With the days getting longer that means there’s more time to be in the beautiful outdoors! Solos Smart Glasses are now fully released for purchase for $499 by Kopin and are made for athletes and weekend warriors looking to gain an edge in their cycling, running, triathlon, and outdoor training through wearable augmented reality (AR) technology that looks exactly like sunglasses.
The Smartwatch For Your Face
The Solos glasses have Trivex Polymer lenses that block out the sun and elements like dust and wind during your ride or run, and can also be used at night with a separate non-tinted frame selection. The smart glasses also have an adjustable, 16×9, WQVGA head-up display (HUD) that will keep your attention and eyes on the road or route ahead. So, instead of tempting fate, looking down dangerously, and fiddling with your phone or handlebar tech, everything is right in front of your eyes without obstructing the view.
At CES 2018, we called Solos Smart Glasses “the smartwatch for your face” and that still holds true. The Solos HUD projects performance data onto the transparent lenses and gives road warriors valuable information about their route, average speed, cadence, turn by turn directions, heart rate readings, duration of activity, the time, and lots of other handy visual data. If you think this is the swiss army knife of smart glasses you’re on to something.
Solos is a wearable AR device that will also keep you connected with friends and family with voice-activated controls to make outgoing calls and messages. People who ride or run in teams can also reach fellow riders or runners wearing the same tech during competition and training for up to 6 hours. To make the tech to use across teammates, Solos has button controls at the temple that can be double tapped to turn the microphone on or off.
SportTechie reports that Solos can also play streamed music as well. Phil Gaimon, a sponsored Solos cyclist told the publication, “SOLOS lets me keep my head up to stay safe and enjoy the view with the data I need, where I want it,” adding, “I’ve also started enjoying music and phone calls through the onboard speakers, while keeping my ears free and fully aware of my surroundings when I am out on the road.”
On The Road App
How does Solos get all this valuable data, you ask? The AR glasses have a paired mobile training app that communicates with GPS and Bluetooth and pairs up with other sensors that are ANT+, Bluetooth 4.0, and Bluetooth LE compatible. The app itself is compatible with Android and iOS smartphones, with the requirement of version 5.0 for Android’s operating system and version 9.0 for iOS. If you use Strava, MapMyFitness, or Training Peaks apps you can log in to your account through the Solos app and it will track the data there as well.
Training and Fitness Benefits
Team USA cycling members from the Rio Games in 2016 used Solos to train for competition, with the women’s U.S. Cycling Team taking home silver medals. Although Olympians weren’t able to use it during competition, athletes that run, walk, cycle, do outdoor training, triathlons, and even zombie runs will get useful data that can help them train smarter. Seeing customizable visual data like speed, power output, or even calories burned in the HUD can push you to pedal harder, run faster, and will keep you on the right path with map navigation.
Where To Find Solos Smart Glasses
You can find Solos Smart Glasses on their website, on Twitter, and Facebook.