Although there are some in development. But would you be interested in something like this?
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Ahem…may I recommend Fortnine’s video on smart helmet to shed light on why they aren’t a thing.
https://youtu.be/IiACV0Ly4j4?si=Zrg1_5Uhdevy-Lna
Have fun
Tl:dr he has no real point.
He just lists two failed smart helmet startups, then talks about a successful smart helmet that doesn’t use a full HUD but uses an LED light bar. The only actual point he makes is that it’s hard to make a display that’s visible in the sun.
It’s also a motor cycle channel so he makes points like “why not use your mirrors or built in dash” which is not really applicable to cyclists, eskaters, EUC users, etc.
Fair reasoning but I still think Ryan is in the right path.
He is right that shoving a holographic display and the computer bits in the helmet either makes it bulky, heavy, and useless or you’d be paying up the wazoo for what is an engineering exercise.
A simpler interface that solves current problems in my opinion would be much better than trying to make an Ironman helmet.
To me a hud would be useful for two things, in this order of importance:
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A rear view mirror right at the top middle of my field of vision, so I could check what is behind without losing track of my front;
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A GPS.
Gimme those and I will be throwing money at you faster than my wallet can hold it.
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It’s very dangerous to focus your vision four inches in front of your face while driving. It also takes a second to switch from distance vision to being focused so close, which undermines the whole “at a glance” value of a HUD. Race cars have instrument panels pushed as far away from the driver’s face as possible to make the focal length changes inside your eye easier and faster to switch between. A helmet HUD is the extreme opposite of that.
That is not an issue with anything that is supposed to act as a HUD, as they project the image in such a way that it looks to be further away. They have to, because humans are terrible at looking at something that close to their eyes anyway.
Google Glass for example projected it so that the image looked like it was 2.5 meters away from your face.I’m really curious what the Google Glass concept would be like with modern technology. I feel like the form factor was poisoned from the backlash at the time, but it seems so much more viable than the stupid bulky headsets.
Lensing. BMW HUDs bounce off a few curved mirrors before reflecting off the windshield so some key details appear 30ft in front of the car. Meanwhile, VR goggles have the screen unfocusably close but due to lenses inside, objects can appear any distance away (and it’s not just parallax, there’s near and far focus)
My Cadillac has a video display as a rear view mirror and it has that issue. With a traditional rear view mirror your focal length doesn’t change much, but in my car your focus has to shift to the mirror 2 feet away.
It has upsides though, as passengers or objects in the rear seat don’t affect your mirror view.
Whenever I change vehicles it takes a few minutes to readjust.
What if the helmet had a camera that projected it’s view along with the hud? You might lose some depth perception but at least you could see the road while looking at the HUD.
Now you’re talking about mix reality VR. Like driving with an Apple Vision Pro on. The technology isn’t good enough for this yet. Maybe someday.
Development costs, lack a research into it, and a lack of companies willing to take on that financial risk for a (mostly) untested market
Not to mention the costs of such a device with any kind of feature set other than just a glorified screen
Undeniably there’s been some tech developments that could lead in such a direction but there’s still some substantial hurdles to clear first
Like a motorcycle helmet? I’d love one, show my speed, maybe a gps overlay, rearview, etc. That’d be great.
I’m pretty sure there are a couple motorcycle helmets out there with a built in HUD. There are after market ones that you can add to your existing helmet that seem pretty cool to.
There’s also the Cross Helmet but I’m super skeptical. Not only are helmets limited-time use, so after a few years it’s trash anyway. But that seems like it would be super distracting for something that requires your utmost attention.
If I start seeing racers (or some other riding professional) wear them, I might consider it.
As with all things, it really is a matter of implementation. Putting telemetry data and such in a place where you only have to flick your eyes at it for a second instead of looking down is a good thing.
I mean, maybe? I like the idea. I’ve been following Cross for a while (that’s why I linked it). I want it to work. But this is one case where I don’t want to be the early adopter.
That’s cool as hell but $500 is about what I’m willing to spend on an entire helmet not just an attachment. I suppose I’ll keep dreaming. Thank you for showing me that though.
