Smart devices in general aren’t a new phenomenon. We’ve got everything from smart fridges, through smart watches, and I’m sure my mum bought me a smart toaster at some point. Any previously inanimate object can be made smart through the addition of some electronic features, and while many are kind of pointless – updating the firmware on a toaster really is a fresh hell – smart glasses, or HUD (heads up display) glasses for sports actually make quite a bit of sense from a theoretical standpoint, regardless of your opinion on smart tech in the broader sense.
There are several pairs on the market now; some not so good like the Engo 2, which was plagued by an infuriating user interface, and some like the Oakley Meta Vanguard that have received pretty decent feedback, though these lack an actual heads up display. Cybersight looks to have something that threads the needle between the two, with smart features combined with a visible display, keeping your eyes on the road, though we're yet to get our hands on a test pair.
Head up display glasses are, in their simplest terms, a way of projecting key performance metrics like speed, power, and heart rate onto the inside face of a pair of glasses, meaning the runner or cyclist is freed from having to glance at his or her watch or cycling computer, and simply looks through their metrics onto the road ahead. This has several potential benefits, both from a safety and a performance standpoint, so we’re going to look into what these are, whether heads up display glasses represent a new frontier of performance tracking and, if they do, what can be done to hasten its onset.
An automotive aside
Cycling safety is obviously of concern for many, given the number of motor vehicles on the road and the cumulative miles done by tens of millions of motorists worldwide, safety behind the wheel is a much bigger industry. Distracted drivers are more likely to get into an accident, and like it or not glancing down at the speedometer on most vehicles involves, if only for a split second, taking one’s eyes off the road.
1988 saw the first head up display on a car, on an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, projecting a simple speed onto the glass of the windscreen. Since then it’s been added to many cars, and while it hasn’t necessarily seen widespread adoption due to the added cost, it remains a selling point on some vehicles for drivers who want their focus to remain on the road.
It’s this theory that no doubt inspired the genesis of heads up display glasses, though they have to condense the tech into a much, much smaller package in order to be useful.
The safety argument
Just like taking your eyes off the road while driving to check your speed can increase your risk of an accident, the same is true on the bike. The best bike computers are armed with a dizzying array of metrics to pore over while riding, in addition to navigation on quite small screens, and as such it's very easy to get sucked into staring at the small screen for quite a lot of a ride. Whatever your opinion on smart tech and the gradual encroachment of electronics into cycling equipment, there’s no denying that having these metrics, or at least a selection of key ones in one’s eyeline is safer than having to take your eyes off the road.
Another area where smart features have abounded lately is in the best bike lights, with rear lights often incorporating radar to alert you to approaching vehicles. While these are very effective, it is now possible to have these alerts beamed to a pair of glasses, meaning you’re less likely to miss an alert, and less likely to get distracted by an alert on your bike computer screen.
Likewise, turn alerts in your eyeline could free you up from having to look down at your map every few seconds, but perhaps the most interesting safety benefit comes from the addition of AI into glasses. Like it or not – and this isn’t an article where we pass judgement on the merits or demerits of artificial intelligence – being able to ask your glasses to send a message to your partner rather than reaching into your pocket to type it on your phone without stopping is unarguably safer.
Still, cycling is inherently quite a risky sport, and it’s perhaps the future performance gains that drive the adoption of HUD glasses.
The performance argument
Time trials are now a matter of the most marginal of gains. Riders are going to such extreme lengths to eke out fractions of a watt they’re even hacking their shoes to bits and installing laces where BOA dials once stood. Despite this, every time a rider tilts their head down to look at their computer it tips the long tail of modern TT helmets upwards into the wind, increasing the frontal area, and ultimately slowing them down.
While HUD glasses are still in their infancy, there’s absolutely a world in which, in time trials especially, riders adopt them in order to pace a race more effectively using power without having to constantly glance down at their computer. TT helmets also have a lot more real estate to play with on the inside of a visor, and given navigation and turn prompts are already a thing on some HUD glasses it’s not beyond the realm of possibility to imagine a world where TT riders have both power metrics and rally-style pace notes projected into the inside faces of their visors, barely needing to change their position at all for the duration of the effort.
What needs to change for wider adoption?
For now HUD glasses remain a niche, but growing segment. Oakley entering the space will do a great deal to legitimise smart glasses, though the Meta Vanguard model lacks an actual heads up display. Ultimately it’s going to come down to price, weight, and usability.
New tech is always expensive, but if we compare the price of power meters 15 years ago (unattainable for most) to today (specced on mid, and even some entry-level performance bikes) the price of smart and HUD glasses will no doubt come down to, if not the point of mass affordability, but enough to make it a realistic prospect for many.
Cyclists, and to a lesser extent runners – the other key target market here –, have a weight obsession. Big batteries strapped to one’s face is hardly a big sell, but as battery tech has improved hugely over the years it’s far more realistic that HUD glasses can begin to be less of a physical burden on the nose and ears and actually become useful.
And it’s this usability that’s the final piece of the puzzle, a piece unlocked by harnessing the processing power of smartphones. If you allow the phone to do the ‘thinking’, even leveraging AI on the handset itself, you can simply sideline the HUD glasses as a surrogate display rather than a standalone piece of tech. This has already begun, and is what sets more modern iterations from the likes of Oakley and potentially Cybersight apart from attempts from Engo et al.
