For as long as people have wanted to see where they’re going whilst on snow, other people have been trying to make the perfect goggles.
From the early days when googles were little more than a pair of reading glasses, to 2015 when you can get some bins that have a Macbook pro sewn into the strap, the prefect goggle has been the holy grail.
Desperate to join the visual rat race are RideOn, a company that have taken to crowd funding website indiegogo to try to raise the cash to produce a pair of Augmented Reality goggles.
These new, fancy googles look a little blocky, and a lot like something from a child’s sci-fi induced dream. But it’s the extra mass that allows these new bins to do their magic.
While on the hill, they can give you information about what’s going on around you, let you take calls, see videos, and all of the other distractions that Augmented Reality can throw at you.
There are definitely pros and cons to innovations like this. On one hand, it’d be useful to have things like piste maps right in front of you whenever you need them, and info on things like snow conditions, and avalanche danger on the fly.
However, the idea of still being connected to the office when you’re out on the piste is just a little bit soul destroying. Imagine getting ready to hit that first kicker of the season when a text from your bank telling you quite how bankrupt you now are after a particularly heavy night in la Folie Douce? This could be a serious distraction.
Furthermore, the pistes are already littered with crazies, hooning around aimlessly on their snow blades and the like. Imagine the chaos if they’re wearing AR goggles and trying to hit gates that only they can see.
The world of snow sports always seems a little reluctant to pick up on new technology, so it remains to be seen whether these googles will be the must-have items on the hill next season, or whether they’ll fade into obscurity like so many Next Big Things before them.