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Here's why HUD sports glasses are the logical next step for workout tracking
For most people, checking your route or your pace during a workout or race event generally involves using a sports watch. It’s as simple as looking down at your wrist — or is it? Not all watches activate with a turn of the wrist, and those that do sometimes don’t always activate correctly, if at all.
Whether you want to review your route, pace, heart rate, distance and SpO2, that information is rarely available in a single button press or action, meaning you need to use your other hand to press and cycle through your display. That can bring up all sorts of problems. When you’re looking down, even for a few seconds, your focus drifts. Your attention is off the road, off the race. Your peripheral vision closes up. And if you’re on a bike, suddenly you’re not in full control of your wheels. When travelling at speed, this can elevate the risk of a dangerous incident, should you not see a crossing car trying their luck. Or another bike stopping suddenly ahead. Or your front wheel edging closer to that kerb.
And when you’re done reviewing your pace and workout data, you need to look up and readjust to your surroundings. You’ve probably lost some of your pace as you’ve been focused on your watch and navigating menus and several screens’ worth of data. That could mean a slower interval, an overtake by a rival, even a missed turn.
No more staring at your wrist
Thankfully, there is a better, safer, and quicker way to check your workout and race stats rather than using a clunky wristwatch: HUD sports glasses.
Glasses with a high-tech heads-up display might have once been the staple of sci-fi space epics and fighter pilots, but that technology is now within accessible reach. It’s not only there to provide useful information at a glance, but it’s already making workouts and races a safer experience, particularly for road athletes.
These tech sports glasses look just like your regular sports shades, except they feature a microprojector within the frame’s brow or hinge. This projector beams information straight onto a reflective element in the lens, which bounces back into your eye. And if you think that means you need to focus on either the outside world or your HUD, think again. The clever thing is that HUD sports glasses deploy an optical system that makes your eyes focus beyond your glasses, so your surroundings and HUD data are in focus simultaneously.
There’s no need for the glasses to sit heavily on your face either. Most will pair up with a smartphone’s companion app, meaning they stay ultralight and compact — weighing barely more than a standard pair of glasses — while wirelessly tethering with a phone for comprehensive and accurate metrics. Plus, many models feature interactive use involving gestures or buttons located on the side of the frames, so you can cycle through your data without needing to look down.
Faster, safer, handier
Being able to see all your trip and race data at the touch of a button has its obvious advantages. You no longer have to look down, activate your watch, and cycle through various data sets. That’s going to maintain your focus on the road, keeping you alert to potential hazards like a swerving car or careless pedestrian. With many HUD glasses, you can also customise your data sets, like speed, altitude, distance, and gradient, so you have access to the most important information in a flash. Plus, many glasses keep critical metrics like turn information on-screen, ensuring you never go the wrong way again.
Not only that, the reduced need to look down at your watch, instead maintaining your riding form, can actually improve your aerodynamics and cut down on drag — which during time trials can shave milliseconds off your time.
What’s more, many glasses pair with other devices, like a Garmin Varia rear radar, heart-rate straps, and cadence, power, and speed meters. That brings together the functionality of sports glasses — like contrast-enhancing lenses, wind and UV protection — with all the tech you need in a racing computer, right in front of your eyes, without obscuring your vision or distracting you from the road.
That’s why we think that while sports watches aren’t going anywhere soon, HUD sports glasses, with their real-time performance and race tracking, dozens of display metrics, and compact, light, and safe form factor, make perfect sense, particularly for road athletes.
