Heads up! Here’s your complete sports tech sales today as part of Amazon Prime Day Deals. From the Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Sapphire at $300 off, to Apple AirPods for only $99, as well as Fitbit, Polar, Samsung, and Suunto. Plus deals on DJI drones and action cams, cycling gear like Varia Radar and Garmin Edge units, and tons more. Updated constantly all day long. Dive in to the full list here!
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:
There’s a handful of sports tech deals out there right now:
Both myself and The Girl have Kindles for reading. In her case, she uses hers daily. In my case, it ends to be more vacation/weekends. We both recently upgraded are crazy-old ones to the newer Paperwhite editions. We don't need much fancy.
⚡ I use AirPods primarily when I'm travelling just to listen in airports, planes, etc... I don't tend to use these for workouts due to them falling out. Personally, I just use the basic model.
I use AirPods primarily when I'm traveling just to listen in airports, planes, etc... I don't tend to use these for workouts due to them falling out. Note: Price fluctuating between $99-$119 throughout day.
I use this for almost all my Zwifting. This is the first major deal we've seen on something barely a month old. Also, the 32GB model is on sale too, from the same link.
⚡⚡ The strongest deal yet on the Apple Watch Series 6! Note, this price is fluctuating constantly throughout the day, so keep checking back if it's not showing the lowest price.
Apple iPad - Latest Model 8th Gen (32GB) - 10% off
I use my iPad primarily for TrainerRoad as well as Zwift when not with a larger display. I also occasionally use it for other apps, namely The SufferFest - but I pretty much test every smart trainer app on it. (US AMAZON DEAL ONLY).
Beats PowerBeats Pro Wireless Sport Headphones - $30 off $249
⚡ These are my daily driver headphones that I use for all my trainer rides, and anything else sport related. While they're not perfect (namely the charging case), it's what I keep going back to every day because of the seamless Apple ecosystem integration (iPad/Apple TV/iOS/Mac).
Umm, this is an incredible. So incredible that I've almost gotta wonder if this product line is going to be kept around. Fitbit never discounts this much. But hey, they also never drop support on things - so it frankly doesn't matter much if there's not an ACE 3 or something.
This is the lowest price to date for the Fitbit Sense (by far), and makes it a deal you should definitely consider versus the Fitbit Versa 3 for the same price (no, really, there's no reason to get the Versa 3 at the same price).
⚡ I don't think this particular discount will last long. It seems a bit quirky the way it's worded on Amazon's page. Note that the Edge 1030 Plus was on sale for $100 off till last week, so in some ways this is just a continuation of that for a tiny bit longer/more.
⚡ This is the lowest we've seen the Edge 130 Plus on sale. The 'Plus' variant is notable compared to the regular unit for having ClimbPro on it, plus a handful of other tweaks. $139 is a great deal for it.
⚡⚡⚡ This is probably the best deal of the day for this Fenix 6 Pro Sapphire edition, which includes the maps/music/Wifi, and is discounted far more than the rest of the lineup.
⚡ This deal is back! A variant of the $100-$150 off Fenix range deal shows up each May/June ahead of Fathers day and past Amazon Prime Day, and this is no different. This also includes the newer Fenix 6/6S Solar units from this past summer.
Both the Forerunner 245 Music is sale for $60 off. While not a huge sale, it's actually the lowest we've seen either product priced to date. The FR245 Music supports Spotify, Amazon Music, and other streaming platforms.
This is a good deal, though, keep in mind the Forerunner 55 just came out. So the 'normal' list price of $199 for the FR45 isn't really true anymore (that's the new FR55 list price). Thus this is roughly $20 off. In any case, it's a great running watch.
The FR745 multisport GPS watch has music support (including Spotify), and is otherwise a full triathlon watch. This is only the second time we've seen it on sale since release. So $25 off is better than nothing off.
This is actually the first time we've seen a deal on this quirky little variant of Garmin Instinct, meant to pair up with its own special app for transmitting data to streamers.
