Obviously, TrainingPeaks has been around a long time, as somewhat the de facto platform for coaches and athletes over the past decades. I started using it way back in 2008 while training for my first Ironman with a coach. I still use it today, albeit with less focus than I did in the past. My wife also uses it with her coach as well, for all of her training. Point being, I’ve been pretty familiar with the platform and its target audiences for quite a long time.

The Core Details:

First though, let’s just briefly throw the press release into this post, for historical purposes. Here it is:

SCHAFFHAUSEN, Switzerland/July 22, 2026 — Garmin Ltd. (NYSE: GRMN) today announced it has acquired the TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic training platforms for athletes and coaches. The acquisition strengthens Garmin’s fitness ecosystem with customizable coaching experiences for endurance, strength and performance-focused athletes across every stage of their fitness journey.

 

“TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic share Garmin’s passion for empowering athletes and coaches around the world with world-class training tools, performance metrics and actionable insights. The addition of these highly successful platforms to the Garmin ecosystem will expand access to more authentic coaching experiences—connecting athletes with professional coaches who guide, motivate and inspire them to reach their goals.” –Brad Trenkle, Garmin Co-Chief Operating Officer

 

“We’re thrilled to join forces with Garmin to advance our shared mission of empowering coaches and athletes with science-based training. For over a decade, we’ve worked together to democratize coaching and performance insights, helping millions of athletes reach their peak through data-driven, structured training.” –Andy Stephens, CEO of Peaksware Holdings, parent company of TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic

 

TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic are digital services specializing in connecting coaches and athletes of all abilities who are looking to improve. Headquartered in Louisville, Colo., 120 combined associates from TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic will join Garmin’s global workforce. Financial terms of the acquisition will not be disclosed.

[Update/Added] Next, since publishing this post, a number of hours later TrainingPeaks has finally sent out a note to their coaches. Here’s what that said:

Hello There,

 

We’re excited to announce that we are now part of Garmin which you can read all about here.

 

Our objective is to expand access to more authentic coaching experiences – connecting athletes with human coaches who guide, motivate and inspire them to reach their goals.

 

As a valued customer we wanted to proactively assure you that TrainingPeaks will continue to operate as a cross-platform ecosystem, enabling athletes and coaches to use the devices, platforms and services that best suit their needs.

 

We are incredibly excited for the capabilities this expanded ecosystem will enable for you to continue to grow and develop as an athlete.

 

Thank you for your continued support.

 

All the best,
Lee Gerakos
Managing Director

Got all that? Good. As I said, there’s basically nothing in terms of actual details on what’s changing. The only detail is that seemingly all employees are being retained, assuming 120 employees was the total count (I asked for clarity there, but just got the press release numbers back). Of course, keeping the employees makes sense on multiple levels. First, to maintain and expand the TrainingPeaks/TrainHeroic platform, and second, because Garmin needs all the fitness-deep engineers it can find. It’s an easy decision.

Note that the musical platforms that TrainingPeaks umbrella company (Peaksware Holdings) has, aren’t included in the acquisition, and remain with them.

However, this acquisition does include TrainingPeaks Virtual, formerly Indievelo, which TrainingPeaks acquired a bit back in 2024. That’s the Zwift-like competitor platform that now integrates more tightly with the larger TrainingPeaks platform.

Now, when you look at the broader TrainingPeaks platform, you’ve got basically a few core things:

1) The TrainingPeaks website/app where athletes log their workouts, synced in from all manner of devices
2) The coaching side to that equation, where athletes’ coaches see those workouts, and manage full businesses using TrainingPeaks as platform for that
3) Training plans that are sold to athletes for all sorts of sports
4) Coaching directory, which ties into the coaching business above
5) TrainingPeaks Virtual, which is included with TP subscriptions, for indoor cycling
6) Licensing of TrainingPeaks metrics like TSS/NP/IF to companies, including Garmin, Wahoo, etc… for various metrics.

Most of these haven’t really changed over the years. TrainingPeaks as a company has done various smaller spin-off athletic projects here and there, but few of them have ever really caught on. There’s also the WKO desktop software, but best I can tell from the release notes, it hasn’t seen updates in 2 years, and even before that it was slim pickings.

Meanwhile, for TrainHeroic, they are/were mostly focused on the strength side of the question. They boasted some 500,000 users and 10,000 coaches, and have been around well over a decade.

What’s Valuable?

Anyway, looking at those pieces there, there’s a lot that Garmin could be going after, but I’ll be honest, I’m a bit puzzled on this one. If I look at the general trend here, it’s that AI coaching is eating into real coaching (substantially). Now, don’t get me wrong, I think AI coaching mostly sucks, especially compared to real (good) coaches. But that’s neither here nor there; a lot of people are just using one-off AI coaching plans and calling it done, especially at the more basic level.

Which is another way of saying that I question how TrainingPeaks was doing in terms of growth, faced with the headwinds of AI apps. They are obviously super well known and respected, but also not really pushing the boundaries of technology (nor have they for many years). Instead, they were/are really good at being consistent and stable, something that (notoriously finicky) coaches tend to appreciate. And in many ways, athletes too. The system ‘just worked’ day in and day out, even if it was rarely on the leading edge of technology.

If I look at what Garmin might want here, there are a few things, and my thoughts:

1) The structured training plans from TrainingPeaks: This is logical, though, Gamin already has many of these and can mostly cover the same sports that TrainingPeaks has.

 

2) The structured training plans from TrainHeroic: This is an area that has more potential for Garmin, especially as they try and expand into this area.

 

3) TrainingPeaks Virtual: This has value, potentially substantial value, but only if Garmin invests heavily in it, and wants to make a go at competing with Zwift. Ultimately, if they just leave like it is, I’m not sure what the value is by itself, however, with Garmin Connect+…more on that in a moment. This however, is a piece that Garmin could more easily ‘Garminify’, since it was just recently done when Indievelo came over to TrainingPeaks.

 

4) The TrainingPeaks platform for athletes: Hot take here, I think this is overrated for Garmin to try and integrate. In fact, as one who worked in IT integrations of acquisitions for a decade+, I think there’s virtually zero chance they could integrate TrainingPeaks into Garmin Connect at a native/structural level. They are just too vastly different and massive platforms that don’t really allow for a marriage. Instead, they’d be operated separately.

 

5) The TrainingPeaks platform for coaches: This is just a layer atop the athlete platform, so they are treated as one and the same. Again, there’s zero chance Garmin can integrate this natively into other Garmin things, instead, everything will be partnership type integrations (from a technical layer).

 

6) The data within TrainingPeaks: I don’t think this actually has much value to Garmin. Again, hot take, but Garmin has *far* more data already in every possible way than TrainingPeaks does. Sure, there’s some competitive device data in there from Wahoo and the like, but again, that’s a drop in the olympic sized pool compared to what Garmin has. In fact, I’d even bet that Garmin generates more data within its user base every day than TP does in a year (if not far more). We’re likely talking 50-100 million users generating daily data, and the vast majority of TP data is likely from Garmin devices anyway. Finally, Garmin has hardly been on the leading edge of using big data for training models, so going out and getting a slightly different bucket of data doesn’t seem to hold much water.

So what’s Garmin’s thinking here? I suspect finding a way to eventually make Garmin Connect+ a thing people want to pay for. As I outlined in my Garmin Cirqa piece yesterday, Garmin has a very legit problem where Connect+ simply doesn’t offer a compelling reason for people to pay for it. I don’t. In fact, I let my subscription lapse this past April; it just doesn’t add anything to my life.

Yet, if they add in TrainingPeaks in some sort of tier? Now we’re talking. Same goes for TrainingPeaks Virtual as an indoor platform.

In fact, while the pricing for TrainingPeaks as a user platform exceeds that of Garmin Connect+, I think they could split out access, and offer TrainingPeaks Virtual within the Garmin Connect+ membership as a really interesting way to immediately increase the appeal to at least cyclists. Keeping in mind we’re talking about a platform (TPV) that was free before the TrainingPeaks acquisition. We know that the software development team is super lean there (and super talented).

Which to me almost sets the stage for two different Garmin Connect+ tiers, one including access to the full TrainingPeaks analytics suite as an athlete, and one including other TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic features at a more normal price point. While Garmin might try to make the argument that adding too many features to Connect+ would ‘cheapen’ the platform, I’d argue the opposite: It strengthens it. Because right now, there’s no compelling reason for most people to subscribe.

The Concerns:

Still, I have some very real concerns here. Let’s get right into them.

First, will Garmin block access to 3rd-party companies, like Wahoo and others, from uploading to TrainingPeaks? If so, coaches will quickly migrate to other coaching platforms out there, despite how much coaches (rightfully) dislike moving platforms. The key aspect of TrainingPeaks that made it successful is being data-neutral. I asked Garmin for an answer to this, but I haven’t received a reply back on that question yet.

Second, will Garmin still allow licensing of the TrainingPeaks metrics to various device makers/platforms that leverage it today? Back when Garmin acquired FirstBeat, they said they would allow such licensing. But over time that slowly disappeared, and today FirstBeat doesn’t do any licensing to 3rd-parties for their metrics to new customers as far as I know. In the grand scheme of things, most TrainingPeaks metrics can be emulated (near identically) without the TrainingPeaks name, so this isn’t quite as critical as the others. Still, it’s notable.

Third, will Garmin actually maintain and improve the platform? Garmin doesn’t have any viable pathway to consolidating the TrainingPeaks platform into Garmin Connect. From a technical standpoint, even the most talented tech acquisition integration teams would struggle heavily to consolidate these very different platforms. Structurally, they are so fundamentally old and different. Further, Garmin themselves have a long history of being unable to integrate 3rd-party platforms. We can look at the original MotionBased platform (which became Garmin Connect), or things like the DeLorme platform (which became inReach). Both well over a decade ago. In the case of inReach, we’ve only recently seen some tech changes there to light up various new features. I suspect behind the scenes it’s still totally separate. All of which ignores Tacx basically running as-is (with improvements, to be fair), ever since. Point being, Garmin is going to have to effectively maintain TrainingPeaks forever, hopefully with new features. At some point, someone might see that budget line item and question it.

Fourth, what does this mean to coaches? At this point, there’s been no real communication to TrainingPeaks coaches as far as I know, on what this means to them (in any way). So that’s a big ticket item. [Update, a few hours later, TrainingPeaks has sent out a short e-mail to coaches, which I’ve added above in the post.]

All of these are fuzzy, and when asked for more detail, there are no promises or detail to be had. Usually acquisitions have slightly more information, though, Garmin does tend to provide virtually no information on acquisitions.

Wrap-Up:

Garmin has made many fitness acquisitions over the years, some really compelling (like Backtracker, which then launched and became Garmin Varia radar, well loved by many), others that fired a blank (like Alphamantis aero sensors), and some in between, like Tacx (which cost Garmin a boatload, but hasn’t really produced many new products since). But the vast majority are hugely successful (like DeLorme). For ones like the FirstBeat acquisition, there have been pretty clear benefits to Garmin users, even if at the expense of (many) competitors. In that case, such is business. Those companies had to go out and develop their own algorithms. And then there are more recent ones like MyLaps for timing, which it’s a bit too soon to see that one play out.

On the scale of user bases, the TrainingPeaks one is likely up there as one of the biggest, alongside Tacx. Sure, there were more people crossing a finish line with MyLaps hardware at that time, but that hardly counts as an end-user in this context.

One of the things that I think separates this acquisition from those, is I feel like in most other Garmin acquisitions, the company being acquired either has some unique new technology Garmin wants, or Garmin is buying it so someone else doesn’t. In this case though, I’m struggling to classify TrainingPeaks as either of those two things – especially in the face of a rise of AI training apps. I don’t see someone like Strava seriously fishing to buy TrainingPeaks. They already bought others, and adding more to their balance sheet ahead of an IPO doesn’t make a ton of sense.

Instead, it seems logical that Garmin is looking to see if it can increase its subscription revenue, possibly via putting coaching aspects (plans or otherwise) into some sort of Connect+ bucket, or perhaps just keeping it standalone. Ultimately, if there’s one truism of Garmin acquisitions, it is that they are very rarely wrong (from a Garmin business standpoint). Sorta like Garmin’s legal team. We just don’t necessarily see what the full picture is immediately, or even in the medium term.

Only time will tell, both in terms of the impact on Garmin, but also to consumers.

With that, thanks for reading!

After nearly a year of 100% incorrect rumor mill posts, Garmin Cirqa is finally here. About the only thing the rumors managed to get correct is the obvious: a screenless wearable. But the reality is, there’s little to be surprised by here with Garmin Cirqa. After all, they’d been laying this groundwork now for years, and more intensely in the last year. That included things like the screenless Garmin Index Sleep monitor last summer, which worked just fine as a screenless wearable 24×7 too.

