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2023 Gadget Excitement – What I look forward to In 2024

It’s very green, but not exciting

2023 and 2024 Sports Gadget Excitement

This post is a recap of what I found exciting from this year’s sports tech releases and reviews followed by my thoughts on what would be personally exciting for me in 2024.

2023 – A Retrospective

Looking back at the year with hindsight, I now realise that only two sports watches excited me. Unsurprisingly one of them is the Forerunner 965 AMOLED which is my go-to sports watch. FR965 has a larger, prettier display than the 955 I had before, obviously with all the same features. I can’t see a need to ever buy another triathlon watch although I probably will 😉

The other source of excitement was the Suunto RACE AMOLED which I thoroughly enjoyed wearing and using.

Not one single bike computer excited me but I was excited to get better sleep from my Eight Sleep Smart mattress.

When it comes to running gadgets it was only Stryd Duo that did it for me this year and for cycling gadgets, it had to be the Streamlines FORMA smart ride position sensor.

None of my smart home gadgets excited me nor did my expanding collection of sunglasses and earbuds. I have had the occasional weekend of running shoe excitement with Nike and adidas but I’m not sure that a mere two days of excitement warrants any further mention of which pairs of shoes it was that did all the exciting.

2023 Review & Releases

Here are the headline releases from 2023. Many (most?) should have the ads disabled to avoid discouraging you from buying one if you want to click through to tread the summaries:

  • Apple Watch Ultra 2 – Exciting if you like a watch that is the same as last year’s one
  • Apple Watch 9 – Exciting if you are a tech journalist who likes to be excited by things that are neither exciting nor different
  • Garmin Vivoactive 5 – Exciting if you thought this sub-brand had died
  • Garmin Venu 3 – Exciting if you used to like Vivoactive but thought that sub-brand had died. Now you are just confused. To be fair so is every other person buying a Garmin.
  • Polar Vantage V3 – Exciting if you love Polar
  • Samsung Galaxy Watch6 – Samsung no longer excites me. #Jaded
  • Suunto RACE – Hmmm, yes! Excitement
  • Sigma ROX 12.1 EVO – A 0.1 hardware bump was more exciting than you would expect.
  • Suunto Vertical – Excitement superseded by the RACE
  • Honor Watch GS4
  • Mobvoi Ticwatch Pro 5 (WearOS 3)
  • Coros Pace 3 – Exciting if you prefer the number 3 to the number 2 and are prepared to pay a bit more for it.
  • Garmin Fenix 7 Pro/Epix Pro –  Great but…yawn. Not exciting.
  • Amazfit T-Rex 3
  • Amazfit Cheetah Pro – See what I mean. There is a job for you.
  • Amazfit GTR4/GTS4 – You also have to have a slightly older brother who’s really into car names.
  • Casio G-SHOCK MOVE GBD H2000 – Exciting if you can get the model name exactly right as I think I just did.
  • Fitbit Charge 6 Band – Exciting if you are my age and still like bands rather than watches
  • Garmin Instinct 2X – Exciting if you have thick wrists and like extreme chunkiness
  • Garmin Edge 540/840 – Exciting if you like a button-based bike computer that occasionally tells you to use its non-existent touchscreen
  • Garmin Vivomove Trend – Exciting if, well. I don’t know. Somebody must be.
  • Garmin Forerunner 965 Review  – Exciting if you are me.
  • Garmin Forerunner 265/265s – Exciting if you are a version of me who can’t swim.
  • Polar Ignite 3 (2022) – Exciting at the time
  • Google Pixel Watch 2 – Exciting if you like smartwatches but dislike iPhones.
  • EVE Thermo – MATTER Smart Radiator Valves, exciting if you are a domestic control freak
  • Magene L508 Smart Tail Light – Good but not good enough to take Garmin’s crown
  • NIX Hydration Sensor – Should have got me excited
  • Nest Gen 2 Doorbell (Matter) – Quite exciting but too slow to respond
  • Specialized EVADE 3 Aero Road Helmet – Along with gplama this is my go-to helmet. Great? Yes! Exciting?…no.
  • KICKR Steer – Someone somewhere will have got excited about this. It wasn’t me
  • HUNT 36 Wheelset – hmmm. Yummy. My go-to summer wheels, making way for the HUNT 82 when there was no wind.
  • HAPBEE Sleep Pillow – If a good night’s sleep from psycho-tech would be exciting for you, you know what to do.
  • BRYTON Gardia R300L Smart Radar Tail Light  – Again, not a Garmin-beater
  • Shimano RC903 – My go-to road shoes. Very good but only a shoe
  • Stages Gen 3 Dual on Dura-Ace R9200 – I was excited to fudge a 12-speed crankset onto an 11-speed setup. I didn’t disappoint myself
  • Bluetooth Version of VASA Trainer Controller – Indoor swim ERG
  • EightSleep Review – A mattress that is so smart it knows your sleep stage and adjusts the temperature to make it better.
  • Coefficient Cycling RR Bars – I was excited to put some wire-hiding aero bars on my distinctly light climbing bike. No one has yet pulled me up on my biggest cycling faux pas of the year.
  • Pirelli P Zero Race TT – These are surprisingly good and fast tyres and I used them on my TT bike. But only a new GP5000 would have excited me when it comes to tyres.
  • ZEN8 Swim Trainer – An interesting complement to my VASA. It might get someone excited who finds it hard to get to the pool and wants to save time
  • Coros Heart Rate Monitor armband – Would have been exciting if caching was enabled and it worked with any other app than the Coros one
  • Coospoo HW9 armband HRM –
  • Cycplus Cube – emergency electronic tube inflator. I was excited by the idea but have yet to get a puncture and use it
  • CYCPLUS M2 Bike Computer – Excitingly round
  • Wahoo KICKR Move – I will review this but I need a winter of excitement first
  • Streamlines FORMA – A novel, smart ride position sensor with Garmin feedback
  • Suunto WING – The rest of the household got very excited and stole them. I haven’t seen them since I reviewed them.
  • STRYD Duo Review – One Stryd is great. Two are excitingly awesome and now with FOOTPATH biomechanic visualisations
  • Lumen Review (Updated) – It’s exciting to know you are burning fat not carbs
  • WHOOP Review (Updated) – I was too embarrassed to say that I get very excited when I use my WHOOP apparel.
  • TACX Neo 3M – Exciting if you can remember to call it the 3M and not the 3T.