This seems to go on sale about once per year, and this be that time. If you're looking to pick one up, I wouldn't expect any further deals till probably Black Friday timeframe.
⚡ This is about the lowest we've seen yet for the Garmin Venu GPS (by far), which includes an AMOLED display as well as music (even Spotify offline). Solid deal. Note, the Venu 2 did come out last month.
⚡ This is Garmin's current offering to compete with the Apple Watch series (alongside the Garmin Venu/Venu 2), and is currently the lowest price we've seen to date, even better than Black Friday last year. Historically Garmin refreshes this lineup the last week of August this year, but who knows what the future holds.
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.
The entire lineup of Insta360 One R action cams are 15% off, including the 1" and 360 variants. Overall it's a good cam with good picture clarity (I've mainly used the 1" 5.3K variant), but I find the software really lets it down.
This is something I use frequently when shooting out and about and I need to re-charge a crapton of drone batteries, action cameras, or just cameras and such. I also use it on trips to Eurobike and elsewhere to keep equipment charged. Technically you can even hook a solar panel up to it. Heck, I've even powered a KICKR trainer ride from it!
These are the drives I primarily use for large piles of storage with my laptop and daily use before offloading to a file server. I also sometimes edit videos off these too (though, for multiple 4K streams in video it can be a tiny bit slower than SSD drives). But still, definitely recommend these.
We have more Nest cam's than I can count. No really, we have half a dozen at the DCR Cave alone, plus more at home. We love them. Nest Cam's really only go on sale about 1-2x per year.
We use one of these and so far after I think just about three years, it's working great for us. Love it, and works better than trying to stick a regular Nest Cam out the window (since it'll reflect both during daytime and at night with the IR sensor).
This is a pretty new product, just launched this past fall that sits inside your shoe and even has GPS built into the pod sidewalls. However, just last week (mid-June) it got an update that now includes a new footstrike coach/target system.
This is a good deal for a good unit. As with the Polar Vantage M deal, it's no longer the most recent version of this watch, but it's still got a ton of features packed into it.
This is one of the two the high speed drives I use to store the footage I'm actively video editing, so that I can edit it on both my iMac at the office, and then my MacBook when travelling or at home.
I use the SanDisk Extreme Pro SD Cards exclusively for all my video/photo shooting on my Panasonic GH5 and Nikon cameras (video and stills), including up to 6K recording with the GH5. I've mostly used 128's, but more and more lately I'm filling up cards faster with higher bitrates, so this sale is gonna have me pickup a bunch of the 256GB ones instead. The 128GB/512GB/1TB ones are also on sale too viathe same link.
I use this card in both 128GB and 256GB variety, and it's perfect for all my drones and action cams, easily recording 4K/60 and 5K/30, as well as 5.7K without trouble. I often pickup these cards when on sale like this, so I have them for later in the year when not on sale.
⚡ I use Synology NAS units for all my file storage at the DCR Cave. This unit is a slightly smaller variant of what I use (DS1817), but mainly just with less storage space. The DS920+ linked here is a solid deal at $110 off, though, keep in mind if just using for simple storage, the DS418 is cheaper (but doesn't support expansion units). Also, remember you'll need to add disks. I currently find 8TB units are the sweet spot on price vs capacity.
DCRAINMAKER.COM Posts in the Past Week:
Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page this past week
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. Also, there’s a few things this week that were actually from a week or two ago – I’m just catching up on this list:
2) ZwiftHub Closing Down: Congrats to Toby (the person behind it) on his new job at Wahoo. Unfortunately, it means at the end of the month, ZwiftHub is no more. Perhaps Zwift will consider acquiring it for a fair rate.
I do think this once again though shows how big a boon it would be for Zwift to actually have a proper/supported API, akin to what Strava has, for people to Create Cool Shit. It’s these sorts of projects that should eventually be built into Zwift (or acquired). But as Strava and their 20,000+ apps shows, there’s an incredible potential for 3rd party apps to fill in the gaps and increase the community around Zwift.