The Garmin Cirqa comes in at $199, and has essentially every health/fitness tracking feature of any of Garmin’s sub-$500 GPS watches…just without a screen. And, without any required subscription cost. While you can certainly add Garmin Connect+, there’s little reason to for most users. More on that later down below.

Garmin has essentially delivered exactly what everyone has asked for, both in terms of features, as well as in terms of the no-subscription aspect. Obviously, there will be debates about the price being higher than Amazfit/Fitbit, but I’ll tackle that later. And in fact, they delivered one thing people didn’t expect: A button. Or more specifically, a button that actually has a number of functions. So we’ll dive into the hardware, the software/app, and everything in between. I’ll also have separate posts/videos with detailed comparisons to all the other screen-less wearables, which I’ve been wearing 24×7 since each of them has come out.

This post isn’t a full in-depth review; that’ll come shortly with a bit more details on accuracy, reliability of automatic workout tracking, and more.

Note that Garmin sent over a media loaner unit to poke at. As always, I don’t take any money from any companies I review, and I go out and buy my own units after launch, with media loaner units eventually making their way back across the pond to Garmin. Further, everything here is written by me, a real human. There’s no AI slop here (or any AI content). You can help support the site by becoming a DCR Supporter, which gets you ad-free access and a behind-the-scenes video series.

The Key Specs:

The Garmin Cirqa essentially has all the same health/wellness tracking features as any other recent Garmin watch (except ECG), so if you’re familiar with those features, then the answer is essentially ‘yes ’ to all of them. The key difference here to other watches is obviously the lack of a display/screen.

Price: $199USD/€199/£179/CAN$279
Battery Life: 10 days claimed
Weight: 20g
Sizing: Each color is offered in two sizes: Small/Medium, and Large/XL
Colors: 4 colorways, seen below, Black, Grey, Red/Pink, Navy Blue
Biceps Band Option: Yes (two sizes), $59 (or, $209 total with Cirqa pod if bought on Garmin’s site, instead of regular band)
Button: Yes, for manually starting activities, snooze, HR broadcasting, and more.
Daily Steps & Activity Tracking: Yes
Calorie Tracking: Yes
Sleep Tracking: Yes, including sleep phases/stages
Nap Detection: Yes
Smart Wake Alarm: Yes
HRV Tracking: Yes
Skin Temperature Tracking: Yes (nightly)
SpO2 Tracking: Yes
Respiration Rate: Yes
Stress Tracking: Yes
Women’s Cycle Tracking: Yes
Journaling/Logging: Yes
Health Status: Yes
Nacho Cheese Dispenser: No, due to size, this can only do parmesan sprinkles
Heart Rate Broadcasting: Yes (ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart)
Automatic Workout Tracking: Yes
Automatic Sport Detection: Yes, limited sports
Automatic Rep Counting: Yes
Manual Workouts: Yes, via button/app, 80+ workout types
Structured Workouts: Only with Garmin Connect+
GPS: Not in unit, with app as Connected GPS
Altimeter/Barometer: Not in unit, thus, no stair counting
Intensity Minutes: Yes
VO2Max Estimates: Yes
Live GPS Tracking During A Workout: Yes with app, sharable to friends/family
Combines data with other Garmin devices via App: Yes, Unified Training Status/Physio TrueUp
Training Readiness: Yes
Acute Load (Training Load): Yes, including Load Ratio & Load Focus
Recovery Time: Yes
Training Effect: Yes, including Primary Benefit, Workout Benefit

And lastly, here’s a look at all the color options you’ve got (plus more color options as standalone bands):

Got all that? There’s a bunch of other more minor features under/tied to some of the above, things like Sleep Coach & Sleep Alignment features, or the app-based Jetlag Advisor. But the above is the core of it all. So instead, let’s take a closer look at the hardware.

The Hardware:

First up, let’s look at the hardware itself. The band measures 27mm across, thus a touch bit wider than the Whoop 5.0 band, and comes in four colors as noted above:

The band covers up the pod that sits below the strap, which contains the sensor, of course, as well as the button on the side.

You can adjust the tightness of the strap by undoing the velcro and then simply loosening it. Complicated this is not.

The button allows you to start a workout manually, though again, it’ll do that automatically as well. This just ensures it catches the start of the workout, useful for activities that may be hard to detect initially (such as yoga, or even a walk). It can also be used to snooze an alarm.

The pod portion is detachable, allowing you to swap it to different bands. You can do this using the quick release mechanism:

The pod uses Garmin’s Elevate Gen4 optical heart rate sensor, which is their older module (Gen5 is the latest, found on their higher-end Fenix & Forerunner watches). The key difference between Gen4 and Gen5 is the inclusion of medically certified ECG on most Gen5 watches. Gen5 also has better accuracy in certain edge cases (e.g., running downhill on a cool day). In most cases, the accuracy difference between Gen4 and Gen5 is pretty minor (if anything). For non-workout usage, it’s totally negligible.

While much ink will be spilled about Gen4 vs Gen5 here, I don’t really think it’s that big of an issue. At this price point, Gen5 would have only given ECG (medical-grade Afib detection), which, while useful to some, Garmin seems to believe isn’t really that applicable to most. I somewhat agree there. The key thing that’s in Cirqa that has historically been tied to Gen5, is skin temperature. Garmin started including that a while back in other Gen4 watches, so that’s no longer a hardware gap.

In terms of charging, Garmin claims 10 days of battery life and uses the same proprietary Garmin charging port as other watches. The other end of that cable is USB-C:

Here’s how it compares side-by-side with the Whoop 5.0/MG and Fitbit Air:

Then how it looks on my wrist (17cm, 6.5″):

Now, with the hardware covered, let’s move to the most important part here, the software app. As with all screenless trackers, the app is really what matters.

General Daily Usage & Metrics:

The Garmin Cirqa device will largely act just like any other Garmin watch in terms of all the metrics it’ll pull in. Meaning that if you’re familiar with daily/24×7 wear/usage of a Garmin wearable from any point in the last few years, it’ll be the exact same here. The only differences come in the workout section. Thus, if this isn’t your first Garmin rodeo, you can probably skip ahead to that section.

In this case, I’m going to show it to you without a Garmin Connect+ subscription, so everything you see here is included. Because I have a Garmin watch, the data shown will be a blend of underlying Cirqa data and Fenix data. But everything here is included in Cirqa.

First up, you’ve got your dashboard. There’s a new ‘Essentials’ tile section that you can enable at the top, which shows you your…well…essential items. This update is available now to all Garmin Connect users (More > Settings > Home Settings > Essentials). This is lightly customizable, up to four pieces:

Below that, you’ve got your ‘In Focus’ dashboard. In my case, that’s Training Readiness, plus some other tiles to the right, all of which are customizable.

Then, below that, I’ve got all the ‘At a Glance’ bits, which are again customizable. Each of these are clickable to more details. This includes heart rate, body battery, sleep score, RHV status, and plenty more:

If we were to click on Body Battery or Heart Rate, for example, we can see details of my day thus far (including stress tracking and activity overlays). Additionally, all of these have changeable timeframes (e.g., 7-days/4-weeks/1-year).

The same is true for sleep stats, which will pull in your sleep data, including Sleep times/score, HRV trending, SpO2 (PulseOx), and more.

Further, there are sleep coaching insights, as found on other recent Garmin wearables, including Sleep Coach and Sleep alignment:

Speaking of sleep, you can configure sleep alarms in the Garmin Connect app, both standard alarms and smart-wake alarms. Smart-wake alarms will attempt to look at your sleep phases/stages, and wake you up slightly before your actual alarm time, in a sleep stage that hurts less.

And that button on the side? It acts as a snooze button. Or, if you long-hold it, it’ll turn off the alarm entirely.

Next on the data front, there’s the Health Status dashboard, which has your key vitals (mostly overnight) that show against your specific trended history (meaning, whether they are high/low/normal relative to your baseline):

Further, as you’d expect, you can see my steps for the day here, which shows a relatively calm morning, and then I went out for a 5KM run in early afternoon, which spiked my steps. And of course, I can trend that over longer time periods as well.

I’ll add in more data snippets in my in-depth review, but that’s just a quick look at those core stats.

When it comes to the device settings, there are nearly all the same options you’d find on a Garmin watch, such as alerts, alarms, user profile, etc…

Notably at the bottom there’s the ‘Find My Band’ option, which will show you the last place the band was connected to your phone. If you tap the ‘Find My Band’ button, it’ll start vibrating the band. Obviously this isn’t an audible beeper, but if it’s in a quiet room you should be able to find it. Finally, note that you can double-tap the unit to see your battery status, using the small LED light.

With that, let’s dive into workouts.

Workout Usage:

The Garmin Cirqa band will track your workouts automatically, or manually. When in a workout mode, it can also pair to your phone to get additional data, including GPS (useful not only for plotting your GPS track, but also for speed/distance/etc. in cycling).

When it comes to tracking that workout, there are essentially three core ways it can happen:

– Automatically: By default, if you do nothing, it’ll create an activity for you automatically and attempt to classify (detecting the sport type).
– Manually via the button: In this case, it tells Cirqa that you’re starting a workout and that you want to start tracking. This is useful for sports that don’t have clear signals (e.g., yoga) that you’re starting a workout.
– Manually via the Garmin Connect app: In this case, you not only start the workout manually, but do so specifying an exact sport as well, from 80+ sports. Further, there are app dashboards to see some of your metrics in real time.

So, starting off with a simple auto-detect activity, I went for a 5KM relatively intense trail run. Out into the midday heat and back.

My other Garmin watches synced the activity, but unfortunately, nothing from Cirqa. After an hour, nothing appeared. [Update: Garmin says that if another Garmin device is used where a manual recording is made, be it Garmin watch, Garmin bike computer, etc… it’s going to defer to the manual recording from those activities and basically disappear the Cirqa activity. This makes total sense from a user standpoint to minimize clutter.]

Thinking that perhaps it was tied to the other Garmin watches pushing activities, I went out for another short few-kilometer run, this time with connectivity turned off on the watches, and no phone. This time it did create an automatically detected activity, though it took about 15-20 minutes after the run to show up. It’ll basically push a notification to your phone that an activity has been detected, and then ask you to confirm the activity type (it was correct).

This is different from Whoop (and Fitbit), which just ‘own’ the decision and mark it as a run and call it done. I kinda wish Garmin would be a bit more ‘automatic’ here. [Update: Garmin says that over time, it’ll become more ‘confident’, and simply start auto-confirming those activities by itself.]

In any case, it seemed to start a bit too early while I was walking to my starting point, and it actually picked up my phone that I had left behind on the way out. In any case, there are stats here:

Now, Garmin has the option to trim the stats to remove the start/end bits that aren’t correct, but sadly, that didn’t work. I tried a few more times, without luck. Again, for a screenless wearable, this is a key feature that *has* to work. [Update: Garmin says a backend update pushing Wednesday, July 22nd, will fix this issue.]

Speaking of things that didn’t work, I somehow went from a training readiness of 73 (prior to my first run), down to 50 (after my first run), and then back up to 73 (after my 2nd run + a ride). And then 15 minutes after that, went back down to 54. So…yeah, something isn’t working there either. [Update: Garmin says this is a known issue they are working to address, but don’t have a time/fix estimate yet.]

Next, when it comes to a manually started workout via the button, you can configure what exactly happens when you press that button. First, it’ll always start a certain type of activity. That could be Running, or Yoga, or Strength. Or, you can just make a generic timed activity. Further, you can specify whether to leverage your phone’s GPS when the button is pressed, as well as specify any alerts (which is currently just AutoLap by distance, and a time-based alert). Further, you can define whether it’s on the wrist, or an armband:

When you press that button on the side, it’ll automatically start recording an activity, and give you a notification on your phone. Here, you can open up a tab that shows you incredibly limited information, as seen below:

There’s no way to customize this, or expand it. If you subscribe to Garmin Connect+, you also get a heart rate graph. Let me be clear: This is astonishingly disappointing. Amazfit, at $99, gives you a fully customizable live stats dashboard, complete with maps, charts, and more. Whoop does the same. Polar does the same (at $199), and Fitbit, while at $99, has admitted their first release of the live activity page needs a revamp and has committed to working on improving it.

I have no problem with Garmin upselling you on Garmin Connect+ to provide additional features. But this simply shouldn’t be an upsell feature. This is basic dial tone stuff that’s been in apps for 15 years. And even if I did subscribe to GC+, it still wouldn’t show maps or customizable data pages. But again, how on earth does a heart rate band not show me my actual current heart rate? Are you kidding me?!? C’mon.

