A week in: Triathlon, Gadgets & Tech,

A week in: Triathlon, Gadgets & Tech, is some of the more interesting bits that flash up on my screen during the week. It could be: some interesting article on triathlon training; a new activity tracker; a new swim watch; or a reminder on a new bit of software or firmware for one of your devices.

Please feel free to drop me a line on anything related that you find interesting. There’s a huge amount of information out there that’s more than a few people can keep tabs of. [Catchup: Here is last week’s]

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1. (Image above) April Fools’ Day has come early as the Jawbone design team raided a local infants’ school for ideas for the new ‘UP X BAUBLEBAR’…oh dear.
2. New Firmware: The biggest news is that the $500/£300 Garmin 920XT can now actually tell you how fast you are running. This new ‘instant pace from footpod’ feature (currently in beta) is likely to catch on.
3. The existing adidas FITSMART has been tweaked and is now an activity tracker.
4. Garmin announced the Vivosmart HR activity band. IMO it doesn’t look great but the optical HRM is likely to be good as no doubt is the new Garmin Mobile app.
5. Nice work as OME takes a little look at the Wahoo RPM bike/run cadence footpod.
6. I noticed a glitch last week when the V800 told me my VO2max was 32 which made me think this year’s training was a washout – that’s lower than my granny’s. They’ve fixed it with a firmware release. More important, but bad, news was that Polar’s Strava integration is delayed until 2016.
7. Sporttracks did a little piece about training load on their mobile product. Everyone should look at training load in some form, IMO.
8. 4iiii have trailed changes to their PRECISION and VIIIIVA products. Unfortunately they only announced that the new apps are going off to the app stores for approval. Not too long to wait.
9. Zainab was the first Afghan woman to take part in their official marathon. Go girl! #brave #danger #iwouldntdoit.
10. The AP Champs at IronMan Melbourne are cancelled, whilst at a similar time IronMan announced 2x new races in the UK.
11. And the latest product to literally send Halloween tri-shivers down your spine is the RollingFWD Vibrating Roller. It might even be good!
12. The Fenix3 has had a beta firmware update to keep the footpod instant pace working.
13. TomTom’s Runner 2/Spark has also been the lucky recipient of a few bug fixes to add functionality and iron out a few teething issues.
14. The new runtastic wearable analog-faced tracker, the ‘Moment’,  was not looked on kindly by Wareable.
15. CCS state that smartwatches form a $9bn market in 2015 and set to grow. They caution new manufacturers seeking to jump on the smartwatch bandwagon that prices & margins could fall rapidly like they did in the smartphone market recently…

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Our Stuff – Busyish

A selection of stuff from the5krunner’s week – normally ranges from ‘drivel’ to ‘quite interesting’.

• An unfair swipe at the dated aesthetics of the Vivosmart HR
• A retrospective look at the 920XT and V800. They’re now relevancy-equivalent options for triathletes.
• Answered a question about how the Bluetoothed Polar V800 works underwater.
• Researched a bit more into the exciting and impending WAHOO ELEMNT.