What really gets me about these expensive gadget helmets is that helmets are fundamentally a consumable good. They can only take so many bangs and bumps, so much sweat, so much all that before they start to wear out. The miscellaneous wear and tear on them. Getting dropped on the ground, banged against things, taken apart and washed and put back together. And for most helmets, once the foam wears out, that’s it. They no longer are fit to purpose as a helmet and should be replaced.
Back when I rode a motorcycle – which was commuting to work for the better part of 2 decades – I always got the most affordable, comfortable DOT-labeled helmet I could find. Any extra gadgets had to be aftermarket addons that could be portable. Because things like headphones, for me, always lasted 2-3 times as long as the helmet.
MAYBE a really high-end helmet has a longer service life. But I am skeptical even a really fancy one worn by a commuter using it near-daily would last more than maybe 4 or 5 years. They’re going to have lifetimes like smartphones, for sure. Which means these gadget helms sure do have a high subscription fee to use.
Wouldn’t that make the aftermarket kit much more attractive? Since you could just install it into the new helmet
When was the last time you ever saw a cool new tech product and thought “wow that’s actually cheap”
Personally I would expect a product like this without favourable economies of scale to be $500.
Chromecast?
that’s because you are the product.
Control music with my tongue
Everything reminds me of her
I’d rather see a HUD on a car windscreen before I’d want a helmet HUD
Um. Those have existed for years.
- Contrast. You can’t use light to make something dark.
- In the HUDs that we do have (Hololens, Google Glass), you typically use something like DLP or waveguides. Both are pretty expensive.
There are fewer barriers with helmets because they are usually tinted.
I’m a fan of anything that keeps eyes more forwards/on the road.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sort of safety rule about looking at a screen.
Motorcycle helmets? Sounds like a great way to become an organ donor.
Doing it right can actually prevent organ donations. Like having speed shown without the need to take eyes away from road.
Ok. Limited HUD I agree would be useful.
a HUD would be more in your field of vision in terms of the X and Y dimensions, but in the Z dimension, depth, in the worst place of all.
Focusing your eyes an inch away from your face is, unfortunately, taking your eyes off the road. The closer something is to you, the greater and greater focal length change is required. Switching between road vision and 1-inch off your face is much much harder than switching between road vision and 24-inches away from your face (where conventional speed dials are, on the handlebars).
It’s not just about the time and effort it takes to do this. When your eyes are focused 1inch away, everything on the road will be super blurry. When your eyes are focused 24 inches away, the road will not be as blurry, and it’s easier for your eyes to jump back onto the road.
That’s not how HUDs work. The image is
protectedprojected so it appears far away.That’s how VR works but these little nubs on your helmet aren’t projecting directly into your eye. They are projecting onto your visor.
I dunno, if you’re relying on a number to determine if you are proceeding at a safe speed, I am a bit skeptical you have sufficient mastery of whatever motor vehicle you are operating.
Just as if you’re relying on a speed limit sign & law enforcement to control what speed drivers go rather than road design feedback, you have insufficient mastery of your engineering trade.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/6/22/facing-an-uncomfortable-truth-about-speed-limits
Did you mean to come off sounding like a pretentious douche?
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Literally everyone uses the Speedo. This is such a weird comment tbh.
He’s right though. Conditions on the road and your speed relative to other drivers really matter. Your visibility forward really matters.
Also roads suck and are hostile to pedestrians in too many places.
Indeed. But in normal conditions the main thing you want to do is not break the speed limit. In sensible places the speed limits are usually lower than the maximum safe speed.
The safe driving speed isn’t a single number. It will drop in certain conditions and people need to be able to read the road to drive safely.
They also need to know their speed to drive safely.
Are you trying to argue that speedometers are unnecessary?
No they are. A poorly trained driver that is just following the speed limit is also dangerous.
It’s not about going a safe speed, it’s about going a legal speed. I feel safe going 100+ in a 70mph zone when there aren’t other vehicles around but it ain’t exactly legal so I often check my speed, that momentary look down would be prevented with a HUD.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. Speed limits themselves are only very loosely related to safety (85th percentile rule and civil engineering voodoo science) and the speedometer is more about staying on the right side of the police state when confronted with roads that overwhelmingly signal to drivers that they should be going WAY faster than is legal.
And even then those speed limits, at least outside of the comparative safety of highways, are almost always set well higher than what is actually safe for the neighborhood or useful to keep the traffic network freeflowing.
