All the celebrity endorsements and instagram influencer videos I've seen, but this was far and away the best explanation and most thorough review of this product. Great work! Such an awesome fair perspective from a real user. Cheers.
Thanks Elliott! I can see how people who already know how to ski might enjoy it better. It’s a great tool for validation. It’s more frustrating for us normies trying to learn
So happy I found your channel-subscribed! Excellent content! I’m a brand-new Carv 2 user, still figuring it out and how it fits into my quest to improve. You’ve inspired me to join the Facebook group to connect with other users as well. Thanks for the inspiration!
Great video, you make some really good points. I’m very new to carv and yet quickly noticed some of the issues you mentioned, particularly around reviewing/summarizing historical data. I hope they listen to the community and bring back the challenge modes and drills.
Such an excellent review! Very very similar to how I feel. So sad, but I cannot explain the direction CARV evolves with the honest intention of improving user's experience...
I agree that the new hardware is annoying to fit onto your powerstrap. Also, you are spot on about using Carv while skiing. Constantly resetting the goals gets annoying while you are skiing. Getting onto those cattracks can really kill your score. Find those parts of the run that allow you to make at least 10 turns and then stop to secure the score before the run flattens out. I do like the turn by turn sounds of success or failure when skiing. Let's you realize in real time what Carv wants you to do. Carv also has not recorded or been "on" during certain segments of runs which is annoying too. Carv is best when you are skiing alone as it gives you something productive to do (work on your ski ability).
Hey Angelina. Great review. If you invert the sensors from the way you have them, you’ll get a bit more space from your buckles because the clip will extend above the unit. I had the same situation as you and it seemed to help a bit. Keep up the good work!
As others have already stated, this review was honest throughout while getting to the point without marketing direction. The two releases of Carv were compared and contrasted, and real-world usage examples of Carv 2 were given.
I recently tried Carv for the first time and felt the exact same way about the active coach and it just made skiing frustrating instead of fun. I’ve noticed the same issues trying to review my historical data and trying to understand what’s my average. hopefully they bring some of those challenge modes back since I think I would enjoy those more
I used my Carv 2 for the first time today and have similar feelings. I don't believe the algorithm adequately substitutes for the pressure plates, as my metrics for pressure seemed random and crazy compared to the metrics I got from Carv 1, using the same same runs used for the previous 2 years. Also, the tips seemed vague, and the analogies not terribly good. Will see if I have changed feelings in a week or two. Also, battery drain running the app was noticeable over 5 hours of skiing, leaving my phone almost flat (it was a cold day though). I hope they continue to support CARV 1, as I have currently have more faith in it. Still, I till tip my hat to CARV's continuing efforts, and wish them the best!
Loved the video. I agree. Skiing scores actually had gone down from first day’s by not understanding what it wants me to do, and therefore, skiing worse. I have returned to improving my first day scores by no longer listening to it. Drills would be helpful, but this is my first experience with it so I never got to try those. I agree - the days I had active coach on I literally hated skiing. It does not detect snow differences. A powder day to my knees in places was considered uneven snow. I have only gotten it to acknowledge moguls once. They are also uneven snow most of the time. I am hoping with more time I will find it more useful.
Yeah they really need to work on terrain detection, though I understand how difficult of a technical challenge that must be. I haven't had a real powder day this season yet, is it supposed to detect powder?
@@angelinaoutsideThey say it’s supposed to detect all different major types of terrain automatically. I have almost never seen it do that correctly yet this season.
I tried CARV 2 a few days ago. What bothers me most is that you have no real idea why you earn the success ding or why you earn the fail ding.. There is no explanation for the difference.. Also I have no idea what the audio is telling me spitting out random numbers on every turn. CARV does not send out any instruction booklet with the sensors, so you really waste a lot of time trying to figure out what they are trying to teach you from the app. It was a lot of fun, and hopefully I will figure this thing out.
The success and failure is based on whether you passed the target the active coach gives you. I do agree that the target feels random without knowing where I’m normally at (if I understood correctly). What might help in understanding how everything works is to go into the detail of your day, go into individual runs, click on the different tabs and look at your metrics. You can also click on each metric to see what you need to do to get better at them. Hope this helps!
