[cdibona]

So having used the recon line of products (which this is a spiritual cousin of) I can only say that these kinds of displays are kinda dodgy.

When skiing anything resembling challenging terrain, the stuff is bouncing around and my ability to focus universally across on the then 2nd gen recon displays was simply not possible. I'm a decent skier, but not that crazy and I ended up returning the smith io/x using the recon screen.

On a motorbike it'd be pretty intolerable, way more bumps and stuff, I'd think. Then you layer on the safety concerns... the very real question of what happens when someone crashes wearing one of these helmets (Will the display impact your eye? Will it stay far enough away to not do so? Will the battery cause any problems when wet or exposed to impact/air etc..) probably made insuring the company difficult, too.

I bet the other helmet makers are cutting/have cut deals with recon to repackage their stuff anyhow, so those that want this kind of crap in their FOV can get it.

[pixelbash]

Crash safety is a concern I have as well, I attend track days (for bikes) and some of the organisers near here banned Go Pro's on helmets after one punched through the shell in a collision.

That said there are flip down visors in plenty of helmets that do just fine, and built in bluetooth headphones in others. So I guess it's a question of how miniaturised and well designed it is.

[manarth]

I tried Recon's skiing goggles and found their HUD awful.

A true HUD doesn't need you to look away, or refocus your eyes. The Recon screen's position (near the bottom of the goggles) means you have to almost go cross-eyed to read it, and focus on short-distance…absolutely not what you want when you're skiing!

Their handbook says it should only be looked at when stationary.

BMW's HUD looks like the way forward : a sunken dash-mounted display, which projects the data onto the windscreen. In other words a true HUD: directly in your line of sight, no need to refocus your eyes.

I'd be interested to understand if there's some technical limitation preventing this approach with goggles/helmets.

[dav]

I really don't think the HMD would be a problem in a crash. If it somehow came into contact with my face, it would basically mean the helmet caved in, in which case I already am in plenty of trouble so who cares about the HMD.