1,149	$100 off	Amazon	Backcountry.com	⚡ This deal is back! I've gotta believe this is semi-targetted at undercutting COROS's latest Veritx 2 even further, but this brings down the base Fenix 6 model to $449, and the Fenix 6 Pro from $549 (including maps/music/wifi). This also includes the newer Fenix 6/6S Solar units from last summer (so basically, all solar variants too)
	Garmin Forerunner 45/45S - $50 off $199	$149	Amazon		If you're looking for a runners focused watch, this is a pretty good deal, about 25% off. The FR45 basically packs all the features of the previous generation FR235...just now in the FR45 series.
	Garmin Forerunner 745 - $100 off $499/499EUR	$399	Amazon		⚡ This is the best deal we've seen to date on this watch, arguably one of my favorite watches (if not my favorite watch).
	Garmin Forerunner 935 $499	$269	Amazon		⚡ Sure, it's not the latest edition, but the FR935 is the staple of many triathletes and runners, and it still an incredibly solid watch. We saw this a bit lower last summer on Amazon Prime Day ($239) - but beyond that, this is pretty darn low. Also, I say $100-$200 off, because the 'base' price fluctuates a bit these days. Sometimes retail is $399 sometimes $499.
	Garmin Instinct Solar - $100 off $399/$449	$299	Amazon	CompetitiveCyclist.cm
	Garmin Lily Classic - $50 off	$199	Amazon
	Garmin Lily Sport - $50 off $199	$149	Amazon
	Garmin Venu GPS Smartwatch - $50 off $299	$269	Amazon		Officially they say $80 off, but realistically it's about $50 off, maybe a touch less. Remember the Venu 2 came out this past spring.
	Garmin Venu SQ - $50 off $199/$249 with Music	$149	Amazon
	Garmin Vivoactive 4 - Up to $100 off $299	$249	Amazon		Not the best price we've seen (that was back in June at $189), but still good.
	Garmin Vivoactive 4S - Up to $100 off	$249	Amazon
	Garmin Vivofit Jr - $40 off $79	$29	Amazon		⚡I believe this is the lowest price we've ever seen this for. Either way, $29 is kinda crazy. Both my two older girls wear them, with my oldest always having it on, and the middle child mostly having it on. They both love them.
	GoPro Hero 9 Black - $50 off	$399	Amazon	REI	This is the camera I use for all my daily shooting during sports. Actually, I've bought a few of them. Note that if you're a GoPro Plus Subscriber, then it's a bit cheaper at $349 from GoPro directly, but otherwise, it's $449.
	Tacx NEO 2T Smart Trainer - $100 off! (In Stock) $1,399	$1,299	Amazon	CompetitiveCyclist.com	⚡ Hey, it's on-sale. Which, basically hasn't happened in a long long time. Nor has it been in stock half the time. So getting it both on sale, and in-stock is impressive.

DCRAINMAKER.COM Posts in the Past Week:

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

Sunday: DCR Video: Riding Zwift on the Actual Champs-Élysées
Tuesday: Garmin Acquires Firstbeat Analytics: A Quick Analysis of the Winners and Losers
Tuesday: Polar’s Unite Fitness Watch: Hands-on Details and First Run
Friday: Stages Bike (SB20) In-Depth Review

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 Banned Vanmoof Ad: The ad was OK, but of course, the real magic was having it manage to get banned in France – and just drawing attention to the situation.

2) Google acquisition of Fitbit getting closer scrutiny from EU: It’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, Fitbit launches this fall. Given the company is still operating independently of Google, it puts them in a tough spot – unless they simply decided to go towards Wear OS anyway for new devices per their previously announced plan with Google.

3) Apple sleep tracking planned for over five years: While a good headline, I’m sure someone had it on a notepad somewhere to add sleep tracking. Ya know, given it’s been on every other competitive wearable company for 5-6 years. Plus, they did buy a sleep tracking company a few years later. That said, I completely agree on the REM sleep aspects of the interview.

4) Peloton rolls out Roku streaming app: It’s a super smart strategy to be as device agnostic as possible on the platform side (for those without bikes). They also rolled out Apple TV support back a bit ago this fall. Still, these apps lack significant amounts of workout target type metrics that the bike does have.

5) Lululemon buys Mirror for half a billion dollars: Well then.

6) Google Glass Part 2? Google buys North, a company focused on smart glasses. Ultimately, this product category won’t catch on in sports until GPS is integrated, battery life is 6-8 hours, do *everything* a watch or bike computer does, and the entire package looks like normal glasses. It’s this last line item and 2nd to last item that’s currently failing. (via Patrick)

7) Older Apple Patent around Cyclist Wind Resistance Shows up in News Cycle: However, this first came around 3-4 years ago when the patent was first applied for, but the patent hasn’t actually been issued yet best I can tell. Which, makes sense…cause it’s pretty much exactly what the PowerPod/iBike from Velocomp has been doing for probably a decade prior to Apple’s patent.

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 Instinct Beta Firmware Update: Compass bug fix

Garmin Fenix 6 Series/MARQ BETA Firmware Update: Bug fixes

Polar Grit X Firmware Update: Some bug fixes, some tweaks to existing features

Suunto 7 Firmware/Software Update: Adds better integration to Google Fit, improved GPS accuracy, other tweaks

Wahoo ELEMNT/BOLT/ROAM Firmware Update: ‘Stability Improvements’

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Thanks for reading!