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:
Ok, not much left this week. Sorta a lull. But hey, if ya need a GoPro Hero 8 Black or AirPods, it’s still on sale!
| Product | Sale Price | Amazon | Other site | Sale Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Polar Grit X - 20% off $429 | $350 | Amazon | Given my post this past week, seems like something might be coming up here shortly. Still, a good watch for the reduced price. | |
 | Tacx NEO 2 SE (Special Edition) - 16% off (US) ~€1,100 | $1,170 | N/A | Chain Reaction | The Tacx NEO 2 SE is basically just a NEO 2 but with added native thru-axle compatibility. That's it. Note this is shipped by Chain Reaction, but comes with either a UK or EU power adapter. You can simply use a $1-$2 power adapter without any problems in the US. All Tacx trainers are dual-voltage (and in fact, I regularly use $1 adapters with trainers when companies send me out of country units to test). |
| Tacx NEO 2 SE (Special Edition) - 25% off (Europe) ~€1,100 | £899.99/€1,061 | N/A | Wiggle | The Tacx NEO 2 SE is basically just a NEO 2 but with added native thru-axle compatibility. That's it. The UK price is 25% off, whereas the EU price will vary from about 15% off based on exact country. |
DCRAINMAKER.COM Posts in the Past Week:
Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page this past week:
Tuesday: Wahoo KICKR V5 (2020) Smart Trainer In-Depth Review
Thursday: Hands-on: CORE’s New Skin/Body Temp Sensor with Garmin/Wahoo integration
Ok, a bit of a quieter week. This week might be semi-quiet as well as I prep things for the 7-10 days ahead – but next week will definitely make up for it.
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) Quick Page to see all Zwift Steering Events: In the approximately 72 hours after steering launched, Zwift changed how and what events steering would be available on….about 3.5 times. Making it darn near impossible to figure out exactly which events you could use it on. But, if you were among the thousands that bought a Sterzo, you now have a handy option via the Zwift Hacks site to filter all events with (or without) steering enabled.
2) Unbricking a bike with Raspberry Pi to run Zwift: Last year Flywheel got sued by Peloton for stealing code. They lost, and ultimately killed the bike platform. While not ideal at all, Peloton offered customers a swap to a Peloton bike for free (which, is a pretty sweet deal). In any event, if you had one of those Flywheel bikes, they quickly became clothes hangers. However, this developer unbricked it and made it work with Zwift. Mind you, this is definitely not an ‘Easy Button’ project, but it is super cool.
3) Photographer turns masks into mini lap pool: Yup, this is pretty awesome.
4) Google Maps gets back on Apple Watch (and updated Carplay) support: While I’m 100% a Google Maps user, I don’t tend to use it on my Apple Watch. Still, this is great for those that do.
5) Apple watchOS 7 rolls out public beta with sleep tracking: Remember the sleep tracking I previewed back in June? Now you can give it a whirl too on your regular Apple Watch. As usual, reminder – it’s technically beta. Your watch could be fine, or it could do something horrible. It probably won’t, but this is 2020 after all. I’ll probably give it a whirl in the coming days and see what’s changed.
6) Apple Health Plus Subscription Service Coming? Sounds like some sort of paid platform is on the way to Apple. It’ll be interesting to see what exactly they come up with. Rumors seem to point to instructional related, which might make sense. Though, I don’t see any threat to Peloton unless there’s some unknown hardware partnership.
7) Behind the Scenes on Garmin Instinct Commercial: I’m a bit of a camera geek, so it’s always fun to see how things are shot/made. I presume this one was sometime this winter prior to the world ending. But still, it’s interesting.
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 520, Edge 520 Plus, 820, 1000, and Edge Explore 820 firmware updates: There’s virtually no information on all these, except ‘stability improvements’.
Garmin Edge 530 & 830 BETA firmware update: Two bug fixes related to CIQ & Di2.
Garmin Instinct & Instinct Solar BETA Firmware Update: Minor bug fixes.
Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music & VA3 Music LTE Firmware Update: Golf bug fix & CIQ bug fix.
Garmin Venu Firmware update: A bunch of bug fixes.
Hammerhead Karoo Firmware Update: This revamps the pairing menu, notably adding in a nice pretty ANT+ Logo (among other things).
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Thanks for reading!
Edge series firmware updates. Perhaps a new accessory product release? I think they’ve done similar before
I’m hoping for Tempe support. A temperature sensor underneath the saddle, out of the sunlight, would be an improvement over the built-in sensor I think.
TBH I don’t understand why it isn’t supported already while so many other Garmin devices do support it; I’m sure it’ll (modestly) drive sales of the Tempe…
Wait, there’s no Tempe support on Edge units? Not even on the 1030+ ?
New models are unlikely. They have had quite a few firmware updates so far and the release cycle is longer than the time they have been out.
Hope, not even on 1030+, just takes it from internal sensor with no option otherwise
^Nope, not Hope!
Noticed a massive improvement in screen response in my 820
Hmmm. I might try it. I’ve gone back to and have been sticking with 11.2 on my 820 due to battery life, sensor dropouts, green screen, and other issues with subsequent releases. Seems I’ve always wound up using down rev firmware toward the end of a Garmin’s product life as the final versions were worse.
So, what about that Ghost Pacer link……? 🙂
Dah. I had that in a notepad I lost, thought I got everything. My bad. Will add it in something upcoming this week!
Here it is for others till then: link to kickstarter.com
I see you picked up on the ANT+ icon in the Karoo update (it seems like the lack of it was one of your pet peeves).
Yup, noticed it right away when I went to pair sensors. So much cleaner now!
The 245 and 945 also received big beta updates?
Yeah, they were the week prior. I’ve actually got a post talking about some of those things coming up, combining with something else. Just waiting on something else to drop so that it all makes sense.
Do we assume that the 645 is now a bit of a dead duck in terms of any updates etc, whilst notionally it has been Garmin’s top running watch I’m assuming now the limitation on hardware and planned obsolesence means that the 245 has overtaken it.
I’m reealllllyyyy hoping that “something else to drop” that Ray referred to above is a 655 (or 735). I’ll even order it before Ray’s review drops if it has LTE. PLEASE GARMIN, let me let my wife live track my long runs without dragging a phone along.
Garmin has a suggestions page; at worst asking for further 645 support is only a shot to nothing. At least it would let them know
link to garmin.com
It’s definitely worth making sure Garmin hears the FR645 feedback. Personally I think it should at least match the FR245 features.
Note – I did confirm this week that for the FR645 feature firmware updates, that “that ship has sailed”. 🙁
HI.
I see that the 645 gets Connect IQ 3.2 today.
Do you know what the impact of that potentially means?
Thanks
Thanks
RAS
The Edge 530 update was actually more important because the 5.66 beta was up and then pulled down quickly. Those of us that were unlucky to have installed it (and have Di2) had a nasty bug which was then fixed in 5.68
Wait…you mean you didnt know??!?!?…oh my god…stop the horses…my life will end because theres no Tempe support…what am I gonna dooooo….
Ffs…
Seems pretty valid question though, why not?
After all there’s Varia Vision support, of which here’s probably like 4 people using it.
“This week might be semi-quiet as well as I prep things for the 7-10 days ahead – but next week will definitely make up for it.”
Kickr Core 2020 update incoming?
The way Wahoo worded their PR pile of stuffs – they seem to indicate the line-up we see today is the lineup for the season ahead.