Sports Tech Week in Review: March 17th, 2024

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/X 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!

DCR Posts In the Past Week:

Here’s all the latest on the site:

Sunday: Sports Tech Week in Review – March 10th, 2024
Monday: FIT File: Google Pixel Watch Updates, Suunto + UTMB? Garmin vs Apple Ski Apps, and More SPD Power Meters
Tuesday: Suunto Opens Platform to Xiaomi Watches, More Apps, Also Partners with UTMB

A few things got moved around, thus you’ll get to see those this upcoming week instead.

YouTube Videos 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:

1) Polar taunts “most badass watch ever made”: Apparently, you can sign-up to get notified when something happens. I sure hope that the ‘most badass watch ever made’ will have a Nacho Cheese dispenser.

2) Peloton adds 3rd party rower connectivity via FTMS: This is actually legit surprising, mainly because Peloton has tried hard to make the Peloton Row hardware a key selling point (such as not offering it for rentals). So, to see them go this direction is great. And, it actually means there’s only one hardware platform left to support 3rd party devices: Cycling power meters/trainers. You may remember back in December, Peloton opened up FTMS support for 3rd party treadmills.

3) Peloton Partners with Rapha: I also did not have this on my Peloton bingo card this week, that’s for sure. I don’t see anything wrong with Peloton users wanting better quality cycling-specific gear. Albeit, I do feel like there’s really no sports apparel brand left that Peloton hasn’t slept with at some point.

4) SRAM Ditches Need for Blip Box for Triathlon Bikes: It’s actually more than just TT bikes, but really any scenario where you use just the wireless blips. Up till now, it required a blip box be in place, now you can do it all wirelessly.

5) Oura adds pregnancy tracking features: At present, this seems largely tied to tracking dates and giving high-level guidance. But, knowing Oura, my guess is they’re probably looking at how to start capturing data to figure out more specific insights that can be gleaned by tracking so much physiological data. I’d argue that’s one of the coolest things about all this wearable data, is starting to figure out nuanced trends that have historically been near-impossible to figure out, even in large-scale studies, due to lack of technology to gather or make sense of at scale.

6) Apple Watch study looks at most active US states: I don’t think these results surprise anybody.

7) Garmin details which countries have best sleep scores: Equally, these also don’t surprise me. The Netherlands takes the cake for highest sleep score, which makes perfect sense. One only need to look at the running/triathlon/etc race scene, where races generally don’t start till 10AM-12PM, to see that the Dutch very much appreciate their sleep. Ain’t nobody waking up early simply to run themselves into the ground.

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Thanks for reading!

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