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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!
DCRainmaker.com posts in the past week:
Here’s all the goodness that ended up on the main page of DCRainmaker.com this past week:
Monday: Week In Review–Oct 9th, 2017
Monday: 5 Random Things I Did This Weekend in Île de Ré
Tuesday: BSX LVL Hydration Sensor: Does it actually exist? Oh, and BSX Insight is dead.
Wednesday: Annual Winter 2017-2018 Bike Trainer Recommendations
Saturday: Kona Bike Count 2017 Power Meter Analysis
Sports Tech Deals of Note:
Boatload of REI Clearance Sale Deals this week: Everything from some good deals on slightly older sports tech, including (all on the page linked above):
– Cycliq Fly12
– Mio SLICE
– Garmin Edge 1000
– Kinetic inRIDE
– Polar A360
– Mio Fuse
– 360FLY Action Camera
– Random Fitbit bands and action camera mounts
Of course, keep in mind that there’s actually even better deals for just general sports stuff there – so definitely do some wandering. If it didn’t cost so much to ship to Europe, I’d likely have bought a ton of stuff (things like clothing, etc…).
One thing to note is that the REI Edge 1000 deal is for the bundle ($497), whereas Clever Training has the non-bundle available for $367. Both are individually good deals, depending on what you’re looking for.
Stuff that 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.
1) These WiFi access points can detect your breathing: Personally, I’m not impressed until it can detect my exact HR accurately 
. Can you imagine though, sitting on a trainer or treadmill and just having the thing sense your HR from afar as you step into the room, and then it show up on Zwift or other app? Of course, there have been semi-afar sensors (Xbox Kinect) that have looked at this in the past, but nothing to the degree of this.
2) This drone will measure your heart rate: Well then, the whole WiFi access point thing sounds rather rudimentary now. Why have something sit on a shelf when you can make it fly?
3) Apple Watch patents automatically adjusting bands: Someone has a new party trick! I think this would be akin to the whole eTAP crawling shifters across the table trick (seen as an animated GIF in my eTAP review):
4) Garmin Skiing Power Meter? Sometimes the USPTO has the darndest things. Garmin filed this application to capture skiing power (like cycling power, but skiing). I’m not entirely sure what to make of it, but huh. (Thanks to Sam for sending in.)
5) Stelvio pass shot on new DJI drone cameras: If you’re a photo geek, you were likely salivating at the new 6K capable Zenmuse X7 lenses that were announced for the even more expensive DJI Aspire 2 drone (I lack all of these). But their choice of using the famed Stelvio pass to film the below video definitely makes me want to ride it even more. Though, the speeding cars not so much. One of these days…
6) Drones automatically follow hiking trails, avoid all trees/shrubbery: I’ve had this darn video set on my tabs for like a month now. Keep in mind here, it’s not following a programmed track – it’s actually sensing what the trail is and avoiding everything else (even humans). Super cool.
7) Polar decides to delay closing of Polar Personal Trainer (and various devices): After a boatload of ‘feedback’ (read: angry people’s communications), Polar has backed away from their plan to close down PPT, and cut-off older watches from being usable (since you have to upload to PPT). At present they’ve moved the date from May 2018 to December 2019. I think that’s a good start, but I really want to see Polar shift from their uploaders only uploading to Polar Flow, to also putting a copy of the files locally on the hard drive – thus ensuring that users will always have a copy of their activities down the road if they need to.
8) WTC sells Triathlete Magazine, VeloNews, and others back to original owner: While I’m not exactly sure about the idea of trying to revitalize the print aspects of VelonNews, I do think this will, on the whole, be a good thing. One of the challenges will be trying to compete with Cycling Tips though, which has amassed a strong bench of reporters in the last 1-2 years.
Sports Technology Software/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 firmware updates.
Garmin Edge 1000 Firmware Update: Minor fixes, plus Vector 3 tweaks.
Garmin Edge 820 Firmware Update: Same as Edge 1000, plus Varia Vision fix.
Garmin Edge 820 Explore Firmware Update: Basically a subset of fixes for Edge 820.
Garmin Edge 520 Firmware Update: Again, almost identical to ones above. Seeing a pattern here?
Garmin Fenix 3/3HR BETA Firmware Update: Minor bug fixes
Garmin Chronos BETA firmware Update: Minor bug fixes, but also removed a feature.
Polar A360 Firmware Update: Minor bug fixes.
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With that – thanks for reading!
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Did I miss the Garmin Vivoactive 3 review at some point? It has been out for a month so I vthought for sure you would have reviewed it. Did I miss it or is it forthcoming?
Tomorrow morning. It was going to come out Friday, but I ran into some snags with Garmin Pay I’m trying to sort out.
I noticed that the app says that “Garmin Pay is coming soon”. Any idea when it will be rolled out to the public?
Next few weeks by the sound of it.
DC. Have you seen the stickon wearable blood glucose tech? Doesn’t need a blood sample and uses a handheld device that you wave over the stickon to get the data. Have you come across or heard of an integration of that with a smart watch that records the BG levels??
Thanks
Peter, are you talking about the Freestyle Libre? I believe it still uses an under the skin sensor. I haven’t used it but have the Dexcom, which is similar.
