Apple still hasn’t quite given the world a great reason to spend $US3,500 on its Vision Pro AR/VR headset, nor even released it, but BMW Motorrad, the automakers’ motorcycle division, believes it’s come up with a convincing reason for riders to wear smart glasses. The company’s new ConnectedRide Smartglasses position dashboard metrics in riders’ field of view so they never have to take their eyes off the road.
Even with the success of Meta’s and HTC’s VR devices, convincing consumers that wearable displays are useful for more than just gaming has been a tough sell. Where devices like smart glasses have proven useful is applications where keeping tabs on certain metrics in real time is beneficial but looking down at a smartwatch or another display isn’t feasible. FORM’s smart swim goggles, for example, allow competitive swimmers to keep tabs on their stroke rate, pace, and lap times, without having to break form in the water.
The most compelling reason to upgrade to BMW Motorrad’s new ConnectedRide Smartglasses is that the device could make motorcycles a little safer by allowing riders to always keep their heads up and their eyes on other drivers. Unlike the Apple Vision Pro headset, which positions full-color 4K screens in front of the user’s eyes, the ConnectedRide Smartglasses project a minimal amount of information onto the glasses’ right lens so that it’s always in a rider’s field-of-view, hopefully without distracting them or obstructing what they’re looking at.
The Smartglasses link with the BMW Motorrad Connected App through a Bluetooth connection so that the rider is presented with their speed, the speed limit of the road they’re on, what gear the bike is in, and GPS navigation information with the option of keeping it minimal with just arrows, or more details including street names, intersections, and distance to the next turn.
BMW’s smart glasses will be available in two sizes, medium and large (based on the user’s pupil distance), include an RX adapter for those who wear prescription lenses. They’ll allow the user to swap between tinted and 85% transparent lenses. The biggest challenge to making smart glasses that look more or less like a regular pair of sunglasses is squeezing a battery in there, and with a pair of slightly beefy arms, BMW Motorrad claims it has pushed the ConnectedRide Smartglasses’ battery life to about 10 hours.
Although BMW Motorrad hasn’t yet revealed the US pricing for the ConnectedRide Smartglasses, which it promises will “arrive in the U.S. later in 2023,” the pricing for European markets has been revealed to be €690, or around US $750 after currency conversion, which is definitely not cheap for a gadget that could accidentally fly off your face when you’re cruising down the highway at 60MPH.