In any case, when you’re done with the activity, you can press the button to save/end it. Or, you can use the smartphone to end it.

Lastly, on the workout starting piece, there’s the manual start with the Garmin Connect app. In this case, I started a simple workout while cycling to the grocery store to get garbage bags (seriously), with a bit extra for fun. This is useful here because I’m able to leverage GPS for the route (and distance), while the Cirqa provides the heart rate metrics. But again, same very thin information during the activity as above.

You’ll press the +  at the top to start a workout manually, choose the workout type, and then press start:

During the activity, you’ll see the same stats as the previous section. Again, no actual live heart rate.

Then you can see the summary stats of the workout afterward. Obviously, had this been a normal cycling workout, I’d have much more impressive stats. But, you can get the gist of things from a quick loop around to get some garbage bags.

In my full in-depth review, I’ll go into how well it recognizes cycling from an automatic detection standpoint, especially for commuting, where the more casual start/stops can cause some automatic detection algorithm challenges. And of course, detailed heart rate accuracy charts/etc…

Now somewhat surprisingly, none of my workouts have synced to 3rd-party apps such as Strava, TrainingPeaks, etc… Which…umm…is very surprising. [Update: Garmin says this is because they hadn’t toggled a backend switch yet to send workouts from Cirqa to 3rd-party platforms. That toggle has now been flipped, and I can confirm that as of the morning of July 22nd, my bike commute showed up on Strava/etc…]

Meanwhile, the button has a handy feature during workouts that’s worthwhile mentioning: Turning on heart rate broadcasting. You can long-hold it for two seconds, and it’ll start broadcasting your heart rate to 3rd-party apps/platforms (e.g., Zwift, Peloton, etc…), or things like a Garmin bike computer. The small LED on the side will flash yellow/orange when it’s doing so. Here you can see it in Zwift:

(Note: You need to enable this in Settings > Health & Wellness > Broadcast Heart Rate > Device Control & Status toggles)

Now, one workout-specific feature that’s unique to Garmin Connect+ is the ability to iterate through a structured workout on the app. This piece requires Connect+, regardless of whether it’s a Garmin Coach workout, or one that you created.

In any case, after your workouts (any workouts, of any type, structured or otherwise), you’ve got additional data as it relates to training load and training status. Training Load (specifically, Acute Load) will show load as it relates to your baseline over time. While Training Status will show the usual Productive, Unproductive, Maintaining, Recovery, etc… Acute Load includes aspects like Load Ratio and Load Focus. In my case, I’ve been doing lots of summer water things that aren’t really high-heart-rate activities (stand-up paddle boarding, eFoiling, etc.) that have me with a reasonably low training load the last few weeks.

Whereas Recovery will show up in both the activity itself (the recovery time needed from that activity), as well as overall Recovery time needed until your next hard workout, and can be seen in Training Readiness.

Finally, there’s Garmin’s Training Readiness feature. This is Garmin’s umbrella metric that looks at your training load (Acute Load), Sleep (last night, and recent nights), Recovery Time, Stress, and HRV status, and gives you an overall score. This score shifts throughout the day, usually starting off in the morning and declining if you’ve had a busy day, or increasing slightly for an easy day. Stress moments will drop the score down, as will workouts. You can see my score this morning:

Whereas before my run this afternoon it had slowly climbed to 73, and then after my run it dropped down to 50, due to the recovery need pushing the score down. The problem is, Garmin isn’t updating the second chart throughout the day, but does update it in Essentials.

Generally speaking, Training Readiness is one of the best things that Garmin has designed, mostly in the footsteps of what Fitbit did with Daily Readiness Scores years ago (now just called Readiness). It’s a key leg-up over Whoop, especially, which lacks any sort of continually updating score. In Whoop’s case, you have a Strain Score (effectively Training Load for the day), and then a point-in-time Recovery score in the morning. But that score doesn’t update over the course of the day (either up or down). Garmin needs to update their user interface to correctly show the value consistently across all parts.

Again, Training Readiness, along with all the components that go into it, is a key competitive advantage that Garmin has here. While Whoop has their own advantages (such as more accessory options, and better automatic workout type detection), the Training Readiness is hard to overstate. Especially if your goal is to have that type of guidance that so many people with screenless wearables want.

Finally, when it comes to your data and mixing it with other Garmin wearables, it all syncs in, just like any other Garmin watch. So you can use Cirqa 24×7, or just a portion of the data. The data will update accordingly on your other devices. For example, during this run, I took off my Fenix 8 Pro, and instead wore the Cirqa on one wrist, and then a Forerunner 170 on the other wrist. At the end of the day, the Fenix 8 Pro updated its stats accordingly with the Cirqa data (including steps, training load, etc…).

What Does Garmin Connect+ Subscription Add?

In short, very little. And more specifically, very little beyond what is already there over the last year.

As noted above, Connect+ isn’t required for the device, and instead, is only giving you a handful of extra features, mostly around coaching and nutrition tracking. Most of the coaching features seen here are usually free on Garmin’s watches with screens, but here they leverage the Garmin Connect app as your screen, and thus decide to charge you for it.

Here’s what Garmin Connect+ would add:

– Garmin Coach Workouts in app: Strength & Fitness specifically
– Additional Structured Workouts in app: Cardio, Yoga, HIIT, Strength, Pilates, Wheelchair
– Nutrition Tracking: Launched earlier this year.
– Manual Lap Creation: Via the Garmin Connect app during Live Activities
– HR graph in the app: For Live activities, it adds the heart rate chart/graph at the top
– Garmin Active Intelligence (AI) Insights: Very short couple-line snippets in the app dashboard
– Performance Dashboard (Web): Basically can create your own dashboard on the web
– Garmin Trails: Curated trail routes, not really applicable to Cirqa
– Enhanced LiveTrack Location Sharing: This will text (instead of e-mail, which is free), as well as a dedicated LiveTrack page
– 3D Maps in app: Again, for workouts with GPS only
– Discounts on Garmin accessories: Via app, very limited selection
– Extra Garmin Social Badges: Again, via app
– Annual Roundup of Activity Stats: At end of year, ‘Garmin Connect Rundown’ slideshow

As you can see, many of the features aren’t super applicable to Cirqa. Accessory discounts are things like Garmin cycling sensors (not applicable here), and Edge bike cases. There are also discounts on heart rate straps, but there’s an HR sensor here, and most of the time Amazon is still cheaper than the Garmin.com discount anyway.

I think the most notable feature here is just how limiting the live activity view is (on the mobile app) without GC+, but frankly, GC+ only adds the live HR graph metric, which is pretty limiting.

Instead, the most applicable Garmin Connect+ feature here is the Garmin Coach Workouts in the app, and then the manual lap creation. The Garmin Coach Strength workouts have been behind the Garmin Connect paywall since they were introduced. But here on Cirqa, any structured workouts require Garmin Connect+. But the lack of being able to do your own structured workouts without GC+, is pretty weird.

Meanwhile, aspects like nutrition tracking are very real, and if you were previously paying for some other nutrition tracking platform, this will generally be about the same price as that, plus you get all the extra bits outlined above. You can check out my full Garmin Connect+ nutrition post here, as well as my full Garmin Connect+ features rundown here.

A Quick Market Comparison:

(Above left to right: Fitbit Air, Garmin Cirqa, Whoop 5.0/MG, Amazfit Helio)

Next, here’s a not-so-short chart I’ve put together comparing how Garmin’s offering competes with others on the market today. I’ll continue to expand this, and do a full dedicated post with more analysis, but here’s the gist of it for now with the core metrics:

Again, I’ll dive into things more deeply in the coming days, from a comparison standpoint.

FAQ’s:

Here’s a quick listing of all the most common questions you’re probably going to ask, as well as any others I’m seeing asked a fair bit, I’ll include here.

1) Does Garmin Cirqa require any subscription?

No, it does not. While you can subscribe to Garmin Connect+ to get added features outlined above, there’s no core feature that requires it. The only feature that’s really applicable here would be the Nutrition tracing function released earlier this year. But for context, I don’t subscribe to Garmin Connect+, and don’t feel like I’m missing anything. All of the features it has without a subscription are more than competitive enough to Whoop & Fitbit.

2) What’s the battery claim?

Garmin claims 10 days of battery life

3) Are there any buttons?

Yes, one button to start/stop an activity manually. You can also just use automatic workout detection. Further, the button acts as a snooze button for alarms, can start heart rate broadcasting (by long-press), and can silence the vibration motor (alarm) if you used the Find My Garmin feature. Also, it’s used for initial pairing.

4) Does it have a screen, or any display/LED?

No, it does not have a screen of any type. It does, however, have a small pairing LED on the device, like others from Whoop, Fitbit, and more.

5) Does it have vibration alerts?

Yes, it has vibration alerts to be used as a sleep alarm.

6) Does it automatically create workouts without pressing any buttons?

Yes, it can (and will) automatically track workouts. This is grouped into basically two groups. The first is that for certain sport types (like a run/walk) it’ll create a run/walk workout in your workout log. For other types that it’s unsure of, it’ll still log the workout, and then you can manually assign the sport type. Additionally, you can always manually log a workout with the Garmin Connect App leveraging the Cirqa band, from those 80+ sport types.

7) Does it show Acute Load (Training Load)?

Yes, it records Acute Load, Load Ratio, and Load Focus. Basically, at the exact same Training Load status as any high-end Garmin Watch (even a Fenix 8 Pro).

8) Will those workouts sync to Strava and other platforms?

Yes, it’ll automatically send them to 3rd-party platforms, if you’ve configured it.

9) Does Garmin Cirqa Support ECG?

No, it does not have the correct sensor or internal wiring to do medical-grade ECG or Afib detection. That’s part of Garmin’s Elevate Gen5 optical HR sensor, and this contains a Gen4 optical HR sensor. While Garmin has some much older watches (the Venu 2 Plus) that did ECG on Gen4, that required additional internal wiring and isolation rings.

10) Does it monitor skin temperature?

Yes, it’ll monitor skin temperature at night. That’s mostly useful for female cycle tracking (predictions); for other scenarios, it doesn’t really tend to be all that useful because skin temperature monitoring at night is far more impacted by things like the room temperature.

11) Does it monitor your heart rate 24×7?

Yes, like all Garmin wearables, it monitors and records your heart rate 24×7. You can view that within the Garmin Connect app (both on the mobile app and on the website).

12) Does it have high heart rate alerts?

Yes, you can configure high/low abnormal heart rate alerts, for times outside of workouts.

13) Does it measure SpO2 (PulseOx)?

Yes, it measures PulseOx at night automatically. Further, you can do a one-off measurement at any time using the Garmin Connect app.

14) Does Cirqa measure Respiration Rate?

Yes, like other Garmin wearables, it’ll measure this at night and trend it over time. Additionally, it’ll measure this during a workout.

15) Does it have the Health Status feature/dashboard?

Yes, it does. Health Status isn’t technically a new feature per se, but rather, just collecting data points Garmin has long collected (many years), and putting them in a single dashboard and trending them. There are more details here.

16) Does it have journaling?

Yes, Garmin has journaling included (for free), since about a year ago. Details here.

17) Does it track steps?

Yes, it’ll track steps, as well as intensity minutes, and of course calories.

18) Is it waterproof?

Yes, it’s waterproof to 50m.

19) Does it have GPS?

No, it does not have GPS inside it, but it can use the Garmin Connect app with your phone to record a GPS track of your activity. Thus, you can use the heart rate portion from Garmin Cirqa, and then use your phone for the GPS track to get distance, speed, pace, and other metrics (seen on Garmin Connect mobile).

20) Does it have WiFi?

No, it does not have WiFi. WiFi would burn far too much battery here. It has Bluetooth and USB via the Garmin standard proprietary USB charging port. You can sync via Garmin Express on desktop as well.

21) Does it broadcast your heart rate to other apps/devices?

Yes, it broadcasts on standard ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart to any 3rd party device/app.

22) Does it connect to ANT+ or Bluetooth sensors like power/cadence/etc…?

No, neither the Cirqa device nor the Garmin Connect app will connect to these sensors from a data workout standpoint.

23) If I wear Cirqa and a Garmin watch at the same time during a workout, what happens?

The way it works is that if you record a manual activity on any Garmin device while Cirqa is worn, then the manually recorded activity will take priority, and disappear the Cirqa activity (if the other device’s manual one syncs first). However, if Cirqa syncs first, and you confirm that auto-detect activity (meaning, change it from ‘Maybe’ an activity to ‘Definitely’), then any other Garmin manually recorded activities during that timeframe will stay (just how it works today when recording on two Garmin devices at once). This is true for Garmin watches, as well as Garmin Edge devices.

