Heads up!!! Here’s your massive holiday sports tech deals list! This includes the Garmin Epix for just $419, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for just $699, the GoPro Hero 12 Black for $249, (or the brand new Hero 13 or $299!) and plenty more! Go check out the full list of 100+ deals here!
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I’m DC RAINMAKER…
Here’s how to save!
Wanna save some cash and support the site? These companies help support the site! With Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with either the coupon code DCRAINMAKER for first time users saving 15% on applicable products.
You can also pick-up tons of gear at REI via these links, which is a long-time supporter as well:
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You can use the above link for any Amazon country and it (should) automatically redirect to your local Amazon site.
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Check out my weekly podcast - with DesFit, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!
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5 Easy Steps To The Site
1
In Depth Product Reviews
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.
2
Read My Sports Gadget Recommendations.
Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover 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!
3
Have some fun in the travel section.
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.
4
My Photography Gear: The Cameras/Drones/Action Cams I Use Daily
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 (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
5
The Swim/Bike/Run Gear I Use List
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 2023 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 Gear Guide too.
Oh, if only Garmin could find a way to sync over the Apple Watch… That would be great. (Then again unlikely because they rather sell me some kind of Edge device with crippled LTE built-in)
“I don’t know why they aren’t showing under an ‘Oura’ header, but instead some weird string (but they seem to work just fine)”
Same to me. After restarting the watch they are now listet in the right category ‘Oura’.
When is Apple going to roll out its own answer to Oura/Whoop/Garmin Body Battery? I can get a laundry list of metrics on my Apple Watch Ultra, but Apple does nothing interesting with that data. It seems like that would kill off a laggy Oura watch app and make me stop wearing my Whoop.
David, have you had a look at the ‘Athlytic’ app on the App Store. Takes a lot of the Apple Watch / Apple Health data and creates Whoop style analysis of the data. Pretty cool.
Yes, I use Athlytic, and bluntly, I am unimpressed by its algorithm. No disrespect to the Athlytic developer, but I don’t think he has the resources for development that Whoop, Oura, Garmin, or Apple have.
Ah, that’s good to know, as I’ve not used Whoop or Oura. I assume from your reply the differences in readiness are stark and don’t really match up?
Agree. Athlytic is worthless. I wore an AWU and a Garmin Epix simultaneously for two months and kept track of both the Athlytic Recovery metric and the Garmin Training Readiness.
Neither is great but at least the TR tracked my training cycle, sleep quality and (to a lesser extent) my internal sense of well-being. Athlytic uses way fewer data points so is vulnerable to bad data and, even when working properly, is equivocal at worst and useless at worst.
yet strangely, Gary (for sure) has access to the same people that advised Oura and Whoop. His algorithm is ‘correct’ to the best of my knowledge and as good as theirs.
Whether or not the underlying data is correct is another matter entirely.
That’s fair. All I know is that I’ve been using Athlytic since I got my AWU three months ago, and my recovery score *every* day is 50% +/- 5%. There’s either something off in the way the app is calculating my recovery (algorithm, data, who knows?), or I am one consistently middling person. :)
I’m curious about the algorithm’s in other apps that interpret Apple Watch (or Health) data. Two that I am testing are Training Today and CardioBot. Training Today offers an overall score but I think it is based on HRV only. CardioBot doesn’t offer a score but does interpret some of the data.
Are there any other good apps to combine the data collected by Apple Watch?
Slow update is a common theme for all third-party Apple Watch complications – AFAIK they are limited to at most once every 15 minutes.
Serious question from an Apple Watch wearer: what do you gain from wearing both of these devices? Seems quite redundant, especially considering the very high sleep, activity, and HR tracking on the Apple Watch (as evaluated by Quantified Scientist on YouTube).
