Recon Jet Black - Heads Up Display Smart Eyewear

Having followed the development of the Recon Jet computerised eyewear for a few years, I was excited about getting my hands on a set. I found a promising start to what I am sure will eventually become a fantastic technology, but at the moment is not quite at the level of polish that most people would be prepared to pay for.

The first thing to note about the Recon Jet is its looks. It's essentially a pair of open bottomed glasses with two large bits on the sides. On the right is the screen, touch pad and buttons, on the left is the battery unit. Those components add a fair amount of weight to the glasses, which come in at 86g. This extra weight is not necessarily a bad thing in many cases though as it stops much movement when wearing them.

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To help with this they also have an adjustable nosepiece and arms to help keep things secure. They are also fairly comfortable to wear for a considerable amount of time. In fact the only thing that stopped me wearing them for more than three and a half hours is the battery life. That's a significant limitation, considering that many rides will be longer than this.

As I mentioned, the main components sit on the right hand side. There is a small screen which sits in the bottom right of your vision, and is adjustable to make sure you can see it effectively. The screen itself is easy to see and I even managed to use the intelligent selective looking technology, which turns off the display when you are not looking at it.

The menus on the screen are navigated by a swipe pad also located on the right side of the glasses. It is simple to use and cycle through the apps, which include maps, compass, camera, music player and gallery as native. These are supplemented by a few third party apps such as Maple, Go Pro Remote, Refuel and VIRB.

Each of the apps works well. Music is simple to play, maps are easy to follow and the camera is a breeze to use, even when on the go at some pace. Navigation is particularly good. It's very easy to follow on the screen, much easier than glancing down at a GPS unit on your handlebars. One thing that I would change in the next iteration is the quality of the camera though, which has the same quality as a phone from maybe four or five years ago.

In addition to this it acts as a cycle computer, capable of either connecting to external ANT+ or Bluetooth devices. With its inbuilt GPS unit it does not even need to be connected to any external devices to show your speed and route. Connecting my ANT+ devices was simple and I could easily see my speed, cadence, power and heart rate on the screen, which can be modified to show what you want to see or even have several separate screens to narrow down to specific data.

This data is simple to download to a computer or phone, through either a Bluetooth connection to a phone or by connecting the unit to a computer with a USB cable. Updating or customising the unit requires the Recon Uplink software, which bridges the unit and the Recon website, which is where you actually make the changes. This process seems to add some unnecessary steps and it would certainly be more straightforward if you could simply control what you wanted to have on the unit from the app itself.

The biggest drawback of the Recon Jet at the moment is that is has not been adapted for the UK. The screen, the largest part of the glasses is on the right hand side, which makes it difficult to see behind you on the right when riding. On the Continent or in the US this would not be too much of a big deal as not much passes on the right of you, but on UK roads everything passes on that side. It meant that cycling from South London out to the countryside was done without them on, and I would only wear them when on quieter roads.

Initially they came in with an RRP of £579.99, which is expensive, especially when you consider that you can pick up a Garmin Edge 1000 for around £300. However, Recon have reduced the price to £359.99, which is rather more bearable, especially as they are such an exciting new technology.

This review may seem fairly damning to the Recon Jet, but this should not take away from a product that I believe is only the first steps into what will eventually be an exciting and practical technology. For a first generation of wearable cycling computer, it performs well, but has some drawbacks, such as camera quality, blind spots and price. This is not to say that I didn't appreciate the product, especially for navigation, which was a real step up from looking down at my handlebars to work out when I need to turn.

I need to review what is in front of me at the moment though, and what I found was a very exciting, but slightly disappointing piece of technology. I have no doubt that future models will improve on many of the issues that I found, but at present the lack of peripheral vision is something that really needs to be rethought, especially with the screen on the right hand side in the UK market. Did I enjoy using the product? Yes, but more from the excitement of what it will undoubtedly become rather than what it currently is.

Verdict

Interesting, but some way to go; needs more development in version 2