Here are some thoughts now that I have settled back into my regular routine after being in Las Vegas as the LiveMap Brand Ambassador. Yes, as a preorder customer I was asked to come to the CES show and talk as a motorcyclist about this helmet. Here are my thoughts now.
Some of you know my day job is an Avionics Systems Engineer and with that job I have worked on aircraft HUD systems. Coming from an aircraft perspective I understand the value of pilot wanting a HUD so that he/she can look out of the cockpit and not down for safety reasons. Same thing on this helmet.
What LiveMap is doing here is developing a true HUD (Heads Up Display) for a motorcycle helmet. Not a waveguide piece of glass that hangs down in front of your eye, and not a micro prism display that glues on to the outside of your helmet or one that is set inside the helmet on the chin bar below eye level that requires you to look down for its display. Other companies that are developing various other solutions and are calling their products HUD but they are misusing the term HUD. They are a near field focus at around 3 meters that takes your scan away from safely riding the motorcycle. LiveMap’s HUD electronics is projecting their AR image on the inside of helmet’s visor which has a special optics paint or coating that traps the wavelength of light. The visor when coated becomes a HUD Combiner.
LiveMap is a true HUD that is producing a AR image that floats at a focal distance of 20 meters out in front of the rider’s path. When I ride I devote maybe 98% of my time to looking out into the distance to my safety scan. With this HUD display being at 20 meters in front of me I look thru it during that 98% period and when I want to look at the data it is easily viewed because it is there at 20 meters inside my safety scan. The HUD image is your current speed and navigation path information as electronic VR image data in your safety scan augmenting the DOT road signs like Speed Limit signs, Curve ahead and Distance to go road signs. All in focus. No need to look down and fumble with buttons and menus to control a handlebar mounted GPS. Just talk to the LiveMap helmet to control it.
Also LiveMap is in discussions with all the motorcycle manufacturers about getting data up from the motorcycle's CAN bus or ECM. Information like Tire pressure, Oil pressure, and warning lamp data.
The helmet is controlled by voice commands so I no longer need to look down at a GPS that I need to touch menu buttons. With this helmet I just voice command the navigation or action camera. If I want it to navigate to
123 Main Street, Anytown, USA I tell it with my voice. If I want the built in 4K HD video camera camera to record, I talk to it.
Think of what you would pay for a DOT/ECE certified helmet, a GPS (but this one displays on a HUD), a 4K Action Camera and a Bluetooth Communicator kit separately. If you do the math and add those up the introductory price of $1500 makes sense. Then think about the trouble of glueing the GoPro and Bluetooth to your helmet. You don’t have that problem with this helmet. Everything that many of today’s riders already want is built in and is all voice commanded.
Are the other high tech helmet companies doing it wrong? No they are doing what they are doing but they are not doing a true HUD. Each has a price and a list of features that you need to decide on. You might conclude that another brand does what you want for a lower price but if you want a true HUD then it comes back to LiveMap.