Excitement for 2024

2024 is going to be a good year for running and bike tech with lots of new models, though whether there will still be shops to sell them and people rich enough to buy them is another matter entirely! I’ll be excited if the Human Race can pull off another year of avoiding nuclear or economic armageddon (armagedda?)

The headline watches are mostly predictable and the following post does those predictions in great detail. However, the predictability makes it far less exciting to me. I want something innovative and not simply an AMOLED version of something I’ve already got. But ‘an AMOLED version of something you’ve already got’ will likely be the theme for 2024 just as it was this year.

My excitement for 2024 is twofold. Firstly I can’t wait to bin my Edge 540. I’ve been using this dreadful thing all year because that is what I said I would do. Guys out there know that once you commit to following a certain route no amount of backseat driving will deter you from trying (and failing) to reach your destination. That’s me with the Edge 540. Awesome features…with a not-so-awesome implementation of them. Am I excited about a Wahoo BOLT 3?…YES. Very much so.

Perhaps you will be excited by a Fenix 8? Maybe your dreams will be realised and Garmin will release one in 2024 rather than in Q1.2025 as I predict. My excitement is for something else though and has my fingers tingling even now as I type. For me, it will be the Garmin HRM FIT. No one quite knows what it will be but I’m hoping for an all-singing, all-dancing armband that also caches swim HR. I’ve always had a thing for HR tech so…there we go. You know what will make me happy.

Q: What will excite you?

A: There are no prizes if you answer Forerunner 165 or Edge 150.