ANT does have CGMS protocol, although I don’t know of any devices using it. The Dexcom can be connected to an Apple watch via Bluetooth.
It’s all very expensive, unless your insurance pays for it. Which mine does not.
Actually there are at least two devices I’ve read about that are needleless. One is just in trial phase and uses microwaves to measure blood glucose levels. The other uses a small electric current to do the same.:
link to engadget.com
link to healthtechinsider.com
Thanks for links Robin. I was referencing ones that were on the market, but these look interesting too.
Personally, I don’t care about a needle or sensor (but I can empathize with people that do). I just want it to be accurate and cheap 🙂
I could see a Bluetooth CGMS patch being useful in the broader sports community, not just diabetics. Maybe help prevent bonking??
Diabetics needs for accuracy and willingness to pay for it is much higher (ok, they have no choice) then sports community needs. (ok, accuracy may not be the best term, but athletes don’t need perfect devices as their life isn’t depending on it so bugs while annoying aren’t so bad) link to ww2.kqed.org
<a href=“https://forums.garmin.com/forum/into-sports/cycling/edge-1030-aa/1261690-firmware-version-3-40-now-available-incremental-rollout”
Edge 1030 firmware 3.40 is getting some sort of incremental rollout. If the update doesn’t show up on your 1030, check via Garmin Express.
Edge 1030 firmware 3.40 incremental rollout
Interesting about the ski power meter. I am pretty sure it’s supposed to be for nordic skiing, not alpine. Other options in this space are proskida (poles only) and skiiot (not a power meter, but seemingly provides some data that would be interesting like hard data on which of your pairs of skis are actually sliding faster on which parts of the course). Neither is available to consumers yet, as far as I can tell.
It would be interesting to see if anyone can actually come up with something usable, since both arms and both legs generate power independently depending on what ski technique you are using.
It’s definitely supposed to be for nordic skiing. I’d forgotten about proskida, but I know a guy who wrote his undergrad thesis about building a similar thing (link to schevalier.com).
It doesn’t seem like it’s much more complicated than combining a pole power meter with a stryde/skiiot type thing. I’d love to see it come to market, but I’m not sure how it’s patent-able as that seems like the only obvious way you’d calculate skiing power.
Ultimately, I’m not actually sure of the utility. I know people said that about bike power meters, but I can’t see myself using this thing in anything other than a loppet or a tempo training ski, and I’d rather use HR to measure physiological exertion instead. I guess it’d be good for interval work, and it’d be invaluable for any coaching.
This will definitely start with nordic, since that’s where the national Olympic committees will spend their money, but it will also get used for ski mountaineering races, I am sure. I think you could gather raw data from ski poles and bindings with the proper use of strain gauges, but turning that raw data into valid power data will be the trick. I wonder if measuring power is too broad of a patent, or if they have to define a method in order to make the patent stick…
Still waiting on the pomocup:
http://www.pomocup.com
After it didn’t get Kickstarter funding almost 2 years ago..
Even just the force data itself could be useful, though. For me currently, my main sports are nordic skiing in the winter and cycling in the summer. My left/right power balance cycling is way out (like 55-60% right, typically) and I’ve never been injured in any way. I suspect that’s due to my skiing (historically my main sport growing up) where I think I use my right side a lot more during the different asymmetrical techniques. Like 2/3rds of the time kicking with my right leg during single kick double poling, or 2/3rds of the time leading with my right when doing offset/V1 skating. Having hard data to back this up, and/or metrics to try to improve on equalizing things out, even if it wasn’t strictly translated to “power”, might be useful.
I’m rather late to the party, but thought I’d weigh in in case you guys are still following this thread.
Power in nordic skiing would be an awesome number to get as it would help remove a number of variables. However, as Paul mentions, it’s getting all that data into a valid/accurate power number is the hard part. Skiing is so much more complicated than cycling, in a variety of ways.
I think there is a big opportunity in nordic skiing around instrumented gear (full disclosure – I’m one of those behind Proskida)/instrumented self to help people improve efficiency. Force, cycle rate, angles (of gear, bodyparts, pompoms, you name it) and how they relate to terrain, fatigue, speed, etc all can be of value to a skier. The key will be how to present the data in a format that is usable rather than overwhelming.
Clamour, Clamour for a new podcast!!!!
I rode the Stelvio this summer and unfortunately there were many, many convoys of powerful motorbikes. Somewhat tarnished what is a truly beautiful climb.
Hey Ray! Any news on the DC Rainmaker podcast? RIP?
Modified wifi access points that can indeed measure your heart beat:
link to youtube.com
Appears as if they were investigating the little “jitters” in the breathing wave forms and noticed that they correlated to the heart beat.
Hagen
Will you try the dynamic home point feature for the Mavic and Spark that was added in the last update for DJI GO? It seems like that might be useful for sports tracking purposes. I see the Mavic also gets the quickshot mode of the Spark now.
I have a Mavic and found your reviews really useful when deciding to buy it.
In the interest of users always having access to the activities they record any chance Garmin will allow bulk export of activities from the connect web site? You can do one at a time but that is very slow