Beyond that, for non-workout aspects, if you wear a Garmin watch + Cirqa, then it defaults to which device is set as the Primary Device in your settings.

24) If I switch back and forth between Cirqa and a Garmin watch, will my steps/etc be updated?

Yes, you should have full true-up of data, including steps, Body Battery, HRV Status, Stress, Training Status, training load metrics, Sleep data, sleep scores, etc…. Basically everything will sync seamlessly.

25) Is the bicep band simply a longer regular strap?

No, the bicep band has a substantially different and more elastic material on it than the regular strap. This is common for other companies like Whoop/etc, where you want the bicep band to have more ‘give’ than a regular watch strap.

—

I’ll keep rounding up the most frequent questions and sticking them here.

Wrap-Up:

So is this a ‘Whoop Killer’? Or a ‘Fitbit Killer’? Nah. Again, that’s just clickbait. Instead, it’s going to undercut both of those, but in different ways. This hurts Whoop more than it hurts Fitbit. In the case of Fitbit, it’s still missing some elements that target the hardcore athlete, such as better tracking data during a workout, a clear-cut user interface for data analytics, and deeper journaling. Whereas Garmin, they easily outclass Whoop on both the deeper data analytics side. The journaling isn’t quite as deep out of the box as Whoop’s, but you can also customize it to fill those gaps, so for most, it’s probably good enough. Where Garmin does lag behind Whoop is the simplicity of Whoop’s Strain/Recovery dashboard. Garmin has the exact same data (Acute Load, Training Readiness), but again, many people argue the way Whoop enumerates that data is cleaner. Further, Whoop’s accessory line is *far* deeper than Garmin’s (ironic, because that’s historically an area that Garmin has excelled at for other product lines, but seemingly dropped the ball here).

But having a ‘killer’ product is rarely about the best technical product. It’s also marketing. And both Whoop and Fitbit are immeasurably better at product marketing than Garmin is, especially when it comes to celebrities and influencers. Fitbit went deep in this area for the Fitbit Air launch, and as a result, the response has been borderline record-breaking. Equally, Whoop has a long history of doing the same across both celebrities and influencers (however you want to define that). While neither of those might appeal to the hardcore DC Rainmaker follower focused on data and science, the reality is they substantially move the needle. And Garmin simply doesn’t meaningfully engage with either.

Instead, I think the first step that Garmin has done here is to effectively stop the bleeding. Not just to Fitbit and Whoop, but also to Amazfit. With Amazfit priced at $99, for folks wanting a holistic watch+band solution, they were really the only other serious option (yes, Polar has a watch+band offering, but…). With Garmin’s offering on the table, they can be part of the competitive conversation when people are looking at any of these. With Garmin’s product, you pay once for $199, that’s it. Sure, there’s Connect+, but it’s hardly required. As a fun tidbit: My Connect+ subscription lapsed back in April, and there’s not been a single moment I missed it. For my needs (which are pretty darn data-heavy, mind you), it simply doesn’t provide anything. Perhaps Garmin can change that down the road, but for now, nah. That said, kudos to Garmin on sticking the landing on offering a biceps band at launch.

In that context, Garmin Cirqa is absolutely going to steal a number of purchases from Whoop. And not just purchases, but renewals. A single year of the cheapest Whoop device is equal to a lifetime of Garmin Cirqa. Thus, Garmin will take many of the more athletic-focused purchases, whereas Fitbit and Amazfit will take from Whoop many more of the budget-focused mainstream consumers. Where Garmin needs to think out of the box is how to convert those Fitbit purchasers to Garmin. Which, ultimately, gets back to marketing (starting with retailers, and all the way up from there). Garmin has solved the product problem; now they need to think about how they market it.

In any case, plenty more to come in the following days and weeks, so stay tuned!

With that, thanks for reading!

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Hopefully you found this review/post useful. At the end of the day, I’m an athlete just like you looking for the most detail possible on a new purchase – so my review is written from the standpoint of how I used the device. The reviews generally take a lot of hours to put together, so it’s a fair bit of work (and labor of love). As you probably noticed by looking below, I also take time to answer all the questions posted in the comments – and there’s quite a bit of detail in there as well.

If you're shopping for the Garmin Cirqa (Black) or any other accessory items, please consider using the affiliate links below! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot.

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Here's a few other variants or sibling products that are worth considering:

Garmin Cirqa (French Grey)

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Garmin Cirqa (Blue)

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Garmin Cirqa (Muave)

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Thanks for reading! And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible. And lastly, if you felt this review was useful – I always appreciate feedback in the comments below. Thanks!

Suunto has just announced a pile of new features as part of their Q2 update, which includes both firmware updates for watches, as well as platform updates for their app/platform.

Diving into the hardware side first, this is only for the Suunto Race 2 & Suunto Vertical 2. This is definitely a bit of a shift from updates of recent years that have been more widely supported with older models, whereas the Race 2 & Vertical 2 came out less than a year ago. It’s unclear if this is a clear trend going forward for Suunto (probably), or just a one-off thing. This would be more in line with how Garmin handles things, and more recently Wahoo as well. While COROS tends to support things further back (such as their recent June 2026 firmware update going back to previous-generation units).

In any case, here’s what’s new on the watch firmware:

– Maps get easier water feature labels
– Maps get mountain peak labels
– Maps get layer selection option (including layers for contour lines, place names, street labels, and POI listings)
– Expanded route storage, from 15 routes to 200 routes (#@$@# finally!)
– Adds new vertical gain training target (ascent target in vertical meters)
– Adds tides forecast feature
– Adds QR code pairing option
– Increases syncing speed of new SuuntoPlus apps by compressing them

Above, in the header photo, you can see an example of the new layers option that lets you toggle various tidbits on or off on the map. Meanwhile, down below is the ascent target for vertical gain from within a given workout.

Meanwhile, for the tidal forecast, this comes from the Suunto app and syncs to the device. Some companies have a tidal database that’s kept locally, whereas others sync it from an app. This does require the app nearby. I do wish it were a wee bit more specific in the Tides header as to which exact city it was pulling from. Obviously, the tides for where I am in Mallorca (in Spain) are vastly different from those in the Basque Country up north. In this case, I know these are my local tides, but if I actually cared about the tides (and thus, most likely on a boat), I’d want to know they were for my exact location, not yesterday’s location far away.

Next, from an app standpoint, there are a few new things there:

– Added new shading option in 3D maps (e.g., seeing steep sections)
– Added new map type (City Map), making buildings with a 3d styling
– New sharing overlays and backgrounds for sharing completed activities to friends (e.g., power/distance/etc)
– Updated layout in profile details to show badges and personal records

Here’s an example of the new shading & city maps:

Finally, last week there were some updates for the Suunto Ocean, from a dive standpoint:

– Added CCR mode (like in EON’s)
– Added multiple tank pod support
– Added New TTS values
– Added heart rate belt support
– Bug fixes to map

Now, as with past Suunto releases, one of the program managers has put together a video that walks through all these features, step by step.

Got all that? Good.

As always, it’s good to see Suunto has maintained their quarterly release cadence, following the most recent one back in April. We’ve seen most companies in this space join that pattern over the last year or two, albeit at different intensity levels. In this case, Suunto has left off both the Suunto Race 1 & Suunto Race S, which did get the April updates (the Vertical 1 did not get the April updates, but did get the January updates). Undoubtedly, that’s going to give some people a bit of pause for thought going forward. Unfortunately, it’s just too soon to know if ‘this model year only’ will become the new norm for software updates.

In the meantime, if you’ve got a Suunto Race 2 or Vertical 2, go forth and get it updated! The updates were released today, but as always, it may take a short bit of time before all watches receive the update.

With that, thanks for reading!

Found This Post Useful? Support The Site!

Hopefully you found this review/post useful. At the end of the day, I’m an athlete just like you looking for the most detail possible on a new purchase – so my review is written from the standpoint of how I used the device. The reviews generally take a lot of hours to put together, so it’s a fair bit of work (and labor of love). As you probably noticed by looking below, I also take time to answer all the questions posted in the comments – and there’s quite a bit of detail in there as well.

If you're shopping for the Suunto Race 2 or Suunto Vertical 2 or any other accessory items, please consider using the affiliate links below! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot.

Suunto Race 2

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Suunto Vertical 2

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And of course – you can always sign-up to be a DCR Supporter! That gets you an ad-free DCR, access to the DCR Shed Talkin' video series packed with behind the scenes tidbits...and it also makes you awesome. And being awesome is what it’s all about!

Thanks for reading! And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible. And lastly, if you felt this review was useful – I always appreciate feedback in the comments below. Thanks!

The new Oura Ring 5 is a genuinely and significantly smaller ring than the previous Oura Ring 4 that was on my finger. That part isn’t really debatable. And the real-world battery life seems to be a *slight* improvement over the past, though most of the time Oura rings seem to slowly lose their battery life, so this could just be a case of new unit vs well-worn unit. And finally, indeed, there are some new features – but those too are available to all recent Oura ring owners, and aren’t specific to the Oura Ring 5.

Nonetheless, I’ve been putting it through its paces over the last near-month across everything from swimming to cycling to running to strength workouts, and of course, simply sleeping and daily life. After all, that’s frankly what the Oura Ring is best at: Things other than sports. In fact, to be really clear upfront, I’d argue that even with some minor new features in the sports realm, the Oura Ring 5 is now woefully behind even the most basic wearables when it comes to sports tracking. So much so that as I tried to do accuracy comparisons, I’d forgotten just how far behind they are in this realm (and that’s aside from the accuracy itself).

Still, there are reasons you want a ring (from any company), which is most simply summed up: You don’t want to wear a watch/smart band. If you already have one of those watch/band devices, there’s literally no reason to get an Oura Ring in 2026, everyone else is too good – even the budget ones.

With that, let’s dive into the details. Note that I purchased this unit myself, along with the previous few versions, and I pay for my own subscription to the Oura Ring service.

Oura Ring 5 vs Ring 4:

So, what’s different? Size: this is almost entirely about size – and size-related things (though surprisingly, not reduced battery life). Here are the core differences:

– Reduced width: From 7.9mm down to 6.1mm
– Reduced thickness: From 2.8mm down to 2.28mm
– Reduced weight: From 3.3-5.2g down to 2g
– Reduced size options: From size 4-15 to size 6-13
– Increased battery life claim: From 5-8 days to 6-9 days
– The Sensors: They’ve decreased from 18 to 12 light paths, but 4x’d the strength of the lights, otherwise
– Pricing: Increased by $50 from $349 to $399 (base price, other options)
– Subscription: Still remains the same at $5.99/month

With the sensor changes, the company says that despite reducing the number of light pathways from 18 to 12, it’s increased the light brightness by 4x, which in turn has resulted in a 12% increase in nighttime HRV accuracy, and up to a 19% increase in workout accuracy.

As for the size, the company claims it’s up to 40% smaller than the previous edition, and likely that depends on precisely which model they’re talking about. Here’s my Oura 3 vs 4 vs 5 (all size 10):

For the model types, here’s the full range of colors:

And the pricing is:

Base models – $399/429EUR: Silver, and Black (mine is the base silver one)
Premium models – $499/529EUR: Gold, Stealth, Brushed Silver, and Deep Rose

Ok, got all that? Let’s dive into the box.

In the Box(es):

One thing to remember is that before you get ‘The Box’, you get ‘Another Box’. Specifically, when you order an Oura ring, you first get a sizing kit box. That box is a package of fake Oura rings, simply sizing rings for each size. They recommend you wear the ring for 24 hours prior to ordering your actual ring. They also note that their ring sizes might not match other ring sizes, hence the sizing kit.

In my case, I’ve consistently worn a Size 10 Oura ring since many versions ago. Also, in my case, I wear it on my ring finger. Oura has noted over the years that you can technically wear it on any finger you want, as long as it doesn’t rotate/move around by itself (mine doesn’t). Their general suggestion is the index finger; however, I personally don’t like the look of the ring on that finger for myself. To each their own.

In any case, once you validate the size you want, you go onto their site and simply choose the ring size, and it’ll ship out the actual ring to you in the final ring box. Below are the bits inside:

In short, you’ve got:

1) The Oura 5 ring itself
2) The Oura 5 charging dock with USB-C port (note: this dock is different than the Oura 4 charging dock)
3) USB-C to USB-C cable
4) Some paper stuff you probably won’t read

It’s all pretty straightforward.