What Whoop and Oura offer is a simple way to process that data. I don’t use an Oura, but I can look at my Whoop score in the morning and get a read on my recovery with one simple number. One can quibble with that number and how it’s determined, but it’s one number. On my Apple Watch, I feel like I need to sift through lots of data to figure out anything. As I suggested above, I’m waiting for Apple to come up with its simple recovery/readiness metric that is calculated based on all that other data it is capturing.
The main benefit of the Oura ring is that you can wear it at night and it’s very small and doesn’t impact your sleep. Many find the Apple Watch too big to wear at night, and it’s easier to charge it then. Oura’s battery lasts about 5 days. Summary, Oura is a better sleep tracker, that’s the only reason to own both.
Glad you covered this. Not sure about the white background on the watchface tho ;-)
Can you share a one liner on your Yale Lock and its Apple Home integration (that’s next on my list of smart home purchases)
many thanks, keep up the good work.
It’s kinda reddish-white. Came out a bit whiter in photo than real-life.
As for Yale, overall, I like it. We’ve had them a touch over two years (on two doors for our shed). The shed and corresponding doors (including barn-door style door) are 100 years old, so sometimes there’s some weather-induced bending of the materials which occasionally throws the locks for a loop when they don’t quite line-up anymore. But I get alerted andit’s a quick fix. We had one unit randomly die about a week before warranty (the motor just made horrific sounds and didn’t turn), but was replaced under warranty for free.
Homekit integration is flawless, though, you can’t do much config from it. All config has to be done via the Yale app itself, which is mostly horrific. Thankfully I only need to touch it if the weather dorks up calibration enough.
I’ve been tempted to buy one for the DCR Cave, but feel like we’re kinda on the wave for the next slate of devices for everyone, so am holding out for a better one.
I’d buy an Oura ring in a minute, but I do not need another recurring fee added to the monthly expenses when the AW gives it to me for less (no fee and cheaper barrier to entry, in terms of watch pricing (entry level)). Nice to have, maybe, definitely not a need. If they didn’t charge a recurring fee (I know they didn’t use to) it would be my next purchase though..
I’m slightly puzzled that they’ll include the battery life in the complication but not in the Watch app itself.
Would agree…
Honestly, I just wish the darn thing would tell me when it’s dead. Or, beforehand. In theory it’s supposed to, but it never works. Ever.
I wish you could wear the Oura on your ring finger to get accurate results. When they get to that point I will definitely buy.
To be fair, you actually can. I had a long chat about this with them. Technically speaking, there’s no issues with the ring finger. And for some people (like myself), I get generally good results there in workouts (or otherwise). In part because I know which way to wear the bumps.
The reason they prefer the index finger is that it means people don’t have to worry about directionality of the bumps, because the index finger base portion tends to be ‘beefier’ than the ring finger base portion. But as long as ou know the direction/side the bumps should be on, you’re all good.
Hi Ray
In your original in depth review of the Oura Ring 3 you mentioned some features that weren’t active on product release and with no fixed timeline for when these features would become active e.g. activity tracking and Spo2.
Are all these features now released?
Phil
I am all for an update to the original reviews of Oura Ring 3 from 2021. Have the promised features be introduced? Have the buggy features from 2021 been addressed?
Would appreciate a small update paragraph too 👍🏼
it is good to use an apple watch
I have TrainingPeaks and a Apple Watch but can’t import Apple Health Metrics like sleep and HRV directly. If I get an Oura ring I can then through a different app import data into TrainingPeaks.
From what I’ve seen the Apple Watch tracks sleep better then Oura and as a everyday device I would rather wear a watch over a ring. I just wish you could directly utilize your Apple Health data in Training peaks, instead it’s either multiple devices or multiple apps. They suggest using HRV4 for HRV and some other app for sleep hours. I don’t want to wear both an Oura ring and a Apple Watch or have 4 different apps just to view all my data.
I also don’t see any great alternatives to TrainingPeaks. The multi app multi device model is very annoying.
Another vote for an update! I’m getting really tired of trying to sleep with my AWU2 or Fenix on.