 

Trusted Garmin Rumours, Leaks, Insights & dates for all new models plus Apple, Coros, Polar, Suunto, Wahoo

 

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22 thoughts on “2023 Gadget Excitement – What I look forward to In 2024”

  1. An updated Garmin Connect for iOS that actually works 100% with Apple Health – all data both ways…

  2. There are some rumors in Polar’s house of a new H-10 and Verity Sense… let’s see what they will provide and how will interact with new V3 …

    1. I’d not heard that but it wouldn’t surprise me. ty for the heads up

      what would those models do though? if they nailed the ant+ cache thing it would open up new markets. i’d suspect they add some running dynamics to the H10. maybe a slightly better battery life.

      same old, same old

  3. What would surprise and delight me is full integration with external power by Garmin!

    Ha ha ha – not going to happen either.

    A few (minor) things that suprised/delighted in 2023 for me. New Stryd Garmin CIQ datafield with more features and FINALLY temperature recording. And the return of the awesome CIQ datafield DRNG10c from the dead. (I guess I’m easy to please).

  4. I hope for a full integration of Core temperature in an ANT Profile and also in the metrics from Garmin and Training Peaks.

  5. I’m getting more and more annoyed with my 965.
    The gesture to turn on the screen isn’t recognizing very good and if it is recognizing it’s slow to turn on. Specially if you have you touch disabled, it’s a full second slower to turn on. According to garmin this is within acceptable limits. For me, it’s not. I train on a track. I like to peak at my watch at the 200m mark to see it I hit my targets. Not 1 second later.

    I could solve this now, because it’s dark in the evening, by turning on always on display. But then batterylife is just as bad as my forerunner 935 was after 6 years of usage. I replaced my 935 only because of reduced batterylife.

    For me, a 965 is a move by garmin away from sport and towards lifestyle. Garmin marketing happy, quite a few people who love a shiny gadget happy. Me, not so happy..

    1. I have AOD…always on in sport and the AOD in watchface mode just means the time is displayed. battery life seems fine to me, i dont think i’ve run out yet (i tend to sync by cable tho so its regualrly topped up)
      yeah gesture response is defintiely over half a second going from TIME screen to watchface.

      1. With AOD and gnss in default settings my 965 uses close to 10% per hour. That means I cannot go out on a decent bike ride or long run when battery is down to 30%

        This is my second 965. Had to swap the first due to the number of bugs I reported. The first one had about the same battery usage.

        This worries me a lot. It took my 935 5 years to go from 20+ hours in sport mode to 10 hours. If it is less than that I cannot even go on a whole dat hike.

        It would be useful to configure aod per activity, but I don’t think garmin actually use their own watches, otherwise they would know.

  6. Apple Watch Ultra with blood pressure monitor. I know it isn’t happening, but that’s my tech wishlist.

  7. Photonics sensor being used in a smartwatch, doesn’t matter which brand I guess, since only “big” brands will probably pick this one up. Lactate, glucose, ketones, doesn’t matter, just want an implementation so we can check if it’s really accurate and usable. Then everyone will eventually follow…

    2. It wold be nice if Garmin would produce a “whoop” like band to do all/some of this that could be combined with every Garmin watch you own. So SW updates for your watch would be easier since all the “certified and FDA approved” stuff is on a different device that you could even use it with an older watch. Not gonna happen…but that would be awesome.

  8. Hey, I’d get excited about an Edge 150! I love the crisp screen of the 130+ in the desert sun. No bigger Edge can compete with the clarity of the screen in these lighting conditions. But I want one that has the latest features and better GPS.

  9. Sometimes I don’t want to wear a watch, so something like the Oura ring would perhaps be a solution. But as I am stuck in the Garmin universe, I would like to see a ring from them.

  10. For me it would be full running power support natively.
    – suggested workout with running power
    – build workout with running power targets
    – broadcast running power when using a app like Zwift.
    – build in running power test

    It would make running power more usable and valuable to many runners and triathlete.

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