I learned to ski way back when I was a teenager but never progressed beyond easy green slopes - and only went a couple times too. I did ski once more in my 30s in West Virginia - again just one trip - so, again, remained on green slopes. About 3 years ago, I randomly decided to take my family on a ski trip to Keystone (from Florida). Keystone was a bit out of my league - even on the green slopes, but somehow I made it down Schoolmarm (a couple falls). Regardless, I was hooked. The next season, I did Breck and discovered the Base 9 area. Then, we decided to move to Colorado (July 2023). The 23/24 season, I got 13 days on snow but still didn't manage to make it beyond the green slopes - except for the blue-ish section of Red Rover at Breck. This season, with the help of a couple full day lessons, I managed to get down Cashier without falling (first blue). I still regard myself as a beginner - perhaps advanced beginner. So, I've been looking at possible tools like Carv to help me become better and doing the blues more confidently.
I've been using carv since the beta version, and love it from the first day. but now in 2024 they ruined the app by removing all the training mode, it feels the apps is missing something. The training part of the app was the best part for me. Now it sucks totally!
I clipped it on once this season. Did a few runs with it. Found I was skiing like absolute rubbish with it on. Silenced it for the rest of the day and haven’t used it since.
I’m scoring 150-155, and I’m using in just as a monitor. It’s a great tool but doesn’t really help teaching how to improve, just gives some brief instructions. I think they use some sort of formula to calculate the final score, so if you are like me who is skiing at a small resort in Midwest, I can only make 10 quality turns😂. So when I check the scores, it is always lower than my best values, like if my maxIQ is 161 but the final is 152. Overall, it’s better than nothing for a self learner, and kept me on slope longer.
I'm curious, did you improve your ski IQ a lot since you started using Carv or were you already doing 150+ right away? 150 for me seems so unattainable now...I was closer last season at 144, but now it feels impossible!
@ I never used the first generation, but from the reviews I’ve watched, it seems like they need more effort to get a higher edging angle compared to the first generation.
You’ve hit on a big factor with CARV for me as well, which is that it adds joy and focus to my time on the slopes. This is particularly true here on the East coast where conditions are frequently bone hard boilerplate. Giving us New Englanders the motivation to improve the one sure method to ski “ice” has been hugely appreciated! However, the main draw of CARV for me was its ability to “coach without a ski instructor” and even the little that was available last season feels like manna from heaven compared to the desert we have today. Still … I’m holding out hope for the New Year to see what CARV brings to the coaching side. Even a single brilliant, revelatory day on snow is worth waiting for, in my experience.
Thanks for the great review! I need to try it, but in general the idea of it doesn't sound like a great starting point for learning to ski/carve. My favorite training tool for learning skiing is watching others and video of myself...then a constant quest to mimick in the context of my own anatomy and strength. The reason we can't ski like teg ligity is likely a very complicated cocktail of anatomy, power, athletisim, coordination, and technique. The idea that we can ski like one of the best olympians by simply understanding some data is a bit aspirational.
picking the best 10 consecutive turns would be amazing. maybe showing an overall score for the entire run and also the best 10 consecutive turns score. because im also sick of skiing 10-12 turns and then slamming on the brakes. makes me look dumb on the slopes
As a VP or Engineering for a startup, if I received a review like this from a customer I'd be ecstatic. In my opinion this was very constructive and I feel very similar after 7 days. The app takes a lot of learning to get around. It's not unusable it's just has a lot of corners to get to. The metrics used also take time to get accustomed too and I don't think I've fully learned how to interpret them yet. They have a significant information complexity challenge to solve and it's not quite there. I am a bit more worried about the impact of skiing to specific metrics has on folks. Isolating a skill is good (and it seems the old training mode with drills was a good way to do that) but does that make me put blinders on and ski to instruments instead of feel&visual? Ski:IQ only mode is nice but then I don't totally know what it liked and didn't like in my skiing. The metric is an average but tell me you did these well but these less well after a segment. Still trying to figure out what it considers a segment and how I get panelized if I keep skiing or stop at the wrong time or I have as you mentioned downtime in a run. It does seem to break runs into smaller segments but would love a full explanation. If I throttle back in a narrow passage (my local ski hill has a lot of narrow old school New England runs) to pass folks safely that shouldn't impact my ski:iq so something like 10 best turns would be nice to see. At least give us if they could give a sense of what a segment should be. Active coach is a fun game but trying to give feedback live is a known anti-pattern in coaching. Generally you'd want to do that right after the athlete just finished an effort cause they can't process it well during the effort or activity. (Like in climbing, screaming beta at people is generally not going to help them, more likely totally screw them up do it when they are hanging on the rope) On their social media they presented a video about transition weight release where they show various level of skiers and their transition on a graph. Would love to see what my average looks like compared to Marcus Caston or Tom Gellie. So I think they might get there one day. They need to keep working on it and hopefully listen to this gold of a review.
