Earlier I dusted off my YouTube livestreaming brainpower, and did a Friday evening sports tech livestream covering a slew of topics in the sports tech space. From aero sensors to power meters, watches to bike computers, action cameras to drones, and pretty much everything else in between. It’s about 70 minutes long and simply me chatting live with a boatload of you.
Interestingly, it’s been just over a year since the last DCR livestream, where I did a dual Alpe d’Huez ride side-by-side comparing Zwift and FulGaz to see how close the courses mirrored each other off the same dataset concurrently. Seriously, it was kinda crazy fun – you should watch it.
In any event, normally for livestreams I try and give some advance notice, but alas, I wasn’t quite sure I’d have time today. But as it became clear I still had too much to finish on the TrueBike In-Depth Review to make it out today (coming early next week instead) – I figured I’d squeeze in an hour of sports tech geeking out and funny tidbits. This included approximately 2,187 instances of people asking when a Fenix 7 will arrive, and 373 instances of people asking about the recent Casio WearOS watch (GSW-H1000). On the second one, that’s supposed to have been shipped from Casio, but will let ya know when it arrives.
In any case – go forth and hit play. And pro tip: The stream starts at exactly the 4:00 marker. Normally I trim off the front, but as I discovered today, if I trim off the front, then you can’t see the live chat window (which, you can see if you open the YouTube video so it shows on YouTube itself). There’s tons of chatter in there from all sorts of fun sports tech YouTube people popping in to chat.
With that – go forth, hit play, and have a good weekend!
Oh, and P.S. – for DCR Supporters, I’ve quietly posted the Episode 22 of the DCR Quarantine Corner to the Supporter Exclusives page at the very bottom. I’ll get the usual e-mail of all the exact topics written up and sent out by the morning, but if you’re looking for the longest QC episode to date – coming in at 35 minutes long, it’s a doozy! The Girl and I chat (from the shed with beers in hand, and M&M’s in a kids snack trap balanced atop a bike seat) about the backstory of losing that drone and GoPro to the canal, testing raise-to-wake watches, PCR tests to see lions., and plenty more You know, just another episode. Enjoy!
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Ray I wanted to ask you, in your opinion, is the Garmin body battery, sleep and training effect comparable to whoop if you were to wear a F6 Pro or 745/945 24/7?
You did mention Garmin could come up with a whoop style band which I would love but would need a different UI similar to I guess the Whoop Journal.
I think that only the Fenix 6 PRO and in the BETA phase in the 945 is the new Body Battery with the new sleep measurements, you have to have both if no measurement is correct. And of course the Venu 2 has everything updated and the new sensor but it is somewhat limited in functions compared to the others.
I think if because Whoop I read a lot of people upset because the heart rate sensor is very very inaccurate then if your measurements are wrong everything else is wrong. My suggestion is that you look at Polar, it has orthostatic test, training load PRO, recovery pro and nightly recharge are measurements that are designed to see your recovery and performance.
Would be nice if someone with irregular sleep patterns reviewed Garmin’s new sleep tracking to a Fitbit/Whoop.
If Garmin has managed to sort out it’s sleep tracking, this will make choosing other watch brands over Garmin rather difficult.
Yeah, one of these days I’ll get around to comparing Whoop vs Garmin. Darn thing is still on my wrist…
I’m not sure if irregular sleep patterns means non-nightly sleep (like day sleep), insomnia, or toddlers/babies. I can at least check off the last one.
Thanks, Ray, but maybe wait till you review the 955 as I bet that will be a better comparison!!
Hi Ray,
two questions:
Did you ever find a way or talk with Garmin about sending a new road from the phone to the Edge x30 series while an activity is recorded? For me it is not possible, even if the activity is paused. Sometimes you have to change a ride outdoors and reroute to get somewhere fast or without one of the group bonking and I can’t do this. My brothers wahoos are able to do it.
The other one? Do you have a proper (adjustable) torque wrench? Everytime I see those on your Wall o have to shiver. 😬
No, it’s still pretty modal there unfortunately.
But yup, I do have adjustable torque wrenches, I think one is actually on the wayll there, or maybe I couldn’t hang it there.
Almost all of those were mostly from the Vector 1/2 install days, where you had to have a stupid claw adapter to install the pedals, and those wrenches were the ones that worked best logistically with the size/angle.
Excellent stuff, love it!
Ray,
If you were thinking of buying a new bike computer, but didn’t have to, would buy now or wait till this summer?
I’m not sure. On a pure historics standpoint, Garmin is probably a week or two overdue (two year cycle) for their Edge 530/830 units, but historics are kinda out the window these days. Last year they released the Edge 1030 Plus & Edge 130 Plus in mid-June, so perhaps that’s the new April.
(Previously, April releases were tied to Sea Otter.)
Ray,
Thanks. And so the guessing game continues.
Years ago I went from Garmin to Wahoo Bolt because of Garmin software stability. At that point, Wahoo just worked. Since then I got an Edge 1030, Stages L50, and Karoo 2. Right now, Garmin seems stable in general although I probably use only 25% of the features. Stages has a great screen but updates are really slow. The Karoo 2, so far, has been solid. And they are cranking out significant feature improvements probably twice a month. And I haven’t had any issues at all. Wahoo seems to have lost their way based on forum posts that I have read. Things that used to work perfectly are now broken and unreliable (sensor connections). Feature additions are almost non-existent (people have been asking for light control for years and it still isn’t there, radar took forever). I bought a Roam and returned it because it only had enough map memory for one large state in the US. So, because I live and work in two different states it was a non-starter for me. I am surprisingly impressed by the Karoo 2.
I recently purchased a refurbished Fenix 5s. I’ve done three one hour runs and the battery is down to 33% after two days. That’s terrible compared to my trusty 920xt. I saw that “The Girl” used this watch. Is that typical? That wouldn’t last for even a long hike or half Ironman. Trying to decide if it’s a refurbished issue or if that’s just what it is if I want to have HR.
Her’s doesn’t last as long as it used to, but she’s also been wearing it daily now for 4 years.
However, you shouldn’t have those type of issues with a new, or even factory refrub’d Fenix 5S (as I’m pretty sure the battery gets swapped out).
I’d raise the issue with Garmin support to see if perhaps there’s something askew that can be fixed via software.