GPS Helmets, or How The Helmets Are Becoming Something More Than Just Protection

As time advances, we, riders want more. Just more. Our motorcycles have to be more powerful, safer, more fuel efficient, more comfortable.

 

But as riders, as different from car drivers, the machine we ride is not the only thing we need to take care. Our equipment is also part of our experience as riders. This has been acknowledged by some innovators and now we have jackets that are similar to the airbags of cars, gloves that auto heat when it's cold, protections that only get hard when they receive a hit, etc.

Innovation has now arrived to helmets, which as today standards provide a good protection and comfort to our heads, and some innovators are now trying to include a helmet that can give us a lot more information that it does right now. How about if our helmet would tell us that in a couple of hours we are going to have a storm? Or what if the helmet could reproduce our favorite songs while we are riding in a long and boring highway? But most important, what if our own helmet could display a HUD that would allow us to see where are we going and, most important, how to reach our destination?

 

This would greatly improve our safety. Right now, using a GPS on a motorcycle is something of an issue, either we buy a support for it and we have to take our eyes of the road, and if we are not using a Bluetooth headphones we are not even able to hear the instructions the GPS gives us. That without counting that the majority of us use our mobile phone as a GPS and being the time of batteries so low this days would create a double fuss, we get lost because we don't know where we are and we can't call nobody because our phone battery died. There are, obviously, workarounds but in the end, it's annoying. Some motorcycles have an integrated GPS system that roots out this inconveniences, but we still have to take our view out of the road.

We learned of three projects that are currently working on giving us a full HUD view.

 

First project is LiveMap.

 

 

 

 

Created and designed in Russia this project gives us a HUD based on the ones used by aviation pilots. Based on Android it will gives us info on where we are headed with info on traffic and with the microphone integrated we will be able to give him instructions directly and say that it's battery will last for an entire day. It's expected to have 2014 launch on North America and a 2015 on Western Europe, more info here: www.livemap.info

 

Price is USD 1500 dollars for early birds and USD 2000 dollars when it's full available.

 

Second project is Nuviz RideHUD

 

 

Unlike the LiveMap this is an attachment for our full face helmets instead of a new helmet. With the motto "designed for riders by riders", this adds more functions than livemap, such as an HD camera, calls and weather. Hud will be monitored and controlled throughout our smartphone. No data on release is available. More info here: http://www.ridenuviz.com

 

 

Our last project we had interest in is the most ambitious. Skully.

 

 

This helmet will provide us with almost all of the info we can want. Weather, Navigation, music, traffic information, and, what differences it from the rest...a rear view camera. They will provide a close beta, which you can apply for in its webpage, and after that, we will have a full price.

 

Is motorcycle helmets changing and opening to a brand new world of opportunities where our riding experience is greatly enhanced by knowing where we are, what's the weather going to be, etc.? Which 3 project GPS helmet would you rather prefer?