Thank you!! Yeah I see that they now break down the runs a bit more, and I also just noticed that they discard turns that are scoring significantly lower (good things!)
Must admit i kinda like the active coach for how it's not letting any lazyness slide. Also that they want you to carve everywhere, be it shortturns on the cattrack or maxspeed through moguls, pretending you're Candide Thovex😹 Sure, if you ski 4hours and didn't do any skidded turns your legs will be toast, but i guess that's the point?
I tried carv 2 and hated it. It works well for advanced skiers with near perfect technique who want to make it even more perfect but not for advanced beginners/intermediates. It is not going to make you ski better because there is no path to improvement, just metrics that keep telling you "you suck!". And the metrics are all over the place. I returned it. Going back to plan A: have fun on the slopes, trust your body, and improvement will come naturally.
@@angelinaoutside exactly, and not an accurate one for lower levels. People who love it all quote high ski iqs, around 150, and I think they trained it mostly on that kind of data. For lower ski iqs, it just sees noise. They don't report uncertainty intervals on the metrics, but I could see from doing easy runs where I ski confidently and consistently, that the metrics where all over the place. 20 on one turn, then 47, then 5, then 33... just a random number generator.
@@alexfrance3141I heard a rumor that they did and it showed lowish usage of those modes. But I think they may have not interpreted that data correctly. Lots of us only used the challenge modes 1/5th of the time but having the option and something for change of pace was fantastic. It’s like removing desert because most of people calories came from the main course
All the celebrity endorsements and instagram influencer videos I've seen, but this was far and away the best explanation and most thorough review of this product. Great work! Such an awesome fair perspective from a real user. Cheers.
Fancy seeing you here Elliott
Thanks Elliott! I can see how people who already know how to ski might enjoy it better. It’s a great tool for validation. It’s more frustrating for us normies trying to learn
It would be cool to see Rickety become the first ski reviewer to incorporate Carv data into their analysis of how a ski performs.
So happy I found your channel-subscribed! Excellent content! I’m a brand-new Carv 2 user, still figuring it out and how it fits into my quest to improve. You’ve inspired me to join the Facebook group to connect with other users as well. Thanks for the inspiration!
Thank you!!
Great video, you make some really good points. I’m very new to carv and yet quickly noticed some of the issues you mentioned, particularly around reviewing/summarizing historical data. I hope they listen to the community and bring back the challenge modes and drills.
I hope so too. There is so much they could do with that data!
Such an excellent review! Very very similar to how I feel. So sad, but I cannot explain the direction CARV evolves with the honest intention of improving user's experience...
They are definitely listening. I'm hoping things will turn around before the season ends!
I agree that the new hardware is annoying to fit onto your powerstrap. Also, you are spot on about using Carv while skiing. Constantly resetting the goals gets annoying while you are skiing. Getting onto those cattracks can really kill your score. Find those parts of the run that allow you to make at least 10 turns and then stop to secure the score before the run flattens out. I do like the turn by turn sounds of success or failure when skiing. Let's you realize in real time what Carv wants you to do. Carv also has not recorded or been "on" during certain segments of runs which is annoying too. Carv is best when you are skiing alone as it gives you something productive to do (work on your ski ability).
Hey Angelina.
Great review.
If you invert the sensors from the way you have them, you’ll get a bit more space from your buckles because the clip will extend above the unit.
I had the same situation as you and it seemed to help a bit.
Keep up the good work!
I didn't know that was an option! I will try that next time. Thank you!
As others have already stated, this review was honest throughout while getting to the point without marketing direction. The two releases of Carv were compared and contrasted, and real-world usage examples of Carv 2 were given.
Thank you!
I recently tried Carv for the first time and felt the exact same way about the active coach and it just made skiing frustrating instead of fun. I’ve noticed the same issues trying to review my historical data and trying to understand what’s my average. hopefully they bring some of those challenge modes back since I think I would enjoy those more
I used my Carv 2 for the first time today and have similar feelings. I don't believe the algorithm adequately substitutes for the pressure plates, as my metrics for pressure seemed random and crazy compared to the metrics I got from Carv 1, using the same same runs used for the previous 2 years. Also, the tips seemed vague, and the analogies not terribly good. Will see if I have changed feelings in a week or two. Also, battery drain running the app was noticeable over 5 hours of skiing, leaving my phone almost flat (it was a cold day though). I hope they continue to support CARV 1, as I have currently have more faith in it. Still, I till tip my hat to CARV's continuing efforts, and wish them the best!
