When you're skiing, reality itself is pretty dope. But what if you could, augment that reality to make it even better? Taking the skiing experience to that upper level is RideOn, which just blew through its funding goal on Indiegogo with the intent to bring what it calls the first true augmented reality goggles to skiers and riders.
Sure, goggle tech mainstreamers like Oakley and Zeal have dipped a toe in the AR waters before, but RideOn wants to put the device's interface front and center to make it as immersive as possible.
Where Zeal's GPS Live goggles functioned almost like an Apple Watch for skiing — with notifications, GPS data and navigation — RideOn wants to turn your real life runs into a video game, with the interface directly in your field of view rather than off to the side. Provided your crew can all afford the $899 expected retail price, you would be able to challenge them to on-slope competitions and interact with friends directly through RideOn's goggles — no verbal communication needed!
The group's crowdfunding page even boasts a feature where you would be able to look at a lift line and get an instant wait time estimate, which is quickly walked back by the disclaimer that it's intended for future software updates. Lest you think that playing real-life Mario Kart with your bros through pop-up notifications and an in-your-face interface might be distracting, RideOn says that the goggles detect motion and stash all the potentially distracting messages until you're safely stopped. According to the timeline on their Indiegogo page, the ship date for final production models is around September.
· RideOn [Official Site]
· RideOn: The First True AR Goggles for Snow Sports! [Indiegogo]
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