Recon Puts GPS in Your Ski Goggles

Here in Vancouver the coming of fall isn’t about falling leaves, Halloween, Thanksgiving, or any of that it’s about—ski and snowboard season. With Whistler a couple hours drive and three more mountains even closer, Vancouver becomes a ski and boarding centric place for a lot of the winter. In prep for that I caught Gillian Shaw’s article on Digital Life about Recon Instrument’s new GPS-enabled goggles.

No, seriously.

I thought these would have been out for years, it only makes sense to have this kind of info at hand when you’re skiing. Okay, maybe skiers and boarders have been using other devices for a while, so this is really cool. This what you can see on the HUD (heads up display) at a glance:

• Speed
• Latitude and longitude
• Altitude
• Vertical distance travelled
• Total distance travelled
• Stopwatch
• Run-counter
• Temperature and time

Here’s a video from the company on how it all works:

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This first gen of the goggles charges (maybe updates?) through a USB port in the goggles and has “glove friendly” buttons for working with the display.

Before you get too excited about picking up a pair there are a couple important things to know. First, this is a limited release for 2010. Yeah, there won’t be a ton made at first (Recon doesn’t say how limited the release is) and then there is the cost:

Transcend SPPX is fitted with an SPPX polarized and photochromic lens retailing at $499US, Transcend SPX features an SPX polarized lens and costs $399US

Maybe I’m just naive, but I think that that’s pretty pricey for goggles. No question that they are amazing, and I hope they can add more features like terrain and trail maps or weather reports to the display. If you’re a power-skier or boarder (especially if you go into the backcountry) I think these might be on your wish/drool for list.

Now, if they could do the same thing for my glasses.