Loved the video. I agree. Skiing scores actually had gone down from first day’s by not understanding what it wants me to do, and therefore, skiing worse. I have returned to improving my first day scores by no longer listening to it. Drills would be helpful, but this is my first experience with it so I never got to try those. I agree - the days I had active coach on I literally hated skiing. It does not detect snow differences. A powder day to my knees in places was considered uneven snow. I have only gotten it to acknowledge moguls once. They are also uneven snow most of the time. I am hoping with more time I will find it more useful.
Yeah they really need to work on terrain detection, though I understand how difficult of a technical challenge that must be. I haven't had a real powder day this season yet, is it supposed to detect powder?
@@angelinaoutsideThey say it’s supposed to detect all different major types of terrain automatically. I have almost never seen it do that correctly yet this season.
@@pablopwnage4607 yeah it really struggles with moguls! Other than that, I've only seen groomed and uneven so far.
I tried CARV 2 a few days ago. What bothers me most is that you have no real idea why you earn the success ding or why you earn the fail ding.. There is no explanation for the difference.. Also I have no idea what the audio is telling me spitting out random numbers on every turn. CARV does not send out any instruction booklet with the sensors, so you really waste a lot of time trying to figure out what they are trying to teach you from the app. It was a lot of fun, and hopefully I will figure this thing out.
The success and failure is based on whether you passed the target the active coach gives you. I do agree that the target feels random without knowing where I’m normally at (if I understood correctly).
What might help in understanding how everything works is to go into the detail of your day, go into individual runs, click on the different tabs and look at your metrics. You can also click on each metric to see what you need to do to get better at them. Hope this helps!
I learned to ski way back when I was a teenager but never progressed beyond easy green slopes - and only went a couple times too. I did ski once more in my 30s in West Virginia - again just one trip - so, again, remained on green slopes. About 3 years ago, I randomly decided to take my family on a ski trip to Keystone (from Florida). Keystone was a bit out of my league - even on the green slopes, but somehow I made it down Schoolmarm (a couple falls). Regardless, I was hooked. The next season, I did Breck and discovered the Base 9 area. Then, we decided to move to Colorado (July 2023). The 23/24 season, I got 13 days on snow but still didn't manage to make it beyond the green slopes - except for the blue-ish section of Red Rover at Breck. This season, with the help of a couple full day lessons, I managed to get down Cashier without falling (first blue). I still regard myself as a beginner - perhaps advanced beginner. So, I've been looking at possible tools like Carv to help me become better and doing the blues more confidently.
I would start with the content on their UA-cam channel. They are quite good!
@@angelinaoutside Yeah, I've watched some of their content. It's pretty good.
I've been using carv since the beta version, and love it from the first day. but now in 2024 they ruined the app by removing all the training mode, it feels the apps is missing something. The training part of the app was the best part for me. Now it sucks totally!
I clipped it on once this season. Did a few runs with it. Found I was skiing like absolute rubbish with it on. Silenced it for the rest of the day and haven’t used it since.
In a Summary, BRING BACK THE TRAINING MODE!
Pretty much 😄
I’m scoring 150-155, and I’m using in just as a monitor. It’s a great tool but doesn’t really help teaching how to improve, just gives some brief instructions. I think they use some sort of formula to calculate the final score, so if you are like me who is skiing at a small resort in Midwest, I can only make 10 quality turns😂. So when I check the scores, it is always lower than my best values, like if my maxIQ is 161 but the final is 152. Overall, it’s better than nothing for a self learner, and kept me on slope longer.
I'm curious, did you improve your ski IQ a lot since you started using Carv or were you already doing 150+ right away? 150 for me seems so unattainable now...I was closer last season at 144, but now it feels impossible!
@ I never used the first generation, but from the reviews I’ve watched, it seems like they need more effort to get a higher edging angle compared to the first generation.
You’ve hit on a big factor with CARV for me as well, which is that it adds joy and focus to my time on the slopes.
This is particularly true here on the East coast where conditions are frequently bone hard boilerplate. Giving us New Englanders the motivation to improve the one sure method to ski “ice” has been hugely appreciated!
However, the main draw of CARV for me was its ability to “coach without a ski instructor” and even the little that was available last season feels like manna from heaven compared to the desert we have today.
Still … I’m holding out hope for the New Year to see what CARV brings to the coaching side. Even a single brilliant, revelatory day on snow is worth waiting for, in my experience.
Thanks for the great review! I need to try it, but in general the idea of it doesn't sound like a great starting point for learning to ski/carve. My favorite training tool for learning skiing is watching others and video of myself...then a constant quest to mimick in the context of my own anatomy and strength. The reason we can't ski like teg ligity is likely a very complicated cocktail of anatomy, power, athletisim, coordination, and technique. The idea that we can ski like one of the best olympians by simply understanding some data is a bit aspirational.
