Oakley has just released its new Airwave product to give skiers and snowboarders a new real time experience.
Sports equipment manufacturing giant, Oakley, has now taken its first steps into the augmented reality universe as it has just announced the release of its new “Airwave” ski and snowboarding goggles that will provide users with up to the minute information statistics about their downhill experience, including altitude and speed.
Additional features include the “buddy finder” and “jump analytics” software.
These will help the skier and snowboarder to better understand their performance, as well as to locate their friends on the slope.
The augmented reality technology makes the heads up display appear as a screen sitting five feet away.
This means that although the display is actually within the Airwave goggles, to the person wearing them, it looks as though it is a 14 inch screen that is a few feet ahead of them. It is actually almost immediately in front of the eye.
A glove and water resistant wrist mounted control unit are used in order to control the Airwave and its display. The unit is compatible with both Bluetooth that allows smartphone and display control, and GPS, which is used for the buddy locator function.
With this move, Oakley is joining a number of brands that are working with wireless and optics technology. Last year, for example, the MOD Live was introduced by Recon Instruments, for a heads up display that is Android enabled and meant for equipment such as ski goggles.
Oakley has stated that the augmented reality unit has been seamlessly integrated into the goggles. It feels that this is no longer simply a shell for the system, but will instead also involve a companion app that will function with Apple’s iOS.
The augmented reality display is positioned in front of the right eye display, meaning that it is the right eye that will experience the clearest picture. As of yet, this will not be changeable to the left eye, which may present an inconvenience to individuals whose visual dominance is on the left or who have contact lenses meant for distance.