Daily Life Tracking:

The thing Oura does best is quietly and discreetly tracking your daily activity, without having to wear a connected watch or band on your wrist. And given the even smaller size of the Oura Ring 5, it arguably does this better than ever. Of course, since there’s no external lights, vibration motor, or other display on the ring, everything it collects ends up in the Oura app.

The Oura app has been redesigned over the past year, and for the most part you’re either gonna love it or hate it. The app design essentially splits your information into two pieces: A row of scores along the top (readiness, sleep, activity, etc…), and then a never-ending scroll of larger display information down below it. Personally, I find it dilutes the information too much, and doesn’t really make your actual data very clear, but hey, that’s where we are today.

Starting with the top row, you’ve got a lightly customizable row of scores including: Readiness Score, Sleep Score, Activity Score, Heart Rate (Current), Stress (minutes), and then the ability to add Resilience (or, to remove the others):

Tapping on any of those individual scores brings you to more details about that particular metric/score. For example, if we tap on the ‘Readiness’ Score, it’ll bring us to a timeline showing readiness over the past week, plus the contributors to today’s score:

Generally speaking for wearables, including Oura, the Readiness Score attempts to bring in all the factors that define how ready you are for the day (including workouts or other demanding tasks). This includes looking at trends like resting heart rate, HRV (heart rate variability), Sleep, and Activity. These trends are specific to you and your historical data, not the overall population (especially for things like HRV). For example, in the case of HRV within Oura, it’s trending that over a 3-month period, and comparing the last two weeks to that value. That’s a bit high compared to most wearables that trend the last 7 days versus the 3-month (90-day) period, but I don’t have any real issues there (you can debate both sides of that coin).

However, this is why most wearables, again including Oura, really require at a minimum 2-3 weeks of data to be useful for these types of scores, and realistically require 2-3 months to have a solid baseline to work from. After which, each of the 9 different metrics that make up the Readiness score will have differing trending lengths.

In any case, heading onwards there’s sleep tracking. You can simply tap the ‘Sleep’ score at the top of the main dashboard to access it. This is an area that Oura really developed its name on, back at its beginnings in the 2015-2018 era. It did a lot of work to be a leader in sleep data during that time, especially as other early sleep tracking wearables struggled to get accurate data. However, fast-forwarding a decade, and frankly, there’s no meaningful difference between Oura and other wearables for core sleep stats. It’s an advantage that has largely faded away, as others have gotten really good as well.

As an example, here’s how a few day time-slices of tracking compared:

The gist of things? Scores roughly trend, but how each one decides awake/sleep time (especially during the middle of the night) is kinda all over the place.

Of course, more challenging is the exact times I woke up each day. Let’s look at this morning (Friday the 3rd):

Reality/Actual Went to sleep at ~1:45AM, woke up at 7:50AM, and snoozed twice till ~8:09AM
Oura Ring 5: Asleep at 1:48AM, woke up at 8:12AM
Whoop 5.0/MG: Asleep at 1:48AM, woke up at 7:59AM
Amazfit Helio: Asleep at 2:11AM, woke up at 8:10AM
Polar Loop: Asleep at 1:54AM, woke up at 8:12AM
Fitbit Air: Asleep at 1:48AM, woke up at 8:07AM
Garmin Fenix 8 Pro: Asleep at 1:37AM, woke up at 8:08AM

In any case, here’s what you’ll see on Oura’s page. Below you can see my sleep score, as well as its attempts to quantify sleep stages. Keeping in mind that most so-called gold-standard medical-grade sleep-scoring devices only hit about 80% accuracy rates, and this is at best below that. So I wouldn’t overthink sleep stage/phase components/accuracy.

Instead, focus on total sleep, sleep debt, and the sleep consistency metrics (roughly what they refer to as ‘Body Clock’). These are ultimately what will matter. Simply put: If you’re only getting 5 hours of sleep per night, no amount of supposed deep sleep phase/stage data is going to be getting you out of that hole. You can see these key metrics down below:

I actually really like Oura’s Sleep Debt feature (even if I’m probably constantly in debt), I think it’s honestly a better way of showing sleep needs than what most of their competitors show. Whoop also has sleep debt, but most other wearables don’t.

Anyways, below that you’ll find nighttime breathing, lowest heart rate values, and HRV trends. Generally speaking, I find HRV trending to be one of the best ways to predict upcoming sickness, especially 1-2 days out. My HRV values will drop considerably, just a night or two prior to visible symptoms of a cold. Keeping in mind, however, that significant evening drinking (or a massive workout/race) can also drive the same result, thus, it’s somewhat important to know if those other factors occurred.

In fact, you can even tag activities here, so you can see how they impact HRV. For example, I talked about alcohol and workouts, but even other factors like certain drugs (good or bad), can impact it. The same obviously goes for a red-eye flight, and many more factors. This helps you figure out those factors long term. The Sleep Health text you see above simply trends your sleep scores over time, which I’ll cover in the next section around ‘Vitals’.

Now, if we just glance at the lower bar, you’ll see it’s broken out from the original home dashboard bar with three buttons (Today/Vitals/My Health), to four buttons (Readiness/Sleep/Activity/Heart Rate + Stress). So, we’ll go with activity next. Here, it shows us total ‘activity’, where activity is defined as basically movement, including steps, workouts (confusingly also called ‘Activity’), and movement. You’ll also see training volume/frequency/recovery time, but as I’ll cover in the next section…umm…just ignore those.

As we scroll down, we can see activities pulled in from Strava. You can enable Strava sync (which is bidirectional, whether you like it or not), which in theory helps Oura classify activities (or, understand workouts you didn’t do with the Oura ring).

Now, that’s the end of the activity overview section there, but I’ll cover workouts in the next major section. For now, let’s wrap up with the ‘Heart Rate & Stress’ section:

This doesn’t really show a lot of new information, but rather, just summarizes existing information we’ve already seen at this point, and shows your heart rate values over the course of the day.

Meanwhile, looking at stress, it’ll plot that over the course of the day. You’ll notice how just after 18:00, it doesn’t have any white dots; that’s because during that timeframe I was doing a trail run. Oura puts these as high-stress events, rather than nullifying them like Garmin does. Yet concurrently, Oura doesn’t include this time in the ‘Stressed’ category. It’s kind of a weird halfsies decision. While from a medical standpoint, workouts are a ‘stressor’, they aren’t typically what most people would align to being ‘Stressed’. Especially since most people will do a workout to reduce stress (and most medical folks would recommend the same). Ideally, they’d just zero out that section of the chart, but I appreciate at least not plotting those points in the totals seen at the bottom.

Oh, and in terms of battery life, as a data point, on June 9th at 6PM, I was at 100% battery, and then by June 16th at 9PM, I was down to 7% and needing to recharge. So basically, 7 days of battery life for the size 10 unit, with roughly 1-2 hours of workout time per day (on average). On a second battery charge, it started that June 16th at 11PM on a full charge, but by the morning of June 22nd, it was down to 8% again and needed to be charged, putting it at 6 days this time. Then further again, the next charge after that also lasted 6 days before it was down to 10% and needed a charge before bed.

My Real World Battery Testing:
Week 1: 7 Days
Week 2: 6 Days
Week 3: 6 Days
Week 4: On track for 6 days again

That’s technically within the 6-9 day spec, but definitely not 9 days.

Vitals & My Health Sections:

Next, we’ve got two sections that essentially summarize all the other sections, and trend them a bit. Having a ‘Vitals’ section is the trendy thing to do the last few years, which basically looks at your stats in the other section and gives you a trend line. Here you can see this occurring for readiness, sleep, and others:

And yet more tiles:

Each of those tiles simply links back to one of the other previously discussed data points in the section prior. That said, I do need to draw your attention to that VO2Max score of 38, which is hilariously wrong/low. Most devices have my VO2Max in the 56-58ish realm these days. I was tested last year around 58 again, where I tend to float. The kicker here being I was even taking the time/effort to ensure all my multi-hour daily workouts were properly logged with Oura, and atop that, it has *YEARS* of my data to go on. Whatever they are doing here is just hard wrong.

Meanwhile, ‘My Health ’ is again more of the same, but now with color-coded trending for each section:

There is however, a Sleep Chronotype at the bottom, though that was already displayed in the Sleep section:

Now, the challenge with Oura’s sleep chronotype classification is that it’s not actually detecting my chronotype, but rather, forcing it. In my case, it shows my ‘Awake’ time each day at 8:03AM, and then simply adding 8 hours earlier to make it midnight. But in my case, I’m virtually never in bed by midnight (more like 1-2AM), and the 8:03AM? That’s simply me setting an alarm each day for the 7:50AM kids morning school rush, snoozing it once before finally getting up. On the weekend, it’s much later, and if there’s no school rush, it’s definitely not 8:03AM.

The point is, this is at best a useless categorization of your daily trends, but is definitely not your actual chronotype. Never mind the fact that since when did going to bed at 12AM classify as an “early evening type”? I mean, jokingly I’ll say midnight is ‘early evening’, but most rational people would classify an “early evening” bedtime as probably 9-10PM.

Sports Tracking:

Let’s be upfront about this: The Oura ring is not at all great for sports tracking. While the company did add some new features around activity tracking at the same time they announced the Oura Ring 5, they are pretty minimal in the grand scheme of things.

Specifically, new app updates now allow you to see *slightly* more data than in the past when you start a manual workout. However, that does not actually include the ability to see the ring’s heart rate data during the workout itself, only afterward in a highly smoothed manner. Further, they don’t push that data to 3rd party platforms such as Strava.

In any case, when it comes to sports tracking, you’ve actually got three main options:

1) Let the unit automatically detect the exercise, and you manually tweak the classification (sport type) if need be
2) Manually start a workout on the run to get that counted as a workout
3) Sync in the data from some other wearable/device, to get it counted as a workout

There’s some solid irony in the fact that the best way to work out with an Oura ring…is to wear another company’s device. Technically speaking, there’s also a third option:

For the automatic exercise bits, it virtually never gets those right for me (except sometimes cycling), and that’s with years of Oura ring experience. So instead, I’d rely on the manual activity creation.

To begin, you’ll tap in the lower-right to start a Live Activity, which opens up the menu to select the sport type as well as heart rate source.

We’ll get to the sport type in a second. But as you can see above, there are two options for the heart rate. The first is ‘Live Heart Rate Source’, where you choose another brand/unit to act as your heart rate sensors. In this scenario, you can pair to not just any Bluetooth HR sensor, but also anything through Apple Health (such as AirPod Pro 3 or PowerBeats Pro 2). It’s important to note that if you don’t have such a device, you can’t see your heart rate data during the workout live.

I can see how Oura likely convinced themselves that by allowing pairing to a heart rate strap, it ‘solved’ their sports-tracking problem. I can totally imagine how that conference room conversation went, but in reality, it just exposes the gap to other wearables even more. After all, Oura is basically saying you need another $60-$100 heart rate strap (plus your $400 ring) to do what the $99 Fitbit Air can do. And that still doesn’t solve for the basics of not including heart rate data in the activity file to platforms like Strava and others, which is simply baffling (more on that in a second).

In any case, we’ll choose the ring itself for now, since this is a review of a ring, not devices you should buy instead of the ring. Likewise, we’ll choose our sport. To Oura’s credit, there are a gazillion sport profiles to choose. I never knew Finnish baseball was a thing, but…umm…here we are (Oura is a Finnish company).

With all that settled, we’ll start our run. At this point, this is the only data screen you’ll see:

It shows your pace (or speed, if cycling), as well as your distance and time. That’s it. No map pages, no heart rate data, no heart rate zone pages, no training load, or anything else that virtually all of its competitors show. It’s really, really, really basic.

If you were to pair a heart rate strap with it, then you’d see one additional data metric, your heart rate:

But there are so many inconsistencies here. If you do an indoor workout (with an external HR sensor), you’ll see a nifty HR zone gauge with full page zone coloring behind it. But, if you do an outdoor workout, you don’t get that gauge, you just get a value, and small text for the zone. Also, sometimes it’ll just randomly lose GPS too (as seen above briefly). Oura, you have all the space in the world on that page, there’s no need to skip the zone indicator/gauge when outdoors.

No matter with or without an HR sensor, once your workout is complete, you can see a summary of the workout, including the map page if you did track an outdoor GPS activity, such as my run.

But here’s where things get baffling: Despite Oura’s long-standing integration with Strava, they don’t send any heart rate data to Strava in the file. Mind you, apps that leverage the Oura API can access it, so this is just Oura being super-lazy with not putting that data in the completed workout file they send to Strava.

Here, we can see this same run over on Strava, missing all heart rate data (the first screenshot shows from Oura, the second shows Oura as the device type, and the third shows missing HR data):

How the heck is this even remotely possible in 2026? C’mon Oura, wake up. You added this nifty feature, yet didn’t add the one point of data that you actually collect from the ring: Heart rate.