3) Peloton closes Precor acquisition – shifts focus to Commercial usage: In the grand scheme of sports tech deals, this is one of the bigger ones in recent years, as it will dramatically increase production capability for Peloton. However, when it was announced last December, it didn’t mention increasing focus on the commercial side of Peloton – it just mentioned getting gear to ‘members sooner. However, the new announcement specifically calls out using Precor to focus on the commercial aspect of Peloton (e.g. hotels/apartments/etc…), which by and large Peloton has treated as the red-headed stepchild over the years. Yet, it’s also a great place to introduce people to the Peloton brand with zero marketing cost.
4) A look at the 2021 Chip Shortage: This is a good dive into the semiconductor chip shortage and how it’s impacting the industry (including sports tech). While sometimes this will be obvious to you as a consumer, most times it won’t be: It’ll just mean delayed product launches behind the scenes, or perhaps limited availability without a reason. This is mostly the reason.
5) Casio launches new WearOS watch: Though, perhaps unsurprisingly, without solar capabilities. Given WearOS has the well-earned reputation of being the Cookie Monster of battery burn, the trivial amount of power that solar delivers in most watches probably wouldn’t last more than a song on WearOS. Still, good to see more options. Hopefully we’ll see Casio find a way to refine what they have sports-wise today, which in my testing of their GBD-H1000 (solar, with FirstBeat Analytics) seemed like a promising vision, but fell pretty far short in reality. For example, there was only one sport mode (running/hiking), which meant if you wanted to use it for a ride – it screwed up all your data.
6) Want a cargo bike emoji? One emoji developer is looking at submitting a cargo bike emoji for consideration, however, he is trying to nail down the design. Give a quick tap on this Twitter vote to help.
#CargoBike#CargoBikeEmoji
1. You may have used or maybe a ❤️(emojis) in your messages?
For transport there is bike emoji, however no cargo bike emoji
So, what cargo bike type/design would best represent ALL cargo bikes with 1⃣ single emoji?
Vote
7) Equipping cyclists to identify bad bike intersections: This project equipped 700 cyclists with little beepers that they’d tap when they stumbled upon poor/clumsy bike situations. During the trial some 36,000 situations in Amsterdam were identified, giving city planners areas to consider upgrades for. Looking at the map, I’d definitely agree with most of the larger dots.
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, Wahoo, Polar, and a few other firmware updates.
Damn. I haven’t used Zwift in a bit as it’s gotten nicer out, so this is the first I’m seeing about ZwiftHub. I load up ZwiftHub before literally every ride to help determine a route. What a huge loss.
Not a single post on Instagram last month? Is the extra one in Feb the reason or are you going for two posts this month? I think the KFC cargo bike would’ve qualified?
Yeah, I’ve gotta be careful to not over-deliver here. Given the two Instagram posts in February, March would indeed seem to warrant a skip to keep things on the right progression. 🙂
(Actually, I remembered at 12:05AM on Apr 1st, and then was like…well…crap me.)
Will also be sad to see ZwiftHub go. But it seems ZwiftHacks has already come up with a solution? But Zwift should have something set up already as a matter of course. Good luck to Toby at Wahoo, he will do great there.
To change the subject but to stay on Zwift. Not sure if you have seen this recent news, but Zwift finally did what they said they would do a year or two ago, and stopped supporting the Milestone Pod app from 1 February. You can still use it to run on Zwift but there is no way to see your data and stats anymore. Or even check the battery level. Lot’s of unhappy Milestone Pod users here: link to forums.zwift.com
I also use a Milestone for my Zwift runs and they shut the app down without any warning. They should have said something at least that it was about to lose support.
Maybe you can dig a little deeper about this? Seems Zwift just doesn’t care about the pod that they bought.
