Heads up! The big Garmin annual spring sale has started, with $200 off the Fenix 8 (first sale to date!), $100 off the Edge 1050, Forerunner 965 at $499, the Forerunner 265, the new Instinct 3, and countless other Garmin products including inReach Mini 2. Plus the Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium is on sale, and some Suunto & Wahoo product deals too. Full list & thoughts here!
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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.
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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
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I’d buy a Garmin version of this in a heartbeat.
Agree. It would be nice to have an unobtrusive way of capturing HR-related data into Garmin ecosystem besides wearing a watch.
I’d love to see a ring from Garmin. My Oura has been the easiest to wear tracker I’ve ever had. I hate sleeping with a watch on.
Yes, me too! I just really hope the leaked Index Sleep Tracker isn’t Garmin’s answer to the Whoop strap.
The Garmin version will be out in a few weeks. The product announcement leaked a few weeks back down in Brazil.
No need to sleep with a watch when you have the Oura ring.
Me too. I’m waiting for this for a long time.
@Marijn – agree. It needs all day activity tracking as well as the sleep stuff.
Great news! A screenless suscription free device is what a lot of user want. I hope Polar and Amazfit whould be as precise as Whoop.
Exactly what I’ve been looking for. I’m sure many prefer, such as I, to wear traditional watches but still want to get health and fitness data. Rings and watches are not suitable to contact sports such as judo or jiu-jitsu. This will be a winner.
Will there be a review on the Garmin Edge MTB? Just noticed it appear on the UK website?!
Yup, here: link to dcrainmaker.com
Thanks 😃
Exactly
Has DCR (or anyone here) used a Polar 360? I haven’t seen many reviews on it so would be interesting to know if Polar are starting from a good base. Working assumption the new band will be a direct descendant to the Polar 360
I’ve been meaning to try and order one as a business, literally have a tab open for like 6 months now. I know some regular readers that just straight-up ordered one under the name of their company/etc…
You can and I have bought one.
You can immediately pair the 360 with polar flow.
It just works. I pointed this out on your initial B2B post in the comments.
Downsides are it is an armband (strap is too long to wear on the wrist.
No sign of replacement strap/band if it should fail or you want something that isn’t black.
It’s pretty comfortable though and decent typical stats (sleep/steps/hrv) no stairs or skin temp readings.
After a week, I gave mine to my partner and bought a whoop 5.
Thanks for the tip. Did you use their free research app, and is the info in the polar flow app limited as compared to it?
i want to buy this band
While this is light on details, I think this makes a ton of sense right now. Whoop is update, amazfit has the helio coming, and Garmin has it’s thing. If Polar is jumping into the market, it’s smart to let people know before they commit to any of those.
I’m pretty excited for this. Garmin’s latest moves haven’t made my very happy and while I still love my Forerunner and Edge, I’m happy to check out Polar 360. I cancelled whoop last year and I’m really glad I did after their new device fiasco too.
So I want more details but this might be enough to make people wait for more.
I don’t see any relevant difference compared to VeritySense. An accurate, convenient heart rate device with memory capacity without a screen.
Perhaps the only difference is that VeritiySense is worn on the upper arm.
The Verity sense is a traditional HR monitor, which is used for sport usage. That’s it. It can’t capture sleep, steps, etc…
This is a 24×7 band that is designed to capture sleep, steps/activity, workouts, etc… and do so for many days constantly on.
I think this will be very a very good offering if 2 things are achieved:
– a good name – like Polar Bear, you wrote
– redesign is done on the Flow app.
I am a recent Vantage M3 user, the HW is OK – I like larger watches, but have to spare money right now –, the software is OK-ish…? I mean I can find anything, but do I wish I don’t have to google everything I want to find AFTER I read the documentation? Yes. Also the illogical things, like the sleep data display in more pages/views… The Flow app could use a redesign and not just from the how-it-works perspective, because it looks a little like Windows 98/Mac OS 9.
Garmin also has something for the upper arm?
Garmin Index Sleep Monitor: A New Arm-Worn Sleep-Focused Tracker is Coming….
