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:
We’ve got a handful of new deals this week, a pile from Garmin in the cycling realm, and then a pile from DJI in the everything realm. Garmin does often put cycling gear on sale this time of year, albeit it’s far more rare for DJI to do the same this time of year.
| Product | Sale Price | Amazon | Sale Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Garmin HRM-DUAL (ANT+/Bluetooth Smart Strap) - 35% off! $69 | $45 | Amazon | This is Garmin's ideal strap if you just want an affordable dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart option, especially when it's on sale like this - it really becomes the best deal out there right now for a multi-connection strap. |
DCR Posts in the Past Week:
Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page this past week:
Monday: Suunto Announces SuuntoPlus Guides: An App Platform for 3rd Party Apps
Monday: Suunto Rolls Out TrainingPeaks Structured Workout Integration: How-To Guide
Tuesday: Wahoo Adds New Gradient Coloring with Wahoo Summit Feature
Tuesday: Zwift Rolls Out Wahoo Direct Connect Ethernet Adapter Support
Thursday: GoPro Volta Battery & Remote Grip Review
Friday: Sports Tech: The Best April 1st Tidbits
YouTube Video 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. 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:
1) Going off the rails…err….route, in Zwift: I’ve accidentally done this once or twice before. For those that want to take-flight in Zwift for an aerial tour, here ya go.
2) Photographer Picks Up Pogačar’s Bike Computer After Crash: Here’s a quick story from the intersection of cycling GPS units and photography.
3) A Massive Pile of Garmin Beta Updates: This week was notable for a huge swath of Garmin wearables getting beta updates, largely driven by both Connect IQ updates, but also a bunch of devices getting the newish strength training muscle map that shows which muscles a structured workout benefits. Notably, the Fenix 6 series is getting this (along with the FR945 & FR745, among others). It’s good to see new features still coming to the Fenix 6, after the Fenix 7 has launched. Hopefully that continues. Oh, and also Endurance Horseback Riding activity profile was added. Regrettably, I won’t be testing that one. Any such testing would likely just result in a viral video (of failures).
4) Upcoming Peloton Guide rumored to cost substantially less: The new CEO continues to make numerous tweaks around hardware pricing, and I suspect this one is the right call. The Peloton Guide was set to launch any week now, so it’ll be interesting to see what comes of it in terms of the overall product, and the price-point Peloton tries to hit.
5) Strava adding Tour de France Hub for 2022: This didn’t quite make it for a standalone post this week, namely because Strava didn’t have any actual imagery or concrete details to share about it when I dug deeper. But, it is interesting nonetheless. Basically, Strava is going to be doing a hub in the app during both the men’s and women’s TdF this year, which will be a consolidated view of Pro riders during the race, including things like stage details and segments on those stages (and how those athletes perform against those segments). This could be pretty interesting, looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Note that Strava did confirm there’s nothing being added to try and entice/require the remaining 20-30% of the pro peloton that doesn’t publish to Strava, to do so this year. It’s more of a hope that they will, though, it does continue to increase each year.
6) SRM X-Power Flats: This has been sitting on an open tab for a while now, been meaning to mention it somewhere. In short, SRM announced a few weeks back that they’re selling a flat-pedal version of their X-Power pedal-based power meter. In other words, they’ve taken the spindle from their existing SRM X-Power SPD units, and stuck it in a pair of flats. Thus, I can finally equip my Urban Arrow Cargo Bike with a power meter unnecessarily. Plus, these new units should have far better battery burn than the earlier SRM X-Power units that I initially tested (these have upgraded hardware).
7) Super League Triathlon Sponsorship by Garmin/Tacx: You’ll remember that Garmin/Tacx has previously sponsored the SLT (I went to one here to check it out), and it’s a cool concept. However, I caught in the press release the notion that athletes will use the Garmin Index S2 smart scale to measure their weight prior to their race, as required by Zwift’s esports rules. However, what is carefully skirted around in the next sentence is that they say the “data is given to Zwift”. Note, the data is not sent to Zwift, it’s manually entered. That’s because, despite the most obvious pairing that could exist for Zwift, they don’t actually support Garmin WiFi scales (even though it’s trivially easy for Zwift to receive weight data from Garmin, upon authorization by a user). Thus, I’m just here making an obvious nudge for Zwift to implement this). If countless other companies can do so, so can Zwift.
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With that, thanks for reading!
Edge 530/830 Plus ok the cards?
Any idea if this is a clearance of Edges to make way for new models, or just a spring sale?
can;’t wait for the *40 edge
“If countless other companies can do so, so can Zwift.”
I tend to disagree. There are so many small things that you would think Zwift could easily do, but they haven’t done it for years. So, at this point I’m fairly certain that they simply lack the skills. It can’t be a lack of money.
