Skip to main content

Kopin’s new heads-up Solos glasses shows your cycling stats in real time

Kopin was ahead of the wearable curve when it debuted the Myvu Solo, a heads-up, transparent display that mirrored a connected iPod. That was in 2007; Google Glass, perhaps the best-known heads-up display, was released in 2013. But like Google Glass, the Myvu Solo didn’t gain much traction, a failure the Westborough, MA-based Kopin attributes to a lack of vision — the Myvu Solo had no killer app. That’s why the company’s newest pair of electronic eyewear, the Solos, was designed from the get-go with a very clear niche in mind: cycling.

That much might have been assumed from its appearance. The Solos, said Dr. Ernesto Martinez in a press release, was engineered with “intuitiveness” and ergonomics in mind, including some wind tunnel-testing to cut down on drag when you’re on the road. It’s made of lightweight polycarbonate, has anti-slip temple and nose pads, and packs interchangeable, adjustable lenses that Kopin says “minimize strain on the eye” during longer cycling sessions.

Recommended Videos

A highlight of the Solos is its display. Kopin’s been making super tiny screens since 2008, and the Solos’s, the 4mm Vista, is one of the company’s most refined. The translucent, 5-inch (thanks to its closeness to your pupil) screen minimizes glare and is readable in direct sunlight, Kopin says. Even better, it’s controllable hands free: “advanced voice extraction technology,” a fancy phrase for the always-on listening features found on smartphones like the iPhone 6S, interprets commands to adjust display settings (i.e., brightness).

power_graph
during_ride

What you’ll see on the Solos depends on how you’ve configured the companion Android/iOS app, but by default it’ll show caller ID, notifications, and social media alerts. If you’ve got ANT+ compatible fitness trackers connected to your smartphone, it’ll deliver performance metrics such as heart rate, pace, cadence, power, distance, and duration, and sync that data in real time. You’ll get periodic auditory performance cues through the Solos’s stereo speakers, too, that you’ll have a hard time missing, in theory: the volume can automatically adjust to ambient noise.

It will last six hours on a charge, according to Kopin. That company hasn’t yet announced a release date or pricing.

The Solos will inevitably draw comparisons Recon’s Jet, the Intel-backed smart glasses aimed at athletes, but Kopin’s wearable seems less capable, for better and worse. In offloading sensor tracking and processing power to Bluetooth devices, the Solos is more second screen than the all-in-one activity tracker, but that approach has the potential to boost battery life and reduce costs. Assuming the Solos undercuts the prohibitively expensive Jet ($499), it might very well give it a run — or cycle, rather — for its money.

Kyle Wiggers
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kyle Wiggers is a writer, Web designer, and podcaster with an acute interest in all things tech. When not reviewing gadgets…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
How does Garmin measure stress, and is it really accurate?
Garmin Vivomove Sport dial close up. Credits: Garmin official.

Garmin watches are known for their robust activity tracking, but that's not all these fitness watches can do. Over the years, the company has been adding wellness features to its lineup of watches. These new health-focused metrics allow people to analyze their fitness and identify outside factors affecting their performance. One such factor is stress, which is something Garmin watches actively measures.
But you may be wondering—exactly how does Garmin measure stress? In this article, we break down how Garmin measures stress and delve into the accuracy of this metric. Should you trust your stress score? Read on to find out.

Is Garmin's stress score accurate?

Read more