We’ll have to wait and see if it does activity tracking as well. The leaks make it sound like it’s for sleep and may won’t have activity tracking. Which if true, would be a miss. People want a tracker they can wear to events where they’d like to wear a normal watch. Or situations where they’re not able to wear a watch at all. Or something a bit more comfortable than a watch for sleep. But maybe if it has all the sensors for sleep the activity tracking can be added via software updates.
I hope there will be some decent subscription-free whoop competitors soon. I also hope with all my strength that they make a band that can be worn on the upper arm. Working in healthcare, I can’t wear any watch, ring or bracelet on my hands or forearms and an upper arm band would be absolutely perfect.
Interesting! I suspect they are just going to put their Polar 360 into a direct-to-consumer channel. Looking at link to polar.com and the info on their sensor – seems like HR, HRV, activity detection via accelerometer in the sensor, probably a range of strap choices. ECG and BP may be a gap vs. Whoop MG – but not everyone wants/needs those features.
Your post at link to dcrainmaker.com is likely a good preview. The main question will be if they can get to a ~14 day battery life like Whoop has been able to achieve.
Great to see more products in this space!
this is funny to me, because the device will likely be ~$200, right? So, the same price a whoop sub which includes the device. And they will release a new one next year for another ~$200, which people will buy because there is no subscription.
Even if it were $200 (might be lower), why would you need a new device? I’d assume most people would keep their device for 3-4 years, just like Whoop.
In Whoop’s case, the only thing ‘new’ for non-MG devices is basically the pleasure of buying all new bands/straps, and increased battery life (albeit, substantially increased).
Except the Whoop ended up being more expensive than a device like this which is why I abandoned it last year. I went with a whoop for 18 months and ditched my Vivosmart 5. My thinking at the time was that Whoop seemed to release every 2 – 3 years and they promised free hardware upgrades. Well, this release is almost 4 years after the Whoop 4 and it didn’t give me much more information than my Vivosmart gave in addition to all my other Garmin devices (which I’ll own anyway). My all in cost for Whoop was WAY more than my Vivosmart which I’ve gone back to.
For a device like this I’d much rather pay $200 upfront and then choose when I’m ready to upgrade. I think a 2 – 3 year release cycle is fine. When I’m paying the device cost basically every year for Whoop…I expect faster updates.
Polar should be good precision wise, they have good hardware and lots of know how. The weak point will be the app, it’s really dated and this kind of product needs a good companion app, since it doesn’t have a screen itself.
free screen wearable device? I have the Polar sense, a wearable non screen HR band….
Biggest thing I miss going from Whoop to Apple Ultra 2 is broadcasting accurate HR to my headunit. Presume Polar will do this? Any news whether Apple will sort this for SDept or next software iOS?
Are any of these things going to have phone notifications? I just want a screenless wearable that vibrates for phone notifications.
This is for the business marked.
Compared to Sense and OH1; this also tracks activity 24h with an accelerometer, -and also sleep, but no GPS. Polar also has an API where one can create solutions for tracking groups of sensors; so it’s probably for “corporate” to see if their employees are working or chilling. I find the term “Wellness Tracker” somewhat chilling.
For sport-use I find it useless without tracking location.
No, the previous solution was for 3rd parties – and not just corporate wellness programs, but plenty of other semi-medical type applications.
“so it’s probably for “corporate” to see if their employees are working or chilling. I find the term “Wellness Tracker” somewhat chilling.”
Not really. I think many Europeans don’t really understand the origins of this category in the US, and it’s much much simpler: They want employees to be active, because it’s far cheaper to reward an active employee than it is to deal with healthcare costs. This has been the cast for 15-20 years in this category, where employees would just upload certain run/bike/etc TCX/GPX/FIT files, to get rewards (like points, could be used for TV’s, vacations, etc…). Super common in the US as a means to get people active.
I don’t doubt there’s some weird edge-case at some weird company that used this to show someone isn’t working or such, but it’s virtually unheard of. This is all about dealing with the mess that is the American healthcare system.
HOWEVER, again, this upcoming device is *purely* being marketed at consumers as a Whoop competitor.
Ray, you use devices from lots of different companies at the same time. I love my Garmin training devices and don’t really want to stop using them. But this device is very appealing to me even without many details yet
Do you think using devices like this from two different eco systems will give a good enough experience?