ActiveLook Heads Up Display for Garmin

Thank you: @Alberto for the heads up

A company called MicroOLED has a development platform that it calls ActiveLook and it has just released a Gen 2.0 update which integrates with Garmin CIQ . The Garmin hook-up got me to look a little more at what the company does.

First Impressions

The company video shows good resolutions for workout data beamed inside glasses. What ActiveLook seems to give is much better clarity than similar products like the Swim Goggles by FORM Swim. FORM has a great product and is unique in what it has delivered to swimmers using Garmin and Apple watches but its display is highly pixelated. If workout data whilst running and cycling can be beamed at high resolution from a Garmin CIQ field and into glasses as the manufacturers claim then I’m impressed.

The FORM swim product is a little bulky but OK. However, MicroOLED offers a module that weighs a mere 6grams with a battery life of up to 12 hours. Those stats seem highly workable in a real-world product.

Aesthetics? The glasses that it bundles the tech with seem cool enough and I’m sure the tech could be integrated by 3rd party sports goggles or glasses makers.

FORM’s owners originally worked on a bike product. So a heads-up display for runners and cyclists is nothing new. Is there a market?

The Opportunity

There are opportunities for a heads-up display outside of running and cycling but let’s focus on those two sports for the sake of brevity and the likely interest of readers.

The biggest problem is a massive #Shrug. Who actually needs this tech? and what benefit will it offer? Sure a H.U.D avoids the need to look down at your bike computer or save the inconvenience of raising your wrist whilst running but neither of those is onerous.

Having said that, I am finding that my eyesight is deteriorating with age. I don’t wear prescription glasses except for reading when perhaps I should #Vanity. I also find that a really hard bike effort can steam up my glasses or that my vision becomes slightly blurred with depleted blood sugar levels. Perhaps also bouncing on Britain’s imperfect road surfaces make a bike computer even harder to read.

Further, I find that on the occasions when I navigate with a watch, Garmin’s free maps are pretty dire and I sometimes have to stop to have a good look at the watch to figure out what’s going on – that was the bane of my running life last week in Cornwall over unfamiliar roads and trails.

Thus I might be able to use a heads-up display for these scenarios

• When racing or doing a TT – I just want one or two key metrics always visible whilst focussing on avoiding one of Britain’s many potholes in the road ahead.
• When navigating whilst running, a TBT cue or a breadcrumb image could be useful

So perhaps the opportunities are for bike races and trail runners?

Or perhaps I could make my Garmin or Wahoo display larger digits?

More: activelook.net