27 October 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 posts on the site:
Tuesday: Insta360 Ace Pro 2 In-Depth Review
Wednesday: Polar Vantage M3: Everything New You Need To Know!
Sunday: Photography Gear I Use (Updated 2024 List!)
YouTube Videos This 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, some of these being from the last 10 days or so that I’ve been stuffing away to share:
1) Should Cycling Power Data Be Used for Anti-Doping Efforts: Lots of good discussions here, including of the much-maligned Shimano power meter, and how big an impact that’d have on these sorts of efforts.
2) COROS Hints At New Watch: Based on the screen in that video, the assumption would be AMOELD. They also say it’s fast. I guess we’ll (or you’ll) have to find out later this week if both are true.
3) James Huang launches N Minus 1: If you’re familiar with his work historically, he’s been the bike tech editor at a slew of big-name cycling magazines and online publications, including most recently Cycling Tips and then Escape Collective. He’s now off doing his own thing, and these first few posts have been well worthwhile.
4) US Pentagon puts in contract for $96M in Oura Smart Rings: This is actually pretty interesting. As someone who is incredibly familiar with the technology realm and purchasing intersections of the defense department, one must be careful to understand that one division does not represent the entire US government (or even, the Pentagon). This is specifically the US Deference Health Agency, and is specifically to be used for overseeing a slate of biometric details. I haven’t had a rainy-enough day to actually go find the original RFP for this, to see exactly what they requested, though, it is supposed to rain tomorrow.
5) The US customs battle with DJI over drone imports: While this has been mostly resolved in the last few days, I’d fully expect this sort of thing will continue to escape (beyond the existing escalations). We can set aside whether or not it’s the right thing to do, because that doesn’t matter. What matters is the no US politician is going to step in front of it, from either side of the aisle. There’s zero wide-scale benefit for a US politician in siding with a Chinese company or policy.
6) Kona Bike Count 2024 Numbers: Sadly, no power meter inclusion this year (for the first time in like a decade), though, we can somewhat indirectly see that via the pedals, which show strong Favero & Garmin coverage.
7) Apple Wins Battle with Masimo (and $250): Yes, actually just $250, like, the same price as a single Apple Watch SE. That said, this doesn’t yet mean your SpO2 sensors for US-bought Apple Watch units will be magically turned on. This specific battle, was Apple essentially Apple deciding to sue Masimo after Masimo sued Apple. This war is far from over.
8) Christian Vande Velde is Back at Peloton: I always loved his power-focused classes in the past, and glad to see he’s back at it again after a few years away.
9) DJI makes massive inroads in camera market share: This specific tidbit is from Japan, on market data, and it’s fascinating, specifically with the DJI Pocket 3 (something I just talked about in my ‘Gear I Use’ post), and how much market share it’s taking away from everyone (everyone being both traditional camera makers, but also GoPro). In this case, the GoPro Hero 12 (these were previous year stats), is still double the sales of the DJI Action 4. But, the not-at-all-water-resistant DJI Pocket 3 is 2.5x the sales of the GoPro Hero 13 Black. For many people, they’re using the Pocket 3 instead of a traditional action cam, and these numbers illustrate that. I will say, one curious quirk is these numbers somehow don’t have the Hero 11 in there, unless the Hero 10 is simply mislabeled, as that makes no sense to me. And also, keep in mind Japan isn’t entirely necessarily indicative of worldwide sales either.
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With that – thanks for reading!