Where to Ski And Snowboard - Oakley unveils new GPS ski goggles

Oakley unveils new GPS ski goggles

30th October 2012, by Abi Butcher

The Oakley Airwave goes on sale tomorrow, priced £500

Imagine a set of ski goggles that put your exact position onto a resort map, tell you where your friends are, track the speed you’re skiing, the vertical descent you last skied, how high your last jump was, replies to text messages for you, changes your playlist and records your entire day’s skiing (or snowboarding).

Sound all a bit futuristic? Well, it’s not. The Oakley Airwave ski and snowboard goggles, unveiled last week in the US, go on sale in the UK in limited numbers from tomorrow — priced at around £500.

Data from a plethora of in-built sensors, including GPS, Bluetooth, a gyroscope and accelerometer are featured on a small built-in display screen that mimics what you’d see standing five feet away from a 14in screen. (Oakley insists this data display is not distracting.)

Some 600 resort maps are pre-loaded onto the system, which, thanks to the in-built GPS, automatically tells where in the world you are skiing. It not only places you onto that map, but advises you of the best way to reach your friends — if they are also logged into the system using the smartphone apps. Thanks to the internal gyroscope, when the user turns their head the map rotates to follow.

Oakley’s Airwave googles have also been designed to work with a GoPro camera, so skiers and snowboarders can overlay technical data about their day onto a video downloaded later.

Controlled by a remote device worn on the wrist, the goggles can also display text messages on the screen — and reply from a simple list of options — as well as change the user’s music playlist.

The downsides? The goggles are slightly heavier than normal, and the price tag is equally hefty. If you manage to track down a pair in the States, they will be slightly cheaper — at $599 (around £375).

Oakley’s Airwave ski goggles will be available in limited numbers at Apple stores nationwide, Apple stores online and at the Oakley store in London’s Covent Garden.

For more information, visit uk.oakley.com