But wait – it gets worse! If you took the step of connecting a HR sensor to the Oura app to record your heart rate data live, then Oura won’t even send the workout file to 3rd party apps (Strava or otherwise). Yes, you read that right: not only do you not get the HR data, but it won’t send *anything* (the whole workout is missing) to 3rd party apps. It’s baffling. I’ve tried both indoor and outdoor workouts, the latest app update, multiple 3rd party apps, etc… How Oura, how?!?

Sigh.

All of which simply solidifies my earlier statement: If you want something to track your workouts, the Oura Ring definitely isn’t it.

Heart Rate Accuracy:

Now, setting aside my lack of recommendation for using the Oura Ring 5 for workouts, I will go ahead and at least briefly look at accuracy during said workouts. In this case, I pulled the heart rate data using a 3rd party app (Athalyze), which receives the data from Oura’s API. From there, I can compare it to other heart rate sensors that I wore during those workouts.

Note that Oura doesn’t offer any meaningful workout export feature otherwise. You can request to export your overall Oura data here, but that doesn’t include the underlying heart rate data; rather, it’s just a simple one-line-item summary of each workout in a CSV file. Again, I don’t really understand how a company full of really smart data scientists has fallen so far behind in data basics here. Also, somehow this takes up to 10 business days for that export to be completed.

In any case, let’s look at a few workouts…

First up, an indoor trainer workout (cycling). This had basically five intervals in it, but wasn’t super high-intensity. Here, you can see the Oura ring listed in hot NEON GREEN, and for the most part it was basically close enough to the chest strap and other sensors. But the second interval it did get lost for a bit, upwards of 24bpm offset (which is quite a bit):

If we look at another indoor trainer workout, you can see it’s basically spot-on. Note here it’s in ORANGE, though that doesn’t matter much as it’s nearly identical. There are only a few minor variations for a few seconds that are just a couple bpm away. Good stuff.

Next, let’s look at some runs. The first one is a road run, and the Oura is in BLUE. In this case, there’s one brief moment it drops out, but otherwise it’s very similar to the chest strap and other sensors, with only minor deviations. Good stuff again.

Next, I head out for a trail run. This is where you start to see a few more variations as I descend. In this case, we’re still in BLUE for the Oura ring, but you can see it struggles a bit as I descend down one section. And then likewise, it skips a hard effort back up a hill around the 30-minute marker, just totally missing it. But the rest of the run, it’s pretty good.

Next, another trail run, this one quite a bit more challenging in terrain. It’s basically 40 minutes of climbing at 10-20% gradient, and then a steep descent back down from there. The terrain is sometimes smooth, and sometimes super rocky requiring jumps/leaps. The point being you can see that on that descent, the HR accuracy basically falls apart for the entire rest of the run:

For fun, here’s that elevation graph, matched to the HR graph. Somewhat notable that the HR lock was ‘good’ again around the 1hr12m marker, when I had a slight ascent again, and then lost the plot promptly after that.

I had also done some strength workouts, though with automatic exercise recognition, it won’t send those off to 3rd-party apps. And then equally, the one time I did a manual strength workout, it failed to save anything (appeared the app crashed). Sigh.

Still, setting that aside, what’s notable here is that the heart rate accuracy for workouts for me is largely pretty good actually. Really good in some cases. There are places where it struggles, such as descents while running (due to cadence lock likely, a common issue in watch optical HR sensors on the wrist). It’s really too bad that despite reasonably good heart rate accuracy for workouts, Oura doesn’t send this data to Strava, and then even worse being when you pair a HR sensor to it (to address these shortcomings), it doesn’t send that workout data anywhere at all.

Wrap-Up:

In a quirky way, I wonder if the Oura Ring 5 is ‘peak Oura’? Which is to say that it’s clearly the best Oura to date (in terms of size, and also some small accuracy gains according to Oura). But equally, if you’ve already got an existing Oura ring, the only tangible gain you’re likely to notice is the size. It’s very difficult to notice a 12% increase in HRV accuracy, and the claimed 19% increase in workout HR accuracy isn’t super functional given how limited the sports/workout features are (not even passable for 2008 phone workout apps).

In fact, I’d argue that Oura’s failure to figure out how to move the product forward from a workout standpoint actually helps to solidify its core reason for existing in life: General life/sleep tracking in a super-discreet form factor. Meaning, Oura really got its start with sleep tracking, in an era when other wearables struggled. But fast-forward a decade, and as I showed above, and have shown repeatedly over the last few years, the major brands are all mostly a wash for sleep tracking. They’re all getting the sleep times and HRV scores correct, and with roughly consistent sleep scores. But again, Oura does this in a tiny ring, with no other watch or band required. If you don’t want to wear a watch or band, this becomes a solved problem for you. And being smaller is certainly nice – I’ve got no complaints there.

That said, I feel like 80% of the app is basically just recycled trending charts of other parts of the app. I couldn’t even begin to count the number of times they re-display readiness, sleep score, or activity score trend lines on different sections of the app. It all begins to feel rather circular. Certainly, other companies re-display attributes in other areas (including Garmin & Whoop), but those companies have vastly more unique metrics than they do duplicated metrics. It feels like they’ve kinda given up on innovating with actual new features, and just instead keep creating new charts of the same data they’ve had for nearly a decade. Yes, they’ve added new integrations to a variety of 3rd party platforms (with more planned), but the things within their own house haven’t really changed (if you don’t believe me, go back and look at my Oura Ring 3 review from 5 years ago).

To wrap up, I think the Oura Ring 5 has value for folks that want some of the core sleep/activity metrics in a simplified way, but don’t want to wear a watch/band. It’s quite good at doing that – really good. However, if you’re already wearing a watch/band (or care about fitness/sports tracking), the Oura Ring probably isn’t what you’re after.

With that, thanks for reading!

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Thanks for reading! And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible. And lastly, if you felt this review was useful – I always appreciate feedback in the comments below. Thanks!

Back a few months ago, I drove one hour from my home to the Zwift Community Live 2026 event, where I rode around on a slate of stunning Mallorca roads. During that time, I took approximately 2,186 photos that I have basically no use for. 41 of which were of a Zwift-branded watch sitting at the front of a converted foyer-ish conference room at the event. Oddly, virtually nobody else seemed to post photos of it.

I had intended to do so, but then I left the next morning for a few weeks of vacation across the pond with family, and it fell deep into the ‘never seen again’ dumpster that is my iPhone’s photo gallery. Alongside 240,086 other photos (for real, that’s how many photos are in my phone). Until last week or so, when Zwift and Bravur, apparently, announced said new watch. Thus, in an effort to salvage the 8 minutes of time I spent actually taking these photos, I present them to you.

Of course, I have zero plans to review this watch. There’s no point; it has no tech in it whatsoever. I’m not a classical timepiece guy; I’m a ‘What features does it have?’ guy. Maybe some day I’ll retire from this and go cold turkey, reverting back to tick-tock-clock, but for now, that’s not the case.

The Tech Specs:

Here are the main specs of this watch, as written by a company that knows these sorts of things. All I see are ‘blah…blah…blah…no Bluetooth…blah…blah…blah”. I added a line or two at the end.

Case: 37 mm diameter, 44,6 mm lug to lug, stainless steel 316L, 18 mm lug width. Screw down crown.

Crystal: Domed sapphire, inside anti-reflective coating.

Case back: Stainless steel

Movement: Swiss Made Sellita SW200-2 Power+, 26 jewels, self winding, no date

Power reserve: Up to 62 hours

Frequency: 28 800 A/h (4 Hz)/8 beats per second

Dial: Black with lava texture at the centre, luminous “Tron” ring, applied indices infilled with Super-LumiNova with Zwift symbols at 3, 6, 9 and 12H. Racing-inspired minute track.

Hands: Rhodium plated hour and minute hands infilled with Super-LumiNova, orange lightning shaped second hand

Strap: Integrated black FKM rubber strap and orange FKM rubber strap included

Water resistance: 10 ATM

Limited Edition: 100 pcs, individually numbered

Manufacturing: HAND BUILT IN BÅSTAD, SWEDEN (this was ALL CAPS in their specs, so I LEFT IT)

Price: $1,195USD+import fees/taxes, 1,395EUR VAT included

Random other things: Includes a leather cycling bag, also doesn’t have Bluetooth

When it comes to Zwift-specific elements, you’ve got the Zwift power-ups at 3/6/9/12hr markers, as well as Ride On and Zwift logos on the back. Supposedly the luminous ring around the outside is designed to mirror that of the Tron bike. The second-hand has a lightning shape to it, and the seconds themselves are “racing-inspired”. Also, Zwift orange. All the orange.

The Gallery:

Here ya go, I slimmed down those 40 shots into the handful that weren’t duplicates or otherwise dorked up. Above, you can see the back of it, with the Zwift logos, as well as Ride On (and Ride On thumbs-up). The unit they had floating around had the orange band, but it also comes with a black band. You can see the front of it on the green watch holder (as opposed to my wrist) in the next section.

Meanwhile, here it is on my wrist. As you’ll see in a second, it felt quite a bit smaller than the watches I’m used to wearing, but nothing wrong with that.

My wrist size is 17cm (or about 6.5 inches). Here it is on an angle:

And tilted some more. I’m not sure if you were expecting fancier captions than this, but how else do I say “I turned my wrist so you can see the coveted underside of the band.”?

Now, for context, this watch is 38mm. That’s pretty small by smartwatch standards. Most smaller watches from Apple/Garmin/etc start around 40-42mm these days. That said, I was wearing an Apple Watch Ultra 3 and a Garmin Fenix 8 Pro MicroLED (51mm) on my wrists that day, so here’s how that compares for funsies.

And finally, in an effort not to waste this photo either, I give you more angular action:

Regrettably, as a smartwatch photographer, I failed to notice in the above image that the Apple Watch screen had gone to sleep. Thankfully, this isn’t a smartwatch post, so…shrug. Also, in the above photo you can basically see that the Garmin MicroLED beefcake variant can reasonably eat 2-3 Zwift watches for breakfast.

Wrap-Up:

Look, I think it’s a pretty watch. Legit, I do; it looks really nice in person. It’s just not my jam in any way/shape/form. The Bravur folks kindly asked if I’d like to review it. But I’d have literally nothing more to add beyond what I showed above. Sure, I could take prettier pictures – maybe find a yacht buddy somewhere on this island (realistically, it’d probably just end up in my inflatable two-person kayak I bought). But I wouldn’t add anything extra to this conversation.

As always with fancy fashion things, they rarely make sense to 95% of the population (including me). Just like $10,000 bikes don’t make sense to 95% of the population, and $500/person Michelin-starred dinners don’t make sense to 95% of the population. But I’ve also long-ago learned that for every silly-expensive hobby, there’s a market, even if I’m not that market. To each their own.

With that – thanks for reading!

As I walked towards the main entrance to Eurobike, it was desolate. The slate of temporary bike parking spots that in previous years would have been overflowing with hundreds upon hundreds of bikes was empty. After passing through the doors, I walked nearly a  kilometer through virtually empty connecting hallways to get to the show areas. Again, in previous years, these too would be slammed wall-to-wall with people trying to get to the main floor on the show’s opening day.

But ultimately, the most ironic part of this opening day sequence was the very first thing I saw as I walked into the main hall. It was not a bike, but rather, a small 2-person Fiat electric car. Next to it, the above quad. Many have said it was this very thing that ultimately killed Eurobike – the show owners’ attempt to turn it into a combined micro-mobility show, rather than a bike show.

Eurobike claimed the number of exhibitors in the 2026 edition was 800, a fall from 1,500 exhibitors the year prior (2025), and 1,800 in 2024. I’d also take a wager that the number of exhibitors that actually showed up in 2026 is notably less than that 800 figure. There were a lot of random empty booth spots floating around.

I figured I’d take a moment to preemptively write an obituary of sorts for a show that I’ve attended 14 years’ worth of editions of, across both Friedrichshafen and Frankfurt. And later on, I’ll explain why it’s dead, despite their half-hearted claims that it’s not.

