LEDs for Life?

I have spent some time thinking about lightbulbs.  Probably at least partially due to the fact that I'm pretty cheap and loved the idea of the cost savings from LEDs.  A few years after moving into my house, I decided to make all of the outdoor bulbs LEDs (recorded in this post).   Part of my motivation was that I didn't want to change light bulbs anymore and I saw LEDs as a lifetime solution.   I would joke to folks that I didn't get paid to change light bulbs.

Well, some of my outdoor LEDs have started to fail and I'll have to admit that I'm kinda bummed.  Not because they weren't the right answer for my lighting needs, they definitely were.  If my math was even remotely correct, I saved a boatload of money (on the order of $860) despite buying the bulbs for $36 each (and that was a good price - Costco - in 2013).  The reason that I'm bummed is that I have to replace the lightbulbs at all.

When I installed the bulbs, I noted that I expected them to last for 7 years.  That sounds like a very long time in the future, potentially approaching the perspective of "forever from now".  And bulb lifetime, as estimated at that point in time, was going to be based on the light output degrading to only half of what it had originally been.  Some of the bulbs, however, have not lasted 7 years.  I just replaced two: one was flickering (spending more time off than on) and the other was just out all of the way.  That wasn't the way it was supposed to be.  They were supposed to last forever!

I've replaced the bulbs with new Feit bulbs that cost 1/12th the cost of the original LEDs, but I'm just a little bit sad that the LEDs are not lifetime bulbs.

Receiver Received!

Yay!  New Yamaha receiver was just received.  Let's hope it's awesome.

3D Mapping

There are a few pretty cool upcoming devices coming that are going to help bridge the physical world with the world of 3D printing and a new generation of "makers".

The first, one most intreaguing to me is the Structure IO

The second is the Spike project, from the folks at ike gps.  This looks to draw from their heritage of

Not So Smart Meters

Undoubtedly Dominion Virginia Power spent a lot of money to install smart meters across it's system.  Mine was installed a couple of years ago, well after the 2010 installations in more dense parts of Northern Virginia.  I'm questioning how valuable that investment was based on my interactions with the data to date.

The smart meter at my house is shown below.  If you look at the meter for a while, you will see it show two different numbers.  I'm guessing it provides: maximum power consumption over the last 24 hours and cumulative kWh consumed.

Max kWh?

Cumulative kWh burned since the meter has been installed?

I only became aware of the availability of daily and 30 minute data last year when I was poking around the Dominion website.  I was intrigued that the smart meter that I already had could potentially give me most of the insights that my (now broken) TED would have been doing.  So far, though, I have failed to find anything super helpful from my smart meter data.

More Love for my Garmin ForeRunner 935

I've had my 935 for about a month now and have put it through it's paces in a number of areas and wanted to post some more feedback on it.  Here it goes.

First, with the good:

1. The battery life continues to be fantastic.  I've been working out consistently over the last couple of weeks and I'm getting about a full week between charge cycles.  And that was charging it back up when it was at ~30%.  Getting back to 100% takes some time, but I'm loving the long battery life.
2. I continue to enjoy the aesthetics of the Garmin much more than the Fitbit Surge.  I haven't yet bought a black leather band with quick disconnect fittings, but the day will come.
3. I'm not bothered by wearing a chest HRM while working out and I love that it works so well with the watch.  I have the HRM Tri and it's great!
4. I've started swimming with the watch at HRM.  It's not perfect, but it's very useful.  It tends to over count lengths in the pool, but I assume that it will get better as I get to be a better swimmer (pretty much suck right now) and more consistent with my turns.  The heart rate record is quite good (and complete).
5. Garmin Connect (GC) has so much more usefulness than the fitbit website.  Being able to compare like workouts is awesome, even if still somewhat rudimentary.  Seeing my average heartrate go up each of my five swim workouts is great - showing some improvement where otherwise I'm not feeling great about where I've gotten to.
6. I can integrate information from my gym's Schwinn spin bikes with the spin workout I record on my watch to get a better overall view of my workout.  See my GitHub project for more details.  The only downside is the loss of temperature data - which for spinning isn't too exciting.
7. The alerts are useful and the alarm still wakes me up in the morning like my Surge.
8. I like the "move" alerts that my Surge was oddly lacking.

Now, with the "could be improved" items:

1. Watch configuration is not easy.  I inadvertently set the default pool length to 25 meters when my gym has a 25 yard pool.  Its fine, I can quickly google how to change it, but that isn't going to work when I'm out on a bike ride and need to make a configuration change.  Put all of it in the GC app!  That said, I'm getting more used to the standard operations of the buttons.
2. GC should allow you to make edits to your workout after the fact that go beyond just notes about it.  When it says I did 1125 yards and I only really did 1000, I should be able to change it without downloading TCX and editing or using some other highly technical method.
3. Strength workout rep tracking is quite poor.  Probably a hard problem overall, but give me the ability to add accelerometers to other places to do a good job tracking.  I think if we could add hand (not watch hand) and foot or ankle we'd be pretty good.  Better GC editing would help here too.  I'd really like to see this get better.  I had some thoughts on this in 2008 and I don't see much progress since then.
4. Add a UV exposure meter to the watch.  L'Oreal showed a little device at CES 2018.  Garmin should just put it in their watch and track the data.  This isn't a deficiency of the current watch, just something that would be awesome to add.
5. I've only done the HRV test two days so far (yesterday and today), but I can say it wasn't super obvious how to get it done.  Oddly, when you choose HRV Stress on the watch, it will not tell you when it's detected the HRM.  Other activities give you an audible indicator that you're all set.  Also, the first time I did it, it wasn't obvious how to get it to start.  There are several screens to scroll through that I found unintuitive.  I did get it done and plan on doing this every morning at the same time.  Too early to tell if the HRV is at all useful, but we'll see.
6. Coaching or prompting could be improved.  I ran on the treadmill yesterday.  It was not my best day; I struggled to get a 5k in.  I did it, but was seriously exhausted at the end.  When reviewing my activity after the fact, I was able to see that I favored my left foot for much of the activity.  My left hip hurt a bit after the run.  I'm thinking that the two are related.  I would have liked the watch to give me an audible prompt after a minute or two of being outside of "close to centered".  I could add a cadence prompt, but not this one.  Maybe they will add?
7. I don't like that the charging port on the back of the watch is open.  I've bought a dust cover to put on it (super cheap on Amazon), but it doesn't seal enough to keep all water out of it and I'm concerned about corrosion if I leave it in after swimming.  Also concerned that the port will get messed up if I don't keep it covered.
8. I have a scratch on the watch face.  It's small, but still.  Not super happy about it.  Hopefully, scratches don't build up over the next three or four years.
9. GC should keep you logged in.  It sorta does, but a day after interacting with it, you have to do a page refresh to get anything to show up.  Otherwise, you just get a "You don't have permission to view that" message.

Overall, I'm super pleased with this watch after a month in.  Yes, it was expensive.  But it is very good.

In the future (when it isn't so crazy cold here in DC), I will be testing a couple of Christmas presents from my in-laws: Garmin speed sensor and the Garmin cadence sensor for my road bike.  I can't wait to put them on my road bike and get some more useful data on long rides.  Another thing that I would not be able to do with my Surge.

Also, I have not been able to get outside for a run since I've owned the watch.  As a result, I don't have any sense of VO2 max.  I'm looking forward to this.