Bummer, that sucks. Though, somewhat inevitable I suspect. Largely, as I bet that Zwift might not even have on staff any longer the couple people that were behind Milestone. :-/
I assume the purpose of the “Trending Now on DC Rainmaker” overlay isn’t to scare off visitors, but in its current form it’s doing just that. While it could be somewhat interesting in theory (but not too much, since I’m obviously already reading the site), having it pop up on every single page and obscuring the real content makes it more annoying than any 3rd party ad I’ve seen here.
Yeah, it’s something that’s being tested by the ad company I have the last week. It’s not quite where we want it yet. It seems fine on desktop, but a bit over the top for mobile. Appreciate the feedback – trying to find the right balance is always tricky. But I’ll keep trying!
Oh, i love FCC internals. So (unsurprisingly, given the first external pictures) same gauge placing as Assioma, but definitely a new design regarding board and battery. Those Powerzero things will be light! Battery cells appear to be similar size 60mAh, but Wahoo using only two per pedal instead of three. And it looks like Wahoo is going for a conventionally sealed cavity instead of playing it safe and flooding the entire pod with resin. On top of that, not only is the board more integrated (less distinct components in addition to the nrf52 they all use), they also skip the magnet for the charging adapter, opting for simple mechanical clipping instead.
ZwiftHub will be sorely missed. It’s worth noting that the developer noted his dream was to work in this space, yet ended up being hired by Wahoo, not Zwift. How dumb can Zwift be? They should’ve hired the guy and had him start by making ZwiftHub’s functionality part of the Companion App.
‘Beseffen jullie wel hoe perféct Amsterdam is?’ in de NRC van Stan Putman, dd. 8 april 2021.
(..) Toch is het heel speciaal wat zich achter uw venster afspeelt, meent de Canadese Amsterdammer Jason Slaughter (44). Het is zelfs zo bijzonder, dat hij ervoor naar Nederland is verhuisd, na omzwervingen langs de VS, het Verenigd Koninkrijk, Taiwan en België. Op zijn YouTube-kanaal Not Just Bikes (link to youtube.com) legt Slaughter uit dat het aangename leven in Nederland alles te maken heeft met de manier waarop ons land is ontworpen. Hij plaatst er filmpjes over Nederlandse geneugten als slimme stoplichten, autoluwe straten en gescheiden fietspaden. Met de video’s bereikt Slaughter een publiek van honderdduizenden mensen. Filmen doet hij met een handzame digitale camera, of, als hij op de fiets zit, met een schokbestendige Go Pro-camera die hij op zijn borst bevestigt.(..)
Hi, do you think or know if there is a Coros Apex 2 arrivng as I am thinking of buying the Apex, but would wait if an Apex 2 is arriving this year…. should I wait or Buy? Tricky…
My weekly look for new sport tech updates, reminds me to come to your ‘week in review’, and then i find myself looking around.
Shame it’s not updated as much, it’s always a good read. Don’t simply want to bookmark the other page, as I might never come back here 😉
I swim, bike and run. Then, I come here and write about my adventures. It’s as simple as that. Most of the time. If you’re new around these parts, here’s the long version of my story.
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FAQ’s
I have built an extensive list of my most frequently asked questions. Below are the most popular.
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.
Here’s my most recent gadget recommendations guide and trainers here – covering almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day to day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
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! 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 2019 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 2018 Gear Guide too.
Did you notice that the SRAM AXS Power meter has dropped to 450 USD (from 600?), what a great deal now!
Indeed, it’s been kinda slowly ticking its way down. Really solid deals.
Damn. I haven’t used Zwift in a bit as it’s gotten nicer out, so this is the first I’m seeing about ZwiftHub. I load up ZwiftHub before literally every ride to help determine a route. What a huge loss.
Me too. I really wish Zwift would step in and purchase the site.
Not a single post on Instagram last month? Is the extra one in Feb the reason or are you going for two posts this month? I think the KFC cargo bike would’ve qualified?
Yeah, I’ve gotta be careful to not over-deliver here. Given the two Instagram posts in February, March would indeed seem to warrant a skip to keep things on the right progression. 🙂
(Actually, I remembered at 12:05AM on Apr 1st, and then was like…well…crap me.)
