By Don Jurries
Canadian company Recon Instruments has come up with an impressive technological innovation for both capturing and displaying your performance data while on the slopes. After a demo of the unit in Europe, I personally think it’s a game changer for the ski and snowboard industry and is in my Top 10 favorite gadgets from the 2012 Outdoor Retailer Winter and ISPO Trade Shows.
Simply called MOD, a GPS micro-optic display unit fits into the lower edge of your snow goggles, sitting right under your eye. Run off an Android operating system, the MOD unit is often compared to a car dashboard with a graphic display of location, altitude, temperature, speed, vertical, distance, navigation, and jump analytics.
The unit is operated by a Bluetooth remote that straps to your wrist, featuring large enough buttons to use with gloves. The MOD USB port allows you to download all your data, as well as recharge the battery on the micro-optic display.
An upgraded version called MOD Live goes a step further, providing connectivity to your smartphone where you can view text messages and Caller IDs, access your music playlists, track the location of your buddies, and display the image from your helmet camera. The addition of Recon Instruments’ free HQ software for your computer or smartphone allows even more features and online bragging rights.
A number of the big snow goggle manufacturers have now adapted their goggles to be Recon Ready, including Alpina, Briko, Scott, Smith Optics, Uvex, and Zeal. Recon Instruments has a contract with Contour to capture helmet camera displays. I suspect it won’t be long before GoPro signs up, as well. Supposedly, even NASA has selected MOD Live for testing in its next generation space suits.
MOD retails for $299, while MOD Live retails for $399, both excluding goggles and are available now.