Why It’s Fallen Apart:

In reality, it was a confluence of things that have killed Eurobike. Many big industry trade shows were already in decline even before Eurobike added cars, but their inclusion came as part of the avalanche of changes that killed the show. I won’t make this a super long post, but I do want to highlight the main areas:

A) The shift from Friedrichshafen to Frankfurt: Look, too many people have rose-tinted glasses about Friedrichshafen. It was a nightmare for everyone involved. Seriously, it really did suck logistically. Hotels were booked a year in advance, and even then, you often had to commute 60-90 minutes each way each day to get to the show from said far-flung hotels (even across the lake on a ferry). The buses from the train station to the show were bafflingly bad at doing the one task they had to do: Transport you 2km. You could almost always walk faster because of horrible traffic (but you’d be drenched in the sweltering heat). Still, once you managed to get to the showgrounds, the show was really good. There were reasonably nice places to ride in the apple-filled countryside. And the party-like atmosphere was good too. Frankfurt has none of that. There’s no soul to the show in Frankfurt. Which isn’t to suggest going back to Friedrichshafen. Rather, finding some middle ground between the concrete jungle of the Frankfurt convention center and the logistical nightmare of Friedrichshafen.

B) The big brands leaving: I’m not even talking about American bike companies like Specialized or such, that happened many years ago. Rather, more recent brands are leaving. SRAM in the last year or two, Shimano & Bosche this year, and far too many to count. By itself, no individual brand is super important to a show this big (after all, companies like Apple aren’t on-show at massive events like CES), but when many big brands are missing, it starts to make a dent. Especially when the gist of the show was that all the cycling brands were at it.

C) The medium-sized brands left too: Let’s just take a look at the sports tech segment I cover. Obviously, there may well be journalists covering other segments that still get value out of the show (for example, covering eMTB gearboxes). But, in my realm, let’s count my usual suspects that are not there this year:

1) Garmin/Tacx (was there all prior years)
2) SRAM/Hammerhead (was there until last year)
3) Shimano (was there all prior years)
4) Wahoo (was there all prior years, either on-floor or off-floor)
5) Elite (was there all prior years)
6) Magene (was there in recent years)
7) Bryton (was there in recent years)
8) Stages/Giant (was there all prior years)
9) Power2Max (was there last year)
10) 4iiii (was there all prior years, either on-floor or off-floor)
11) SRM (was there all prior years, either on-floor or off-floor)
12) All the smaller power meter companies (virtually none there now)
13) All the smaller aero sensor companies (I don’t think any this year)
14) Lezyne (was there all prior years, either on-floor or off-floor)
15) The major trainer apps: Zwift, Rouvy, MyWhoosh, TrainerRoad, Kinomap, etc… All these teams were onsite, even if only some of them had official booths, most had off-show booths for meetings. None were there, only icTrainer.

And again, that’s separate from other companies I’d be personally interested in talking to, like many (all the major?) cargo bike brands and such that disappeared. And beyond that, this skips over all the random sports-tech startups that sometimes made for interesting stories, too.

D) Product launch shift: As I’ve talked about for many years, for medium to bigger-sized brands, having a product launch at a trade show is mostly a dumb PR strategy. Your launch news is now shared amongst a gazillion other companies also announcing things. I remember back in 2019 at Eurobike, and having something like 14 full in-depth reviews, I had to somehow finish the morning of Eurobike launch (trainers, bike computers, power meters, even some watches). It never happened; some simply didn’t make the cut. And they were big-name companies that didn’t make the cut. Thus, companies shifted towards launching their products either at small private media events, or just by sending loaner units out.

E) Seasonality doesn’t matter anymore: It used to be that companies launched their products tied to the seasonality of Eurobike/Interbike, ahead of buying for the next season. For example, 10 years ago, you *always* launched new trainers in the August/September timeframe. Always, without fail. These days? You launch them whenever the heck you’re ready to ship. Consumers will buy it when they’re ready. People ride year-round, unlike skiing, which happens only a few months of the year.

F) The inclusion of non-bike micro-mobility: I’d actually argue that, as dumb as it was to have cars at a bike show, this was not what killed Eurobike. Nobody sat in their office and said: “The only reason I’m not going to Eurobike is because I saw an electric Fiat in a booth”. On social media, perhaps, but not in real life. Instead, it was all the other items above that killed Eurobike first. Having quads in booths, or 90KPH-rated electric vehicles on the bike test track (as I actually saw yesterday) was just the icing on the cake.

Finally, I’d suggest going and reading Suvi’s piece over at Escape Collective on a lot of other factors. There are also some intra-Germany trade group organizational factors that contribute to it (though, I’d argue that by the time these groups got in on being upset, the above items were already the core factors).

And of course, there are aspects like how COVID ushered in more companies doing meetings and such digitally, but I actually don’t buy that as much here. After all, some other cycling shows/events are still just as popular as in the past. Escape noted the Rouleur Live show as a good example. And indeed, I went there a year or two ago, and it was fantastic. But you know what made it fantastic? I didn’t write anything about it.

I went, I met with everyone I knew in the industry to catch up on all the things. But there was no big product launch tied to it. Instead, it was the networking-like event that the industry wants, without the baggage of Eurobike. Consumers are welcomed, which gives it a marketing reason to exist for companies, while the tight confines of the venue means that individual booths are tiny (reducing costs).

Going Forward:

Now, about now, some of you may be saying, ‘Wait, Eurobike isn’t dead yet?!? They announced next year’s 2027 dates!’. And that’s true (now back in early September 2027). But equally true is that they quietly announced the show won’t be coming back for 2028, and instead will attempt to shift to an every-other-year format starting in 2029. Of course, they didn’t issue that in a press release on their site, but rather, via a daily show notes that doesn’t go into the main press release feed.

The reality is that’ll likely never happen. Sometime later, fall or early winter, I can near guarantee you the Eurobike will quietly announce cancellation of the 2027 show as well. Companies won’t have signed up for it. Especially after they get word of this year’s event. Short of them managing to convince all the biggest brands, plus companies like those medium-sized brands, to come to the show (and announcing this), nobody else will fall in line. This is exactly what happened to Interbike years ago.

Almost everyone I talked to at the show felt it was a “giant waste of time” (that’s an exact quote from one company in the list up above). And had it not been for the interesting Canyon concept bike I covered yesterday, I certainly would have been in the same camp. There are perhaps a few other small things I could cover from it that I had some chats with, but most of that was minor updates/etc, rather than something I’d normally write a whole piece on. Effectively, stuff worthy of a quick gallery mention, rather than a deeper piece. Again, media or retailers covering other product segments might have still found some value this year.

Still, it’s a shame, because the best part of Eurobike wasn’t the product launches or new tech – it was meeting with the people behind the products. The engineers, product people, and founders who put together all these cool pieces of tech, and understand how the products came to be, and their thinking on the future ahead. Most of the time, I already had the unannounced products in for review anyway. Instead, my time there was spent in meetings with people about cool new things coming out down the road, or sometimes, just hearing the industry gossip. Perhaps Rouler Live is the place for that next, or perhaps somewhere else. We’ll have to see.

With that – thanks for reading, and all the RV rental memories!

The sports tech pickings were slim at Eurobike this year, but one device stood out as the most interesting bit of sports technology: Canyon’s Predict smart bike concept. Even in years past, it still would have likely been at the top of the ‘interesting things’ stack, due to the heavy slate of technology it packs inside.

Still, I wanted to dive into all of the details, and walk through what’s real today, and what’s still a bit…futuristic. To my surprise, as you’ll see, the vast majority of the hardware is functional today – at least in a convention floor setting. But of course, what matters here is how it works out on the road. And a big part of that is the software.

After all, this is not Canyon’s first attempt at a smart bike. Some 11 years ago at Eurobike 2015 they announced a smart bike concept that also had a built-in bike computer, along with other sensors. It was promised to ship the following Spring 2016. It never did. Like most concept bikes tech promoted by larger bike brands, it quickly fell by the wayside.

Canyon says they’re hoping this might be out in 2-3 years, but will heavily depend on testing, and specifically they say whether consumers can trust the tech actually works out on the road. With that, let’s dive into it.

[Note: Canyon has been listed as a partner for DC Rainmaker for a few years, whereby they provide loaner bikes I can use to test other sports tech items on. No money exchanges hands. They didn’t ask me to write this post or video, I just thought it was cool sports tech. I’ll cover the pros and cons down below, like anything else I talk about.]

The Core Specs:

The Canyon Predict smart bike concept is currently in a road-bike form factor. It’s notable that Canyon also announced a commuter-style bike at Eurobike (Roadlite:ON V2X), that has bike to vehicle technology V2X. That bike is actually purchasable today, and theoretically talks to cars equipped with such technology. But it’s very different than the Canyon Predict, which doesn’t have V2X (because they want to do it without requiring the car to be equipped with V2X).

So, here’s the most notable bits of the bike, from a tech standpoint:

– 360* Camera Coverage: There are four cameras onboard, three up front and one at the rear, combined to have complete 360* camera coverage. This is very similar to what we see from both drones and cars that combine numerous cameras into a single cohesive picture of what’s going on around it.

– Four radar sensors: There are three radar sensors on the front of the bike (two side, one forwards), and then one rear radar sensor. The front set is there to detect objects as you approach and pass them, while the rear radar is there to detect overtaking vehicles. The rear radar is very similar to existing cycling radars, while the front radars are most focused on determining exact distances to objects.

– Onboard AI Edge Compute: Essentially, a big processing unit to combine all this data, processing it fully locally. There’s no dependency on connectivity (cellular or WiFi), instead, everything is processed locally for both privacy and speed/responsiveness reasons.

– Tire Pressure Sensors: These are inside the tire, and provide realtime pressure readings, which are in turn leveraged both both simple ‘are you running low on air’, as well as road grip suggestions (e.g. for rainy days). The wheels themselves are from DT Swiss, along with the hubs inside.

– 1KG (2.2lbs) Onboard Battery: No, this is not an eBike, this is *purely* for computational and powering tasks. That’s an absolutely massive battery to have on a bike for just powering all the cameras/radars/sensors/compute. The current battery claim is 8 hours, but that’s heavily likely to change before release (probably for the better, as things get more efficient).

– Front and Rear Lights on the frame: Pretty self-explanatory. They didn’t have any specific lumen specs yet, as that’d all be finalized later on. But you can see it’s a pretty big light bar on the back.

– Handlebar lights (mostly for the rider): These act as warning lights to the rider themselves, such as warning the rider to slow/stop due to a predicted issue up ahead (like car dooring, or pothole/manhole/etc).

– Extra handlebar buttons: In addition to regular shifting buttons, there’s also a secondary set of inner buttons on the handlebars that you can use for specific functions, including raising/lowering the saddle, turn signals, or ordering pizza (maybe…ok, probably not).

– SRAM RED groupset: This is what it was equipped with on the stand, but obviously, there’s no real dependency here on the groups. By time this bike ships it could be a different SRAM groupset, a Shimano groups, or something else entirely.

– Price & Timelines: There’s no price yet, and the timelines remain super vague. Still, Canyon hopes that perhaps in 2-3 years such a concept could be ready for production.

Got all that? Good, let’s dive into things more deeply.

A Closer Look:

Now, I’d encourage you to watch the video up above. I basically walk through each component of the bike with the lead hardware engineer at Canyon responsible for it. Lots of good tidbits in there.

Nonetheless, let’s step through it piece by piece from the front, moving backwards. First up, you can see the main forward lights just above the fork. There’s also two further white lights illuminated atop the handlebars.

Directly above the lights you can see through the plastic and barely see the front radar sensor as well as front cameras. These are used for detecting objects (vehicles/people/potholes/etc up ahead). At the show, they had a live feed showing what the cameras are seeing when it comes to detection and classification, as well as confidence %. This is *NOT* what the end user sees, but rather, just what the computer it seeing. In the video, you can see as people move out of the way, it keeps detecting the bike in the right of the frame (as a bike)

Instead, what the user sees is this handlebar display. Obviously, the very first question I had was whether or not this display was in partnership with the now ill-fated OnlyFans crowd-funded handlebar display I covered last year. In fact, I asked three different Canyon engineers, all separately, and every one of them said it definitely wasn’t. They were pretty insistent that they have no partnership or licensing there at all. Of course, despite that project, handlebar display concepts are hardly new in cycling. But still, many people would (rightfully) ask, especially given that both are German companies.

In any case, the display shows usual bike computer bits, such as speed/power/heart rate, as well as navigational bits. All of this is fairly demo-like. When asked whether or not this complements an existing bike computer or replaces it, Canyon said “It could replace it, in the long run…right now we’re just mostly focused on safety”.

I’d argue that creating a good bike computer that consumers actually want on their handlebars is an area that most companies underestimate. Heck, I think even some of the very companies making those bike computers have forgotten that recently.

Creating a *competitive* bike computer from scratch requires a boatload of different feature areas: Navigation, routing, re-routing, offline maps, structured workouts, sensor connectivity (e.g. power meters, cadence sensors, heart rate sensors, radar, lights, numerous other sensor types), climb-related metrics (e.g. ClimbPro), and literally hundreds of other features. It’s ‘easy’t make something like the above image that shows basic information. It’s really hard to make a bike computer that competes with what Garmin/Wahoo/Hammerhead/etc have been building for 10-15 years.

