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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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.
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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!
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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.
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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!
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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.
Now if they’ll upgrade the view stat options, especially for the Ultra. I remain pretty disappointed how basic the options are, especially in comparison to even my now “old” Suunto 9 Peak which has tons more info. The data and screen real estate is there so what’s the deal? *continuestoyellatclouds*
What are you hoping to see? You can edit a lot of the fields, you just have to do it on your phone.
Actually, you can’t anymore…WatchOS 9 removed phone-driven editing of Apple Watch data fields for the native app.
I am hoping for stats along the line of my Suunto 9 Peak, real(ish) time gain/loss indicators/graphics, helps me know where I am on a route and often how much more I have going up as a visual cue rather than based on mileage as on trails/off-route, that’s less immediately intuitive for me.
Even Strava app has limited fields. Just seems an obvious need and the info is already there so why be so limited in the field options.
Glad to hear if anyone else has other recommended apps for these types of features.
As always, thanks Ray!
The 3rd party app “Workoutdoors” does a fantastic job with field customization. It’s an inexpensive one-time purchase.
So why not have power for all walking type activities? Especially if not walking on flat ground as it would provide a better way to compare walks/hikes?
@Eli, Agree, I would also like this for comparing hikes.
I was hoping one of the changes would be rolling out precision start to all Apple Watches. Oh well!
Cool. It would be interesting to see how the app compares with the Power2Run app (for Apple Watch): https://www.inspyridon.com
Keep up good work
I think that the Apple Watch has gotten pretty good for running and the Ultra has replaced my Garmin 955 for the time being. I suspect that the Apple Watch is probably good enough for most runners, especially, if used in conjunction with Healthfit and/or Runalyze.
As a triathlete, I only wish that the swimming features were a little bit more extensive. I do not miss much, but wish that Apple would enable manual segments via the Action Button for swimming and structured workouts.
100% agree with this, currently I also prefer my AW SE (2022) for running, instead of buggy FR 955. At least for my use case. That’s usually 10k runs around 50 mins, so battery isn’t any limitation. Also I find optical HR much more accurate using AW compared to the Garmin’s Elevate v4, especially in the colder weather. AW measures HR always reliably (compared to Polar H10 strap), while I can’t say the same for 955. Multi-band GNSS (GPS) is nice, but for runs in the area without tall buildings SE 2022 is very accurate as well. And in your case (AW Ultra), this is also covered. I think Ultra 2 will add even more battery life and Apple will leverage some feedback from users for other improvements of sports experience.
But as you wrote, for most runners AW is already more than good enough.
What sort of bugs do you see with the 955? I’m looking to replace my Fenix 6 Pro with something lighter and more accurate. I assumed that would be the 255/955–but if you’re still seeing bugs, maybe I should just opt for a Series 8. The longest thing I’ll be doing is a half marathon, or day hikes.
Unfortunately there are way too many SW bugs and issues on 955.
For me the biggest one are that LTHR auto detection doesn’t work at all and touchscreen issues (screen becomes unresponsive). I have warranty replacement and unfortunately it has the same issue with touchscreen as original one. Only restart of the watch helps.
And also, as I mentioned above, optical HR accuracy isn’t great as well. While AW SE can measure reliably close to Polar H10, 955 can’t.
I would recommend to browse 955 section on Garmin forums. Just to see what other issues are people experiencing with 955 (and they are experiencing lot of other issues, too).
Personally I have a feeling that Garmin’s SW quality went sharply down with the latest models. As they tried to add lot of new features, like HRV status, training readiness, etc… along the way they broke lot of stuff that worked before. And it seems that they are more interested in releasing new watch every few months instead of stabilizing their SW platform first.
I’m saying this as once very big Garmin fanboy, I have been using their devices for long time, both watches and cycling computers. But also being a SW engineer I think Garmin must reevaluate their priorities.
I agree that as a Garmin fanboy myself things seem to be moving backwards on SW side of the house. I had been switching between Ultra and Fenxi7x the last few months. In the end the few pieces of data I was missing by using Ultra did not justify keeping my Garmin. I’m a roadrunner only and the Ultra does all I need. As someone pointed out, WorkOutDoors app is plenty good.
I think I would have less difficulty pivoting away from the Fenix line if AW did a better job of handling MTB. But you guys are right. It feels like every time Garmin tries to add something that a watch *probably shouldn’t be what someone uses to track it* they break something that used to work well.
I’m all for simplicity and getting metrics to people—how many people can truly afford real VO2 max testing? But a lot of the estimations they do seem to work less and less over time.
Maybe I’ll just buy a series 8 for running and daily wear and look into a bike computer for the MTB.
I am using the Hammerhead Karoo 2 in combination with my Apple Watch. Feels like moving from a Nokia to an IPhone!
Has anyone tinkered with the settings of how weight impacts the power number? My main questions are if the power model is taking an average body weight from the last month/week, or your exact weight from the last recorded measurement. Main reason I wonder about this, is trying to trick the power model it’s using. For days I am carrying a heavy load, I could add a new weight number in Apple health, and then delete once activity is over. Maybe I’ll have to do some tests myself to see
Does the dinosaurian Apple Watch 3 have “run power” measurement? I have googled in vain? If so, how is this feature activated?🤔