I think it’s easier to get there with the data when you already know how to carve…which I don’t 😆
Loved this review. I was kind of on the fence and now completely off it 😅
Thank you!
picking the best 10 consecutive turns would be amazing. maybe showing an overall score for the entire run and also the best 10 consecutive turns score. because im also sick of skiing 10-12 turns and then slamming on the brakes. makes me look dumb on the slopes
As a VP or Engineering for a startup, if I received a review like this from a customer I'd be ecstatic. In my opinion this was very constructive and I feel very similar after 7 days. The app takes a lot of learning to get around. It's not unusable it's just has a lot of corners to get to. The metrics used also take time to get accustomed too and I don't think I've fully learned how to interpret them yet. They have a significant information complexity challenge to solve and it's not quite there.
I am a bit more worried about the impact of skiing to specific metrics has on folks. Isolating a skill is good (and it seems the old training mode with drills was a good way to do that) but does that make me put blinders on and ski to instruments instead of feel&visual? Ski:IQ only mode is nice but then I don't totally know what it liked and didn't like in my skiing. The metric is an average but tell me you did these well but these less well after a segment.
Still trying to figure out what it considers a segment and how I get panelized if I keep skiing or stop at the wrong time or I have as you mentioned downtime in a run. It does seem to break runs into smaller segments but would love a full explanation. If I throttle back in a narrow passage (my local ski hill has a lot of narrow old school New England runs) to pass folks safely that shouldn't impact my ski:iq so something like 10 best turns would be nice to see. At least give us if they could give a sense of what a segment should be.
Active coach is a fun game but trying to give feedback live is a known anti-pattern in coaching. Generally you'd want to do that right after the athlete just finished an effort cause they can't process it well during the effort or activity. (Like in climbing, screaming beta at people is generally not going to help them, more likely totally screw them up do it when they are hanging on the rope)
On their social media they presented a video about transition weight release where they show various level of skiers and their transition on a graph. Would love to see what my average looks like compared to Marcus Caston or Tom Gellie. So I think they might get there one day. They need to keep working on it and hopefully listen to this gold of a review.
Thank you!! Yeah I see that they now break down the runs a bit more, and I also just noticed that they discard turns that are scoring significantly lower (good things!)
Must admit i kinda like the active coach for how it's not letting any lazyness slide.
Also that they want you to carve everywhere, be it shortturns on the cattrack or maxspeed through moguls, pretending you're Candide Thovex😹
Sure, if you ski 4hours and didn't do any skidded turns your legs will be toast, but i guess that's the point?
You are probably a better skier than me but I can get dropped so fast lol. Also I can’t stand being told I suck when I’m pizzaing in the lift line
I tried carv 2 and hated it. It works well for advanced skiers with near perfect technique who want to make it even more perfect but not for advanced beginners/intermediates. It is not going to make you ski better because there is no path to improvement, just metrics that keep telling you "you suck!". And the metrics are all over the place. I returned it. Going back to plan A: have fun on the slopes, trust your body, and improvement will come naturally.
I totally see where you are coming from. It feels more like a measuring tool, especially now with carv 2.
@@angelinaoutside exactly, and not an accurate one for lower levels. People who love it all quote high ski iqs, around 150, and I think they trained it mostly on that kind of data. For lower ski iqs, it just sees noise. They don't report uncertainty intervals on the metrics, but I could see from doing easy runs where I ski confidently and consistently, that the metrics where all over the place. 20 on one turn, then 47, then 5, then 33... just a random number generator.
Awesome review. Btw 144 is definitely an advanced skier ;)
Thanks, but 144 is now a distant memory 🥲
I prefer CARV 2, most definitely. My scores went up compared to them on CARV 1! 😂😂😂
Understandable 😂
That's why I'm not buying carv2. They destroyed training modes. All independent reviews tell the same story.
I think they really underestimated how popular those were
@angelinaoutside that's strange: they should have had statistics and knew how often people use certain modes
@@alexfrance3141maybe they had 😉
@@alexfrance3141I heard a rumor that they did and it showed lowish usage of those modes. But I think they may have not interpreted that data correctly.
Lots of us only used the challenge modes 1/5th of the time but having the option and something for change of pace was fantastic.
It’s like removing desert because most of people calories came from the main course
@@seph13x I read the same story (not many people using training modes) but I'm not buying it. They need to justify themselves....
Sounds more frustrating then helpful.
I still think it's helpful in some ways, and I really did enjoy those trainings they got rid of...