I feel like the better opportunity here, short to mid-term, is for Canyon to partner with a Garmin/Wahoo to basically build such a bike computer into their handlebars. But whether either side will overcome their egos to do so, would be a bigger question.

In any event, when it comes to forward predictive avoidance, the bike is pulling in the forward radar and camera sensors to put together that picture of what’s happening. From there it’s using the sensors in the bike (including steering tube sensors) to determine whether or not you’re on track to actually hit said thing. Meaning, if you turn such that your new angle is away from the danger (like a car door), it won’t flag that as an alert.

The system’s response time is 1/20th of a second (50ms), operating continuously. They noted that they will eventually look at how they can save battery by slightly reducing that. For example, if you’re riding on a simple empty road in the middle of empty farmland, they could reduce it down to 1/5th of a second, and likely save a bunch of battery (by reducing compute processing time).

The unit itself has full connectivity, but doesn’t require it for any actions. All of it is processed locally. They said this is for two core reasons. The first is privacy; they don’t want your imagery having to go to the cloud and be processed remotely. Canyon’s lead engineer noted how much they’re hearing today from customers about lack of trust in AI system and AI processing (from a privacy standpoint). Thus, everything is processed within the bike.

The second reason is simply responsiveness. To achieve that 50ms response/identification time, doing so across poor cellular connectivity simply isn’t viable.

Speaking of processing, the entire thing is dependent on a 1kg-sized battery inside the bike, which currently only gets them about 8 hours of battery time. They said not to overthink the battery life estimates right now, because a lot will change in terms of tech (and battery burn) in the next 2-3 years, including just their own optimizations. Also keep in mind this is powering the full stack of bike lights, cameras, radar, bike computer, GPS, etc…

Still, I feel like they should be shooting for around 12-15 hours of ride time, or essentially a full week’s worth of riding for most riders buying this time of bike.

Nonetheless, next up are the handlebars. This is a combination of a SRAM shifter, with their own handlebar. You can see the white light below, which also changes red, and will alert accordingly (see the video how that works). Likewise, there’s also a vibration motor planned in there, as well as audible alerts via the main display portion – just like any other bike computer.

But if you look you’ll also notice that silver button. That allows for activating left/right turn signals, as well as customization to enable moving the saddle up/down. The bike has an adjustable height saddle that can go up/down by simple button press (also shown in the video). The idea here being to allow for more stable (lower) positions while descending. If I were to bet on any piece that won’t make the final bike, it’s this. We’re not talking about a typical dropper post scenario that uses a spring, but rather, this is literally like a small elevator for your seat post. That’s electronically and mechanically costly, and fraught with complexity.

Towards the back of the bike they’ve got the rear light bar, as well as radar and camera packed above it.

Meanwhile, below it are the custom wheels from DT Swiss, which have a Canyon-designed tire pressure sensor in it (not designed by DT Swiss). Canyon says they can use this to give you warnings about not just tire pressure, but suggesting for dealing with road conditions (like rain) by changing tire pressure.

Finally, down below you’ve got the relatively straightforward SRAM RED groupset. As noted above, this will probably change by time this bike comes out, but for now it looks nice.

There ya go – a complete look at this bike from front to back. Again, there’s a fair number of bits in the video that are worthwhile diving into, showing how some of the features work in real-time.

The Stingr Smart Helmet:

I want to very briefly talk about the Stingr Smart helmet, which can operate with or without the bike. Likewise, the bike doesn’t require the helmet. The helmet is also very much in the ‘concept’ phase, without any prices or timelines. I’d actually guess that achieving such a helmet might be harder than the bike, especially once I saw the state of things (and, knowing the last decade+ of companies trying to make smart helmets/glasses).

As you can see above, the helmet has a heads-up display on the inside, showing live metrics from your ride, just like a bike computer would. This includes all the usual bits like speed/power/cadence/etc, but also directional stuff as well as warnings about vehicles and other dangers. Basically, much the same metrics as the Canyon Predict smart bike concept.

Except, as of today, the display isn’t real. Well, at least for the rider. Yes, the display seen on stand was real, and was showing people *outside* the helmet a video and photo-friendly real and changing set of metrics. But in reality, that display was actually kinda fake. It wasn’t for the rider. When you looked inside the helmet, there’s just foam there.

For context, over the years I’ve tried Recon Snow (2012+), Recon Jet (2013+), Google Glass (2014), Recon Jet (2013+), Garmin Varia Vision (2016), to the SOLOS glasses (2018), Everysight Raptor (2018),  FORM Swim Goggles (2019+), Oakley Vanguard (2025), and many more I never got around to writing about. And that ignores products like the Apple Vision Pro (2024).

Having talked to many companies over the years that work in this space of heads-up display space, what Canyon is trying to do is by far one of the most difficult things to do.

You have to find a way to project something against that glass that’s also visible to the end user in all sorts of lighting conditions. By having the foam backing in the demo, they’ve essentially removed the most difficult part of the problem. It’s like building a rocket that doesn’t have an engine/motor to launch to space.

But, we’ll set aside that for a brief second. Atop the helmet are also a set of lights that can be used as turn indicators, brake lights, or just general visibility. There’s also small white lights to the left/right of the large vent you see at the rear (they show illuminated/blinking in the video).

Inside the helmet there’s audio alerts as well as haptic (vibration) alerting.

Finally, up top there’s an implied solar panel, for powering it. Assuming they sort out the overall cooling elements (e.g. vents), putting a solar power atop your head is actually quite logical. Currently it’s slated for 8-15 hours of battery life.

Here’s a chart from Canyon showing all the features in the helmet (or at least, planned to be in the helmet):

Again, who knows what that’ll look like once it finally ships.

Wrap-Up:

In an ideal world, regulators would find ways to get drivers to be more aware of cyclists and pedestrians. But we don’t all live in the Netherlands, thus, pretending to ourselves that’s going to change doesn’t save lives. It simply doesn’t. I’m tired of watching cyclists I know get killed by drivers, and thus I’m more than happy for companies to try and do things that attempt to reduce the number of cyclists getting killed.

It is an unfortunate reality that certain (many?) countries will continue to have poor safety laws, bad or distracted drivers, or even bad road conditions. Many cyclists already use safety devices to try and mitigate some of those risks, such as rear-radar units. And others add safety cameras for post-incident evidence.

As cyclists we should continue to push for regulation changes, and hold bad drivers accountable. But equally, we can also be pushing for real-world solutions that safe our friends lives in the meantime. Sadly, no points awarded for coulda/shoulda/woulda when it comes to preventing cycling accidents. Thus, I’m all for whatever trusted tech can be put in place to prevent that, from any company. Whether or not Canyon can make this tech, or more challengingly, make it trustworthy, remains to be seen.

Finally, there’s the element of how well such a system would work long-term given everything is built-in. Meaning, could you swap out the handlebar or front sensors for a new version? Or would that require a new bike? I’d think swapping handlebars should be straightforward, but not if the main computing unit is somewhere else in the frame. Things that need to be decided and weighed by both Canyon and consumers.

With that – thanks for reading!

It’s back again – Amazon Prime Days. That means most Amazon country/regional properties are doing pretty substantial deals across the board on all sorts of products for now through Friday. As usual, deals last till they last.

Update! Here’s the Top 5 items you/DC Rainmaker Readers bought yesterday (these deals are all still live). I’d generally agree that these are among the top deals:

1) Garmin Epix Pro for $499 (with Flashlight/ECG/Sapphire Glass): Yeah, I’d agree this is probably one of the best deals in sports tech today. It’s impossible for any competitor to beat this price-to-features ratio, and even within the Garmin realm of newer units (the Fenix 8 Pro at $849, also on sale for $250 off), this is impossible to beat.

2) Garmin Edge 540 for $249: Like the Epix Pro above, this isn’t the newest version (that’s the Edge 550, which is also on sale, but for $399). Yet again, there’s simply no other competitor that can compete at this price point on features with the Edge 540. Not even close.

3) Apple AirPod Pro 3 for $179 (with optical heart rate too): Again, the theme here is ‘hard/impossible to beat’, and at this price point, these are just so good. It’s my daily driver for general music, workout music, editing videos (10 minutes ago), listening on the plane (last night), and more.

4) Anker 25,000 mAh battery bank for $91 (can power a laptop too): I’ll be honest, I didn’t think this would show up on the Top 5 list, but it’s yet again one of my favorite things. It’s sitting next to me in the hotel room right now, and it spent the day with me in my backpack. As it does every day. I love it, be it for travel or multi-day treks deep into the mountains. It can power drones, action cams, phones, laptops, and tons more.

5) DJI NEO 1 follow-me drone for $139: Seriously, this too is impossible to beat price-wise. Nothing comes close, let alone in features. Up until the DJI NEO 2 came out last fall, this was my go-to drone for sports follow-me features. It’s indestructible, and just does the one thing it needs to do: Follow you perfectly. Again, the theme of the top-5 here is “just works, impossible to beat deals”. This fits that.

Once again, this year’s deals are definitely better than last year’s deals. There are some very, very strong deals here. As I’ve said in the past, a June sale date for sports tech items is timed perfectly. That’s because typically in the sports tech realm, Black Friday deals are for ‘older’ things, rarely the ‘just announced’ stuff that often comes in the late August to October timeframe (especially wearables, cycling trainers, and action cams). But, with Amazon Prime Days being in late June, there’s more opportunity for brands to put things on sale. Typically speaking though, don’t expect to see sports tech things on sale that were announced this calendar year.

To take advantage of Amazon Prime Days, you simply need to be an Amazon Prime member. The good news is that you can sign-up for the free trial and cancel later if you don’t find value in it. Just hit up this giant banner below to do so:

I’ve organized all the best sports technology Amazon Prime Days deals (and a few others I’ve found) below in the tables by category. I’ll be updating them throughout the next two days. Keep in mind that not all deals last (in fact, most don’t). So, if you see something that’s hot, I’d strongly suggest buy now (and return later if need be).

With that, onto the deals! And thanks for supporting the site via the links below. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Enjoy!

Watches & Wearables:

This covers anything you can wear that’s watch-like or activity band-like, including sensors.  Generally speaking, you’ll mostly find deals here that are on things I’ve written about in the past.  So you won’t find a deal on some random non-sports tech watch here, or on socks. Unless the socks have some crazy sensor or something in them.

There are no deals currently.

Cycling Gear & Trainers:

Got a bike? Then this section is for you.  Everything from bike computers to bike lights to trainers, it’s all here.  I won’t generally be adding things like brake cables or bike seats here, but if I find a good deal on a cassette to stack on that new direct-drive trainer you just bought, I’ll probably list it here.

There are no deals currently.

And then here’s a separate bucket for trainers and indoor bikes:

	Product	Sale Price	Amazon	Sale Notes
	Lasko High Velocity Pro-Performance Fan - 15% off	$54	Amazon	This is one of the most popular indoor trainer fan companies out there, which rivals the Wahoo Headwind fan but cost a fraction of the price. Of course, it lacks ANT+/Bluetooth integration, but realistically if you really want that you can add a smart outlet for $10 to toggle it on/off from your phone if need be. It's one of the ones in my rotation.

Action Cameras & Drones:

Wanna record it?  No better way than an action camera.  Anything that’s action camera-related or drone-related, you’ll find here.  That’s especially true of action camera mounts, which are often found for great deals around the holidays.  Same goes with drones and drone accessories.  Usually a great time to pick up an extra battery or extra props.

There are no deals currently.

Other Sports & Fitness:

Anything else that’s sports and fitness-related that I think is interesting will be here.  It may not be super techy – but it’s stuff that most readers will be using in pursuit of their running/cycling/swimming/hiking/whatever.

There are no deals currently.

DCR Random Gadget List:

These are basically the mostly totally unrelated gadgets and things I think are cool deals that I’ve likely bought one or five of (you can never have too many, right)?  Some of it’s probably photography stuff.  Some of it’s random stuff like chargers and battery packs that I use daily, fun camera gear I use to make videos, like sliders and turntables, and well…just random things you’ll find around the DCR Cave.  It’s all random…but it’s all awesome randomness!

There are no deals currently.

Europe Folks Note: I’ve tried in the past to keep track of all the separate Amazon European sites, and honestly, I have given up. With 100+ products on the US list, and then cross-checking each one manually across each country…has proven impossible. That said, you can click any link and, in theory (strong hopefully theory), it’s often also on sale in the EU sites.

With that – thanks for reading, and for supporting the site via the links above.