Check Out These AR Skiing Goggles Inspired By Israeli Defense Tech
Israel-based RideOn makes augmented reality goggles for skiing, founded by two Israelis who spent 13 years working on jet-pilot and inertial systems.
“We are outdoor enthusiasts, including skiing, sailing, aviation and scuba diving. We wanted to take the concept from the rigid defense industry and make something fun,” Tomer Cohen, COO of RideOn said to TechNode during the Asia Hardware Battle 2016. “Today, everyone is betting on Virtual Reality. We wanted to tackle Augmented Reality in a fun way, so that people can come together and play with it.”
RideOn goggles allows skiers to find their locations on the map instantly, and quickly contact friends when they get separated. The goggles features four functions, including maps, communication, music, and video recording by rotating their head to select icons fixed to the sky.
“Other heads-up displays like Oakley Airwave and Recon’s Snow2 are great wearables for outdoor activities but their goggles are non-transparent,” Mr. Cohen adds.
Skiers can also improve their skiing performance or play mission-oriented games with friends, using RideOn’s gamification feature.
“Skiers can improve their performance and style, by chasing the ‘your previous self-icon’ and trying to beat their own record,” he notes. “When your friends are around, a radar – just like in first-person shooter games – appears, showing the location of your friends. When a user stares directly at another skier, they can communicate using a game-like interface.”
The goggles are coupled with an application that is available on Android, though in the future the goggles will be a standalone product without the app, says Mr. Cohen. The core technology of RideOn is image processing technology, rendering more than 100 frames per second, and communication technology.
The goggles contain an onboard Android computer along with HD camera, GPS and internal sensors, which provides a wide field-of-view, transparent display.
“In order to get the graphic projects to lie on top of the real world, RideOn’s software accurately calculates the direction of the user’s head. Our patented technology fuse the camera’s information and on-board sensor’s data together,” Mr. Cohen adds.
According to Mr. Cohen, RideOn goggles for ski resorts is just one possible usage. The goggles can be adapted to any other outdoor sports, including sailing, aviation, and paint ball battles.
“[The] military use of the AR goggles is another huge market,” he says.
Targeted to a worldwide ski market of around 115 million people in 80 countries, the goggles’ crowdfunding campaign closed on March 2015, and surpassed its Indiegogo goal by 15%, with over $113,146 USD pledged of a $75,000 USD. The company is now raising a $5 million USD series A round. Currently the goggles are available at the price of $629 USD on the company website.
Image Credit: RideOn
This article is part of our coverage from Technode’s Asia Hardware Battle and China Bang Awards 2016 event held in Chengdu on March 30th-31st.