Hey Ray,
Will also be sad to see ZwiftHub go. But it seems ZwiftHacks has already come up with a solution? But Zwift should have something set up already as a matter of course. Good luck to Toby at Wahoo, he will do great there.
To change the subject but to stay on Zwift. Not sure if you have seen this recent news, but Zwift finally did what they said they would do a year or two ago, and stopped supporting the Milestone Pod app from 1 February. You can still use it to run on Zwift but there is no way to see your data and stats anymore. Or even check the battery level. Lot’s of unhappy Milestone Pod users here:
link to forums.zwift.com
I also use a Milestone for my Zwift runs and they shut the app down without any warning. They should have said something at least that it was about to lose support.
Maybe you can dig a little deeper about this? Seems Zwift just doesn’t care about the pod that they bought.
Cheers!
Bummer, that sucks. Though, somewhat inevitable I suspect. Largely, as I bet that Zwift might not even have on staff any longer the couple people that were behind Milestone. :-/
I assume the purpose of the “Trending Now on DC Rainmaker” overlay isn’t to scare off visitors, but in its current form it’s doing just that. While it could be somewhat interesting in theory (but not too much, since I’m obviously already reading the site), having it pop up on every single page and obscuring the real content makes it more annoying than any 3rd party ad I’ve seen here.
Yeah, it’s something that’s being tested by the ad company I have the last week. It’s not quite where we want it yet. It seems fine on desktop, but a bit over the top for mobile. Appreciate the feedback – trying to find the right balance is always tricky. But I’ll keep trying!
Oh, i love FCC internals. So (unsurprisingly, given the first external pictures) same gauge placing as Assioma, but definitely a new design regarding board and battery. Those Powerzero things will be light! Battery cells appear to be similar size 60mAh, but Wahoo using only two per pedal instead of three. And it looks like Wahoo is going for a conventionally sealed cavity instead of playing it safe and flooding the entire pod with resin. On top of that, not only is the board more integrated (less distinct components in addition to the nrf52 they all use), they also skip the magnet for the charging adapter, opting for simple mechanical clipping instead.
ZwiftHub will be sorely missed. It’s worth noting that the developer noted his dream was to work in this space, yet ended up being hired by Wahoo, not Zwift. How dumb can Zwift be? They should’ve hired the guy and had him start by making ZwiftHub’s functionality part of the Companion App.
Also interesting around the interwebs:
‘Beseffen jullie wel hoe perféct Amsterdam is?’ in de NRC van Stan Putman, dd. 8 april 2021.
(..) Toch is het heel speciaal wat zich achter uw venster afspeelt, meent de Canadese Amsterdammer Jason Slaughter (44). Het is zelfs zo bijzonder, dat hij ervoor naar Nederland is verhuisd, na omzwervingen langs de VS, het Verenigd Koninkrijk, Taiwan en België. Op zijn YouTube-kanaal Not Just Bikes (link to youtube.com) legt Slaughter uit dat het aangename leven in Nederland alles te maken heeft met de manier waarop ons land is ontworpen. Hij plaatst er filmpjes over Nederlandse geneugten als slimme stoplichten, autoluwe straten en gescheiden fietspaden. Met de video’s bereikt Slaughter een publiek van honderdduizenden mensen. Filmen doet hij met een handzame digitale camera, of, als hij op de fiets zit, met een schokbestendige Go Pro-camera die hij op zijn borst bevestigt.(..)
Very nice. His channel is one of my favorites.
Hi, do you think or know if there is a Coros Apex 2 arrivng as I am thinking of buying the Apex, but would wait if an Apex 2 is arriving this year…. should I wait or Buy? Tricky…
Looking forward to your newsletter!
Me too!
My weekly look for new sport tech updates, reminds me to come to your ‘week in review’, and then i find myself looking around.
Shame it’s not updated as much, it’s always a good read. Don’t simply want to bookmark the other page, as I might never come back here 😉