Yeah, I know they have talented people. And they have plenty of money. But I get the impression there’s a gap in the technical direction side. Meaning, I don’t get the feeling there’s a deeply technical CTO or CTO minus one.
Meaning, most companies have at least a person or team or persons that’s singular job in life isn’t day to day programming/etc, but is ‘Futures tech’. Basically, they look at all the shiny objects, and figure out what’s worth doing or focusing on (sometimes for 3-6 months down the road, and sometimes for 3-6yrs down the road). They’re supposed to be uber-geeks and basically get to have fun with things and figure out what’s good or what’s half-baked.
Usually, these people drive at least one of a few different channels into a company implementing new things (alongside customer requests and other business priorities). They don’t override business priorities, but rather, typically look at the future far enough out to say “Hey, this will solve a problem for us, or a business goal down the road”.
In the case of Zwift, this makes ground on people not updating their Zwift weight frequently (or even seasonally). It doesn’t solve purposeful cheaters, but it does solve accidental cheaters.
The point is, while Zwift has people like Wes that do look at futures (he’s on Zwift’s podcasts and such occasionally), his role is still day to day making things happen for the next day. They need people that look at longer-range things and figure out how it fits into the greater picture (even if the answer is ‘Nah, that’s not worth it.’).
Just two cents from following the ins and outs of this company for a long while…
That role in a lot of tech product companies has always been fulfilled by either a Chief Architect or a Fellow. Unfortunately my current company (a legacy SaaS company) doesn’t yet recognize the need for that type of role and instead can’t figure out why our products and platform don’t fit together.
As far as I know, Garmin also doesn’t sync weight to Strava too, which I think is also pretty annoying.
It’s not a Garmin problem, it’s a Strava problem.
The Garmin API basically allows any authorized developer to request access to that data, be sent to them. It’s been silly simple for about three years now (actually, three years from next week). And then was further simplified in 2020 with a single API key.
So basically, any company that’s authorized as a recipient for Garmin data (which is relatively easy to get, it’s far harder/impossible to get the ability to push data into Garmin), can get this data.
Some details here: link to dcrainmaker.com
Thank you, Ray, for the clarification. I googled the problem again and found workarounds. I will try FitnessSyncer now.
Smart Scale Sync is able to send to Garmin as a Destination with all metrics of a Withings scale
Yeah, it’s basically just using the account credentials (username/password) that you provide to it though to manually create a weight entry. Versus a proper API solution.Obviously, that’s Garmin’s fault – but, worthwhile noting the differences.
I wonder about the general quietness about the Garmin Vivosmart 5. The confidentiality of the FCC filing has run out, pictures and specs are open, yet Garmin and Ray, even t5k said nothing about it. Maybe because it is not exciting (the specs are definitely not).
The exciting part might be that obviously Garmin does not even bother to release it, confirming the suspicion that they have given up on fitness bands altogether?
There are a few different items in their existing catalog that had their shipping availability forecasts change in recent months. Best guess is that the pandemic supply chain issues are still causing companies to be very selective about what goes into mass production.
Garmin forerunner 935 – $230 off at best buy.
link to bestbuy.com
That’s pretty much the norm for pricing these days on the FR935.
In fact, it often floats down to $230-$240 or so.
Although it seems strange to put a power metre on flat pedals it does make some sense. I use flat pedals on my mountain bikes and sometimes my gravel bikes. So if i was more serious about racing and training it might be an option. Note i don’t do MTB trails just forest tracks which can be rough and sandy at times.
So if it was cheap for them to implement they have the field to themselves so it may be worth experimenting to see if there is a market for a flat pedal.
Did Garmin killed running power? I used to have power with my 945 & Tri HR but after the update, two consecutive runs, have 0 power.
Hey,
I love your site and blog. I have found it very useful when looking to upgrade my wearable. I currently have the Garmin Venu 2 but it doesn’t support race prediction. I saw your blog from 2016 which talked about a third party app called Race Screen on Garmin Connect. I downloaded the app but I can’t get it to work. It just shows the Connect logo (see photo). I have sent two emails to the developer via the Connect store portal but haven’t heard anything. It says it is supposed to be compatible with the Venu 2. Wondered if you had any suggestions.
Well the SRM X-Power Flats finally solves my loaded, self-supported, cross country touring use case. My touring bike has a triple front crank and a 36-spoke rear hub… neither of which are supported by today’s power meters. I’ve been known to travel in hiking boots and stop often for excursions or ice cream, so flats are ideal.
But $1,500 for flat pedals? Are you freakin’ kidding me?!
I tried updating my FR945 to the beta software.
It broke my running suggested workout. Showed funny symbols on the screen.
Rolled back. Going to have to wait till the official release.